For our first satellite event for the Battle of Ideas 2025* we’re discussing historical and contemporary anti-Semitism
The number of anti-Semitic incidents across the western world has surged since the Hamas pogrom on southern Israel on 7th October 2023. They have included physical assaults, harassment of Jewish students on university campuses as well as attacks on synagogues and Jewish businesses. According to a recent UK government-backed report, anti-Semitism has been “normalised in middle class Britain”, with the most marked rise being amongst 18-24 year-olds.
However, although the number of incidents jumped after October 2023 there was already an upward trend before that. The controversy over anti-Semitism in Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party was one manifestation of this development. In addition, a January 2023 investigation into the National Union of Students, concluded that “Jewish students have not felt welcome or included in NUS spaces” for at least a decade.
Anti-Semitism has often been seen as a feature of moments in history of tremendous upheaval. Why is this? Some have suggested that Jews are history’s scapegoats – made to take the blame for everything wrong with the world. Others argue that anti-Semites typically view Jews as the personification of trends they regard as evil. Historically the focus has often been on Jews supposedly representing the supposed wickedness of capitalism and modernity. More recently Israel, the Jewish state, has become a cypher for those antagonistic to western civilisation.
What is driving this upward trend in anti-Semitism? And in what ways does it differ from earlier manifestations of the phenomenon?
