UC Berkeley is the first university in the country to establish a campus-based initiative centering antisemitism education focused on students, staff, and other campus stakeholders. The Antisemitism Education Initiative is unique in its approach. It is grounded in a partnership between Jewish studies and Israel studies scholars bringing academic expertise in historical and contemporary antisemitism; scholars of other forms of bias, hate, and discrimination; Hillel professionals who work daily with students; and campus diversity, equity, and inclusion staff. This unique combination gives us powerful perspectives and insights on the meaning and implications of antisemitism on college campuses.
Modern Permutations of an Ancient Antisemitic Myth: The Blood Libel during the Holocaust
Elissa Bemporad at UC Berkeley, April 24, 2025. Annual Pell Lecture.
This talk traces the endurance and permutation of the traditional ritual murder accusation against Jews during World War II, in particular in the German-occupied territories of the Soviet Union. It examines the ways in which Nazi propaganda exploited the blood libel theme in conjunction with the myth of Judeo-Bolshevism in the midst of genocide as well as in its aftermath. By examining new archival material and press reports, this talk focuses on the ways in which the blood libel accusation became secularized. Unmoored from its traditional ties to Jewish religious rituals, the blood libel myth underwent a secular metamorphosis. In the context of the sheer destruction and general population displacement generated by World War II, Jews were often accused of non-ritualistic murder by their neighbors, as memories of blood libel stories intersected with fears of cannibalism. To view this presentation, click here.
Cosmopolitans, Zionists, & Elders of Zion: Anti-Jewish Tropes in the Soviet Union and its Aftermath
Anna Shternshis at UC Berkeley, March 20, 2025.
Based on extensivearchival and oralhistory research, this talk examines how hostility to Jews was articulated in Soviet society after the Russian Revolution; during World War II and its aftermath; and after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The talk focuses on rumors, conspiracies, and policies of discrimination, as well as the responses and coping strategies of Soviet Jews. To view this presentation, please click here.
Historical Context Matters: Three Faces of Antisemitism Before and Since October 7
Jeffrey Herf at UC Berkeley, February 12, 2025.
"Antisemitism in modern history arrives in three major forms: Nazism and the far right; secular leftist attacks on Israel and association of the Jews with a despised capitalism; and Islamist assaults that draw on a distinctive twentieth century interpretation of Islam to attack Judaism, the Jews, and then Israel. In this lecture, I examine key texts of the Islamist face of Jew-hatred during the era of Islamist collaboration with Nazi Germany during World War II and the Holocaust and in the aftermath in the Arab war of 1948 to destroy the Zionist project in 1948. While reactionary Jew-hatred lost respectability in Europe and the United States in the following decades, it persisted in the Middle East in the Islamist war of religion evident in the Hamas Charter of 1988, and the resulting wars against Israel culminating in the assault of October 7, 2023. This form of antisemitism now constitutes the most dangerous and consequential form of the longest hatred. A significant body of intellectual and cultural history on the subject exists, but there is more to be done." To view this presentation, please click here.
Critical Theories of Anti-Semitism
Jonathan Judaken at UC Berkeley, October 8, 2024.
This talk offers an overview of Judaken’s recently published book, "Critical Theories of Anti-Semitism." In it, he offers a philosophical reflection on crucial problems in how we think about anti-Semitism and a history of its leading theories and theorists. Judaken explores methodological and conceptual issues that have vexed the study of Judeophobia and calls for a reconsideration of the definitions, categories, and narratives that underpin overarching explanations. The book examines theories from thinkers such as Jean-Paul Sartre, the Frankfurt School, Hannah Arendt, and Jean-François Lyotard, alongside works of sociologists and historians to reassess contemporary debates about anti-Semitism. Judaken argues against claims about the uniqueness of Judeophobia, demonstrating how it is entangled with Islamophobia, Negrophobia, and xenophobia. To view this presentation, please click here.
The Debate Over Anti-Zionism and Antisemitism: Understanding the Terms and Stakes
Ethan Katz and Dov Waxman at UCLA, February 15, 2024. Moderated by Sarah Abrevaya Stein (UCLA). Co-sponsored by the Berkeley Center for Jewish Studies, the UCLA Y&S Nazarian Center for Israel Studies, and the UCLA Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies.
There has long been debate and disagreement over whether anti-Zionism is antisemitic. In recent months, this debate has become particularly intense and often acrimonious. In an effort to tackle this contentious and timely question in a serious, scholarly, and nuanced manner, Professor Ethan Katz (UC Berkeley) and Professor Dov Waxman (UCLA) engaged in a two-part public conversation. Their first conversation—held at UC Berkeley on February 1st—addressed anti-Zionism on college campuses. This event—the second conversation, held at UCLA on February 15th—addressed the broader debate over anti-Zionism and antisemitism and what’s at stake. To view this presentation, please click here.
Anti-Zionism on Campus: Legitimate Protest or Dangerous Hate Speech?
Ethan Katz and Dov Waxman at UC Berkeley, February 1, 2024. Moderated by Sue Fishkoff. Co-sponsored by the Berkeley Center for Jewish Studies, the UCLA Y&S Nazarian Center for Israel Studies, and the UCLA Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies.
There has long been debate and disagreement over whether anti-Zionism is antisemitic. In recent months, this debate has become particularly intense and often acrimonious. In an effort to tackle this contentious and timely question in a serious, scholarly, and nuanced manner, Professor Ethan Katz (UC Berkeley) and Professor Dov Waxman (UCLA) engaged in a two-part public conversation. Their first conversation—held at UC Berkeley on February 1st—addressed anti-Zionism on college campuses. This event—the second conversation, held at UC Berkeley on February 1st—addressed the issue of anti-Zionism on campus, asking whether it qualifies as legitimate protest or rather, dangerous hate speech. To view this presentation, please click here.
Is Anti-Zionism Antisemitic? New Perspectives on a Controversial Issue
Ethan Katz at Brown University, November 29, 2023. This event was sponsored by the Watson Institute, and the Program in Judaic Studies’ Arthur B. and David B. Jacobson Fund. To view this presentation, please click here.
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How Antisemitism Shapes White Nationalism
Eric Ward (Race Forward) in conversation with Ethan Katz (UC Berkeley) at UC Berkeley, April 19, 2023.
Eric K. Ward, a nationally-recognized expert on the relationship between authoritarian movements, hate violence, and preserving inclusive democracy, is the recipient of the 2021 Civil Courage Prize—the first American in the award’s 21-year history. In his 30+ year civil rights career, Eric has worked with community groups, government and business leaders, human rights advocates, and philanthropy as an organizer, director, program officer, consultant, and board member. Eric’s widely quoted writings and speeches are credited with key narrative shifts. He currently serves as Executive Vice President of Race Forward, a member of the President’s Leadership Council for the Search for Common Good, Chair of The Proteus Fund, and Advisor to the Bridge Entertainment Labs. To view this presentation, please click here.
Blood Libel: On the Trail of An Antisemitic Myth
Magda Teter at UC Berkeley, March 15, 2023. Annual Pell Lecture.
In 2019, the shooter of the Poway synagogue near San Diego cited the story of Simon of Trent, a boy whose death during the Easter/Passover season in 1475 led to one of the most notorious persecutions of Jews in Europe, as one of the reasons behind his actions. This talk explores how a medieval anti-Jewish lie became rooted in Christian imagination to persist into the twenty first century US and lead to a horrific crime in California.
To view this presentation, please click here.
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The 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising: Resistance and Survival in the Holocaust
Zachary Mazur at UC Berkeley, April 4, 2023.
With the 80th anniversary of this momentous event upon us this April, Dr. Zachary Mazur will reflect on the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in stark contrast against the stereotype of Jewish passivity during the Holocaust. This presentation will draw upon some never before seen sources and images that were discovered in the process of preparing the POLIN Museum’s temporary exhibition “Around Us a Sea of Fire” on the civilian experience in bunkers and hideouts during the Uprising. The exhibit avoids any use of sources, either in text or photographs, from the perpetrators, focusing entirely on victims and bystanders. To view this presentation, please click here.
Fashion Metropolis Berlin 1836-1939: The Rise and Destruction of the Jewish Fashion Industry
Uwe Westphal at UC Berkeley, February 15, 2023.
A unique phenomenon emerged in the heart of Berlin in the nineteenth century: a creative center for fashion and ready-made clothing. Hundreds of garment companies were established, manufacturing modern wear and developing new designs that were sold throughout Germany – and the world. The industry reached the height of its success in the 1920s. Berlin’s fashion industry was as popular and lucrative as Paris Couture, and Jewish fashion designers were regarded as trendsetters for new styles in Europe. However, after 1933, most Jewish clothing industrialists, shop owners, and fashion designers were confronted with the hatred and violence of Hitler’s Third Reich... To learn more and to view this presentation, please click here.
Saharan Vichy Camps between Memory and Memorialization: A Graphic History
Aomar Boum at UC Berkeley. February 2, 2023.
In the last decade, graphic memoirs and novels have emerged as a significant form of historical (re)writing of past narratives and events. The medium of comics and its use of chronologically ordered panels allows the reader to create meanings through the combination of image and text. Aomar Boum argues for the use of graphic memoirs to re-construct the history of Saharan Vichy camps. He contends that in the larger context of an anthropology of genocide and a North African history of WWII and the Holocaust, graphic memoirs could be seen retroactive ethnographic accounts where witnessing takes place through seeing guided by the archive. In this talk, Boum presents a collaborative graphic narrative based on a unique style of art highlighting the impact of WWII outside of Europe through the story of a German refugee in North Africa. Hans, the main character, is a composite representing the experiences of several historical figures. Boum notes that the use of images as a form of Holocaust writing, starting with Maus, is a call to seeing and therefore remembering through witnessing the trauma of detainees of labor and internment Vichy camps in the Sahara between 1940 and 1945. To view this presentation, please click here.
Peter Beinart with Dylan Saba & Ethan Katz on the Controversy About Zionist Speakers at Berkeley Law School
Peter Beinart, Dylan Saba, and Ethan Katz at UC Berkeley, January 6, 2023.
In 2022, nine student groups at the UC Berkeley School of Law declared that they would not host Zionist speakers. In part because of that decision, the federal Department of Education is now investigating whether Berkeley is a hostile environment for Jewish students. In this presentation from January 6, 2023, Jewish Currents editor-at-large Peter Beinart facilitates a conversation about the controversy with Jewish Currents contributing editor Dylan Saba—a graduate of Berkeley Law and current staff attorney at Palestine Legal, who has advised the student groups that won’t host Zionist speakers—and Ethan Katz, associate professor of History and Jewish Studies at UC Berkeley and co-founder of Berkeley’s Antisemitism Education Initiative. To view this discussion, please click here.
Antisemitism on Social Media: Challenges for Academics and Policy-makers
At a virtual World Jewish Congress event titled “Antisemitism on Social Media: Challenges for Academics and Policy-makers,” academics, representatives from social media companies, the United Nations, UNESCO and the European Commission came together to explore the complex phenomenon.
The event coincided with the recently published book Antisemitism on Social Media (Routledge, 2022), edited by Monika Hübscher, a doctoral candidate at the University of Haifa, Israel, and research associate at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany, and Sabine von Mering, professor of German and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and director of the Center for German and European Studies, at Brandeis University. Both of them spoke at the online forum, which addressed possible solutions to this threat.
In the Midst of Civilized Europe: The Pogroms of 1918-1921 and the Onset of the Holocaust
Jeffrey Veidlinger at UC Berkeley, April 25, 2022. This program was presented with the generous support of the Joseph and Eda Pell Endowed Fund for Jewish Studies.
Between 1918 and 1921, over a hundred thousand Jews were murdered in Ukraine and Poland by peasants, townsmen, and soldiers who blamed the Jews for the turmoil of the Russian Revolution. In hundreds of separate incidents, ordinary people robbed their Jewish neighbors with impunity, burned down their houses, ripped apart their Torah scrolls, sexually assaulted them, and killed them. Largely forgotten today, these pogroms – ethnic riots – dominated headlines and international affairs in their time. Aid workers warned that six million Jews were in danger of complete extermination. Twenty years later, these dire predictions would come true.
Drawing upon long-neglected archival materials, including thousands of newly discovered witness testimonies, trial records, and official orders, acclaimed historian Jeffrey Veidlinger shows for the first time how this wave of genocidal violence created the conditions for the Holocaust. (This event was not recorded. To view the presentation, please click here for Professor Veidlinger's talk at the International Studies Institute at the University of New Mexico.)
Letters from the Abyss: Travelogues on Jewish Life in Nazi Germany in the Yiddish Press of Warsaw
Anne-Christin Klotz at UC Berkeley, March 31, 2022.
Between 1933 and 1939, several dozen journalists writing for the Yiddish press in Poland traveled to Nazi Germany to cover political developments and Jewish life in the Third Reich from an investigative, ethnographic and uniquely Eastern European-Jewish point of view. Their personal and professional experience allowed them to document and interpret National Socialism from a dual perspective. As traveling Jewish journalists from Eastern Europe they were “outsiders” from German society and from the German-Jewish experience. However, as Jews traveling through Nazi Germany (and sometimes staying for weeks or months), they were also “insiders” with access to German-Jewish and Eastern-European-Jewish migrant Lebenswelten (living milieus), who also had cause to fear antisemitic violence and terror. Their reportage on Nazi Germany in the 1930s offers us a new perspective while also challenging more established narratives written by Western Jews looking at Jews in the East. It was now Polish Jews describing the plight of their fellow Jews in Germany. To view this presentation, please click here.
Quarantine in the Prague Ghetto: Jews, Christians, and Epidemic Disease in an Early Modern City
Joshua Teplitsky at UC Berkeley, November 4, 2021.
In 1713, plague ravaged the city of Prague. It struck Christians and Jews alike, but contemporary observers singled out the Jewish quarter of the city as a hotspot of contagion, and authorities acted to segregate and separate the Jews of the city from Christians. Jews actively crafted responses both to plague and policy, marshaling health resources, funds, and a deep cultural reservoir shaped by past traditions and in confrontation with new circumstances. This lecture explores those responses both with an eye to local contexts and through comparison with Jews’ situations in other places in early modern Europe. To view this presentation, please click here.
The Tree of Life Synagogue Shooting and the Soul of a Pittsburgh Neighborhood
Mark Oppenheimer (Yale University) in conversation with John Efron (UC Berkeley), October 12, 2021.
On October 27, 2018, a gunman killed eleven Jews who were worshipping at the Tree of Life synagogue in Squirrel Hill–the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in American history. Many neighborhoods would be understandably subsumed by despair and recrimination after such an event, but not this one.
In his latest book, Mark Oppenheimer offers a piercing portrait of the struggles and triumphs of one of America’s renowned Jewish neighborhoods in the wake of unspeakable tragedy. Shifting the focus away from the criminal and his crime, Mark instead presents the historic, spirited community at the center of this heartbreak. He speaks with residents and nonresidents, Jews and gentiles, survivors and witnesses, teenagers and seniors, activists and historians. Together, these stories provide a kaleidoscopic and nuanced account of collective grief, love, support, and revival. To view this presentation, please click here.
Antisemitism in America and Who Gets to Say?
An online event featuring Lila Corwin Berman, Joshua Shanes, and Ethan Katz (UC Berkeley), November 12, 2021.
Presented by the Dissent in America Teach-In series and the Feinstein Center, Temple University
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The Rise of Antisemitism from the Left and the Right
A live-streamed event highlighting the increasing presence of Antisemitism in the U.S. and its unexpected sources. Featuring Florida Congressman Ted Deutch, Newsweek journalist Batya Ungar-Sargon, Rhodes College Professor Jonathan Judaken, and anti-racist activist Eric Ward. Moderated by Professor Ethan Katz (UC Berkeley).
The Jonathan Netanyahu Symposium on Antisemitism: “Antisemitism and the Campus Climate"
An online event, sponsored by Michigan State University, October 8, 2021.
Starting at the 52:55, Professor Ethan Katz (UC Berkeley) traces the origins and development of the Antisemitism Education Initiative, and the making of the acclaimed anti-bias training film “Antisemitism in Our Midst,” and offers lessons for similar projects on other campuses.
The Impact of the Gaza War on Antisemitism and Anti-Arab Racism in the U.S.
A discussion about the impact of Israeli-Palestinian violence on antisemitism and anti-Arab racism. When and how does anger at Israeli actions against Palestinians, such as the evictions in Sheikh Jarrah and the shelling of Gaza’s civilians, morph into antisemitism in the U.S.? When and how does anger at Palestinian actions against Israel, such as Hamas missiles striking Israeli civilians, morph into anti-Arab racism in the U.S.? [Image credit: Smoke rises after Israeli airstrikes on Gaza City, the Gaza Strip, Palestine, May 12, 2021. Shutterstock/Nick Raille]
Bad News: How Woke Media Undermines Democracy
A Conversation Between Batya Ungar-Sargon and Ethan Katz (UC Berkeley). Sponsored by The Helen Diller Institute for Jewish Law and Israel Studies.
Batya Ungar-Sargon will discuss her new book, Bad News: How Woke Media is Undermining American Democracy, which critiques the role of American journalists in shaping race, class, religion, and culture.
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Race and Responsibility: A Conversation on Black-Jewish Relations and the Fight for Equal Justice
Eric K. Ward (Western States Center) in conversation with Michael Rothberg (UCLA)
How are the historical experiences of the Black and Jewish communities at once distinct and interconnected? Should we see efforts to combat racism and antisemitism as separate struggles? What are African Americans’ and Jews’ responsibilities to one another in America’s current racial reckoning? In this conversation, Eric K. Ward, a leading expert on the relationship between racism, antisemitism, and authoritarian movements; and Michael Rothberg, an eminent scholar of historical exclusion and its legacies, will tackle these questions and other pressing matters in contemporary Black-Jewish relations. The discussion will be moderated by Professor Tina Sacks of the School of Social Welfare.
Cyber-Hate: Defining and Combating Antisemitism and Hate Online
Cosponsored by the Helen Diller Institute for Jewish Law, Thought, and Identity and the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology
This two-part virtual symposium explores the phenomenon of cyber-hate. What are the key issues and manifestations? What are the appropriate responses to online hate? What are the frameworks available — legal, social, technological — and possible constraints to responding? How do we evaluate the success of various solutions?
Hitler’s Laboratory: How Munich Became the Capital of Antisemitism After World War I
Pell Lecture: Michael Brenner ( American University and University of Munich)
The Free State of Bavaria was established in November 1918 by the Jewish socialist, Kurt Eisner. After his assassination in February 1919, Bavaria went through intense political infighting, in the midst of which, Jewish politicians were very prominent. Amid the turmoil, the conservative government of Bavaria identified Jews with left-wing radicalism and Munich became a hotbed of right-wing extremism as well as the center of the emerging Nazi movement under Adolf Hitler. The Jews in Hitler’s Munich of the early 1920s were the first victims on his long and twisted road to power.
Jews and Race: Identity, Community, and History
Yavilah McCoy is the CEO of the Diversity consulting group DIMENSIONS Inc. Through Dimensions, Yavilah services an international portfolio of clients in the areas of Education, Philanthropy, and Social Justice. As an anti-racism activist with an international platform, Yavilah provides training and consulting to numerous social justice projects that span multiple identities and communities. Yavilah serves on the steering committee of the national Women’s March and has been a core part of many large-scale national movement teams, bringing a uniquely intersectional perspective to the ongoing work of racial justice and collective liberation. Yavilah is a pioneer of the Jewish diversity and equity movement and is an advocate and mentor for the empowerment of a transglobal community of Jews of Color. Yavilah was an inaugural recipient of the Spielberg Foundation’s Joshua Venture Fellowship and directed the launch of the “Ruderman Synagogue Inclusion Project” for Combined Jewish Philanthropies and the Ruderman Family Foundation. Yavilah also directed the Bronfman Philanthropy’s Curriculum Initiative in Boston, where she provided educational consultancy to 600 prep schools across the nation. Yavilah was voted one of “16 Faith Leaders to Watch” by the Center for American Progress in Washington, DC, is a certified coach for the Auburn Theological Seminary’s Pastoral Coach Training Program and an inaugural fellow of the Sojourner Truth Leadership Circle. Yavilah is a renowned national speaker, educator, and spiritual practitioner and in celebration of the musical traditions passed down to her from three generations of her African-American Jewish family, is also the writer, producer and performer of the Jewish Gospel theatrical production “The Colors of Water.”
This event is part of a series on Jews and Race during the 2020-2021 academic year, a collaboration of the Richard S. Dinner Center for Jewish Studies at the Graduate Theological Union, the Berkeley Center for Jewish Studies, the Berkeley Center for the Study of Religion, and the Berkeley Institute for Jewish Law and Israel Studies.
Online Extremism in a Time of Global Pandemic
In this podcast episode, Ahmad Sultan and Vlad Khaykin join us to discuss their work with the Anti-Defamation League combatting hate speech online. They share how their work has evolved during this global health crisis, engaging in their work from quarantine and addressing the increasing prevalence of incidents such as ‘Zoom Bombing’ as we transitioned to a ‘virtual world’ during the COVID19 pandemic. This episode is part of a 14-part series on Israel and Jewish Identity in the age of COVID. The series includes interviews with experts on topics related to Israel and the novel coronavirus through different lenses – political developments, economic impacts, technology and surveillance, trauma and resilience – as well as lessons from Jewish tradition and the virus’ impact on Jewish communal life.
Antisemitism Here and Now (RTS 2019)
Deborah Lipstadt and Yehuda Kurtzer On February 13, 2020, renowned scholar Deborah Lipstadt spoke before several hundred students, staff, and faculty about her recent book Antisemitism Here and Now and met separately with a number of student organizations and student leaders on our campus. While it was not possible to record these events, because of how important they remain for our ongoing work here, we have linked this illuminating conversation that Lipstadt had in summer 2019 about her book and contemporary challenges around antisemitism and other hatreds, with Yehuda Kurtzer of the Hartman Institute.
Cold Case in Constantine: Anti-Jewish Violence and the Colonial Situation in French Algeria
Joshua Cole (University of Michigan) in conversation with Steve Zipperstein (Stanford University) Cole’s prize-winning book solves the mystery of the Constantine riots of August 1934, an episode of violence between Muslims and Jews in French Algeria that resulted in the deaths of 25 Jews and 3 Muslims. The murders in Constantine were the most lethal episode of anti-Jewish violence in peacetime in modern French history. Cole argues that we have long misunderstood the violence in Constantine. Contrary to widespread perceptions, it was neither the culmination of ever-growing Muslim-Jewish enmity, nor the rupture that in time led to the end for the two groups’ cohabitation in Algeria. Rather, the murders were the product of specific tensions that arose from both inclusionary reforms on the part of the colonial administration, and right-wing, antisemitic provocateurs who sought to inflame tensions between Muslims and Jews.
In the Name of the Cross: Christianity and Anti-Semitic Propaganda in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany
David Kertzer (Brown University) Heated debate surrounds the question of the role Christianity and Christian churches played in the Nazi and Italian Fascist demonization of the Jews. This talk brings to light similarities and differences in the Nazi and Italian Fascist uses of Christianity in their efforts to turn their populations against the Jews through examination of two of their most influential popular anti-Semitic propaganda vehicles: La difesa della razza in Italy and Der Stürmer in Germany. Both would mix pseudo-scientific racial theories with arguments based on Christian religious authority, and both would present themselves as defenders of Christianity against the Jewish threat. Yet there were also differences, linked to the different relations each regime had with the Christian churches.
Hate: The Rising Tide of Anti-Semitism in France and What It Means for Us
Marc Weitzmann (Author) What is the connection between a rise in the number of random attacks against Jews on the streets of France and strategically planned terrorist acts targeting the French population at large? Before the attacks on Charlie Hebdo, the Bataclan night club, and others made international headlines, Weitzmann had noticed a surge of seemingly random acts of violence against the Jews of France. In his disturbing and eye-opening new book, Hate: The Rising Tide of Antisemitism in France (and What it Means for Us), Weitzmann proposes that both the small-scale and large-scale acts of violence have their roots in not one, but two very specific forms of populism: an extreme and violent ethos of hate spread among the Muslim post-colonial suburban developments on the one hand, and the deeply-rooted French ultra-conservatism of the far right. Weitzmann’s shrewd on-the-ground reporting is woven throughout with the history surrounding the legacies of the French Revolution, the Holocaust, and Gaulist “Arab-French policy.” Hate is a chilling and important account that shows how the rebirth of French Anti-Semitism relates to the new global terror wave, revealing France to be a veritable localized laboratory for a global phenomenon. The book has provoked widespread debate and acclaim on both sides in both France and the U.S.
Unlikely Refuge: Survivors, Aid Organizations and Local Communities in WWII Uzbekistan and Iran
Professor Mikhal Dekel (Director of CCNY’s Rifkind Center for Humanities and the Arts) Beginning in September 1941 and throughout the war, Central Asia and Iran became places of refuge to hundreds of thousands of Jewish and Catholic Polish citizens. Mikhal Dekel, whose father was a child refugee in Tehran, will recount the research and writing process of this epic yet relatively unknown Holocaust story, told in her new book Tehran Children: A Holocaust Refugee Odyssey. She will discuss the circumstances that brought her father and hundreds of thousands of others from Poland to the Soviet interior, Central Asia, Iran, India and Palestine and talk about the refugees’ experiences in each locale and the mutual impact of refugees and host countries on each other. Sponsored by Berkeley Institute for Jewish Law and Israel Studies
Protectors of Pluralism: the Rescue of Jews in the Low Countries during the Holocaust
Robert Braun (UC Berkeley) This book argues that local religious minorities are more likely to save persecuted groups from purification campaigns. Robert Braun utilizes a geo-referenced dataset of Jewish evasion in the Netherlands and Belgium during the Holocaust to assess the minority hypothesis. Spatial statistics and archival work reveal that Protestants were more likely to rescue Jews in Catholic regions of the Low Countries, while Catholics facilitated evasion in Protestant areas. Post-war testimonies and secondary literature demonstrate the importance of minority groups for rescue in other countries during the Holocaust as well as other episodes of mass violence, underlining how the local position of church communities produces networks of assistance, rather than something inherent to any religion itself. This book makes an important contribution to the literature on political violence, social movements, altruism and religion, applying a range of social science methodologies and theories that shed new light on the Holocaust.
Hatred Old and New: The Roots and Resurgence of Antisemitism
A Panel Discussion: John Efron, Ethan Katz, Ronit Stahl, & Robert Braun (UC Berkeley) Racism against Jews has re-emerged today as a major problem on the Left and the Right — in European and American politics, and frequently on college campuses. What accounts for this resurgence? What has been the historical evolution of antisemitism that helps explain the current moment? What forms is antisemitism taking today? How much is it connected to or distinct from the rise of other hateful ideologies?
News Articles and Interviews on Antisemitism by Our Faculty
What Whoopi Goldberg's Holocaust remarks can teach us
An interview with Professor Ethan Katz, co-director of the Berkeley Antisemitism Education Initiative, on PBS NewsHour, February 2, 2022. The history of the Holocaust has been part of school curriculums for decades, but how much Americans really know about it has changed. That was brought to light this week when comedian and actress Whoopi Goldberg made race remarks that were widely condemned and led to her suspension from “The View.” Click HERE to watch the segment.
Antisemitism: Here and Now
CJS Director John Efron Interviews Deborah Lipstadt about her New Book, Antisemitism: Here and Now Even before the horrific murder of eleven worshipers at the Tree of Life synagogue, violence against Jews in this country was rising sharply; 2017 saw a nearly 60 percent spike in incidents over the year before, the largest single-year increase on record according to the Anti-Defamation League. Where is all this hatred coming from? Is there any significant difference between left-wing and right-wing anti-Semitism? What role has the anti-Zionist movement played? Deborah Lipstadt, the award-winning author of The Eichmann Trial and Denial: Holocaust History on Trial, joins John Efron, Koret Professor of Jewish History at U.C. Berkeley for an in-depth conversation on the hate that will not die and what can be done about it. Click HERE to watch the interview.
Far more unites Black and Jewish Americans than divides them
Opinion by Ethan B. Katz and Deborah Lipstadt
(CNN) In recent weeks, we have witnessed several anti-Semitic statements and postings by prominent black athletes and entertainers like DeSean Jackson, Stephen Jackson, Nick Cannon and Ice Cube. (All but Ice Cube have since apologized.) These have unfolded in the shadow of an outpouring of diverse support for the Black Lives Matter movement, which has undertaken arguably the most significant struggle for racial justice of the past half century.
Why Calling Anti-Semites ‘White Nationalists’ Actually Gives Them Cover
Opinion by John Efron
The mass murder of Jews at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh came as a shock. However, for anyone paying attention, it did not come as a surprise. And therein lies the problem. All too few have been paying attention to anti-Semitism. Continue reading…
UC Berkeley Social Sciences Conversations: The State of Black-Jewish Relations in America
Interview with Professor Ethan Katz, UC Berkeley In this interview, UC Berkeley Professor Ethan Katz speaks to Assistant Dean Christian Gordon about the state of Black-Jewish relations in America and his recently published CNN article on this topic, co-authored with Deborah Lipstadt. Katz also discusses fascinating parallels between Jews and Blacks in America, and the subject of his first book- Jews and Muslims in France. Click HERE to watch the interview.
Additional Resources
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“Antisemitic hate speech on social media – algorithms are partly to blame.” Article in The Conversation, July 26, 2022.