1st Edition

Feminist Antisemitism An Intellectual History

By Kara Jesella Copyright 2026
216 Pages
by Routledge

216 Pages
by Routledge

216 Pages
by Routledge

Feminist Antisemitism: An Intellectual History establishes the antipathy toward Jews that existed as the movement began and tracks how changes in feminist in‑groups and theories manifested in new, feminist‑inflected forms of antisemitic thinking. Though the feminist response to the brutal Hamas invasion on October 7, 2023, shocked onlookers, in fact, hostility toward Jews, Jewish women, and... Read more

Introduction: Feminism’s antisemitic-antizionist feedback loop

1. Sisterhood is racist, imperialist, and Jewish

2. New alliances, new ethics: identity feminism’s Jewish problem

3. The bridges: how Jewish feminists enabled antisemitism 

4. Queer antizionism: feminism against women, feminism against Jews

5. “Me Too, Unless You Are a Jew”: feminism justifies October 7th 

Conclusion: Antizionist success, feminist failure, and the future

 

Biography

Kara Jesella is a feminist scholar based in New York City, USA.

“With her exhaustive research and deeply insightful interpretation of key texts, Kara Jesella reveals that antisemitism was endemic in second-wave feminism from the outset, not—as some would have it—a result of Zionism. In fact, she shows, it was this antisemitism that predisposed the movement to become antizionist and led feminists to deny that Hamas had committed sexual violence on October 7. This is a bold, brave, and necessary book.

Sonya Michel, Professor Emerita of History and Gender and Women’s Studies, University of Maryland

“One of the saddest—and yet most indicative—features of contemporary antizionism has been its willingness to abandon the historic feminist commitment to equality in favor of hostility to Jewish women. Kara Jesella’s eloquent and immensely important book offers a compelling account of both how feminism lost its way and what its consequent impact on contemporary politics has proven to be. If you have been troubled by these developments, this is the book to read to understand them.”

Cary Nelson, author of Hate Speech and Academic Freedom: The Antisemitic Assault on Basic Principles