1st Edition
Responses to 7 October: Universities
One of three volumes responding to the 7 October attack, Universities, focuses on the heartland of contemporary antisemitic thinking, which is scholarship; and its reflection in student discourse on campus.
Contributions go back to Sartre and to debates of Marx’s time; another looks at the New Left forged in the civil rights movement, and shows how antisemitic responses to the 2023 violence were anticipated by some of the responses to the 1967 Arab League aggression. The feminist movement and ‘progressives’ more generally come under scrutiny, and there is analysis of antisemitism on campus after 7 October, showing how it is tolerated and protected there; including in archeological attempts to deny that there is an ancient Jewish history in Israel.
This work will appeal to scholars, students and activists with an interest in antisemitism, Jewish studies and the politics of Israel.
Introduction
Rosa Freedman and David Hirsh
Editor’s Note
1. ‘A Tool to Advance Imperial Interests’: Leftist Self-Scrutiny and Israeli Wrongdoing
Eric Heinze
2. Thinking with and against Sartre about Reactions to the October 7th Pogrom
Chad Alan Goldberg
3. The rise and rise of the ‘Israel Question’
Daniel Chernilo
4. Jewish “Whiteness” and its Effects in the Aftermath of October 7
Linda Maizels
5. A History of Feminist Antisemitism
Kara Jesella
6. The Return of the Progressive Atrocity
Susie Linfield
7. Rain of Ashes Over Elite American Universities
Günther Jikeli
8. The Professors and the Pogrom: How the theory of ‘Zionist Settler Colonialism’ reframed the 7 October massacre as ‘Liberation’
Derek Spitz
9. October 7 and the Antisemitic War of Words
Cary Nelson
10. Ancient Historians Embrace Debunked Conspiracy Theories Denying that Jews are Indigenous to Israel
Brett Kaufman
11. From Eighteenth-Century Germany to Contemporary Academia: Combating the Conspiracy Theory of Antisemitism in Scholarship
Rebecca Cypess
Biography
Rosa Freedman is Professor of Law at the University of Reading, and Research Fellow at the London Centre for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism, UK.
David Hirsh is the Academic Director and CEO of the London Centre for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London, UK.
‘I was brought up believing it’s a good thing Israel exists, to stop those who would push all Jews into the sea. Anti-Israel hysteria made me re-examine whether subconscious bias had left me blind to its evil. Facts, context and history tell me no, and such confident yet malicious accusations raise alarm bells. Anthologising this phenomena is vital work.’
Rachel Riley MBE, TV presenter, activist against antisemitism and advocate for women and girls in STEM
‘Essential and compelling reading on the 7 October attacks by a distinguished array of historians, lawyers, feminists, novelists and sociologists, who debate the significance of the Hamas kill-raid against Israel and analyse the denial, glorification and trivialisation that followed.’
Simon Sebag Montefiore, historian, author of Jerusalem: the biography
‘Absolutely and heartbreakingly necessary: some of the greatest thinkers of our day addressing the worst Jewish trauma in most people's living memory.’
Hadley Freeman, journalist
‘We were promised “Never Again.” As shocking as was the pogrom of October 7, 2023, no less distressing is how the public square and academy resonated with the cacophony of sympathizers. These essential volumes of reflections and analyses will long stand as a landmark in understanding this contemporary outrage.’
Ilan Troen, Professor Emeritus of Israel Studies at Brandeis University and Modern History at Ben-Gurion University, and Founding Editor of Israel Studies
‘Following the horrifying blow of the atrocities of October 7th came the additional shock that virulent antisemitism had actually intensified in its aftermath. In this upside down moral universe feeling has sometimes overwhelmed reflection. But this magnificent collection of essays, at once deeply felt and sharply thought, is an anchorage for the intellect to confront the poisoned madness of this moment. It ought to be compulsory reading.’
Simon Schama, historian
