You fight the traffic in Israel. Wherever you are, the traffic is horrendous. You fight the traffic in the port city of Haifa. You monitor the road, not the surroundings. But eventually you get to where you are going and for us, in Haifa, it is the university campus. We are marched through and down to the right building, and then stop and gaze in awe at the view. Built on the spine of Mount Carmel, it is breathtaking – and not a road or car in sight. The relief of calm rarefied air and academic endeavour envelopes the delegates. Here we are, academics, scholars and others gathered from around the world for three days, many from hostile home campuses, helping to establish and forward a new field of contemporary antisemitism studies.

As a layperson, the conference structure reminds me of the Limmud model: seven or eight sessions of 90 minutes taking place simultaneously, with plenty of networking breaks, drinks and snacks. Only the organisers have the overview and delegates must choose which topic or track interests them most at any given time. It is an opportunity to share research, to network, to launch new initiatives, to support each other, and to unapologetically centre the Jewish perspective. No-one has to explain that Jewish context to anyone; we all understand far too well the worldwide 21st century spike in Jew-hate. This year, in 2026, we are very deliberately in Israel. Postponed from March, 350 odd delegates have made the journey to be here, because Israel is Israel. To rather crudely state the bottom line, it is either our literal home or our emotional, psychological and potential home of last resort. Whichever way it is a connection we honour with respect and love. 

Professor David Hirsh, our CEO and Academic Director, has traced the rise in contemporary antisemitism for decades. For him, the World Conference against Racism in Durban in 2021 was a key staging post. This event has become infamous as a supposedly anti-racist conference that was over-run with antisemitic anti-Israel prejudice overtly presented as an underlying culture of “right think” by progressive “communities of the good”. Nothing that has followed has really surprised him – he has documented and written a book on the trajectory of how this culture based on spurious and bastardised Soviet propaganda dressed up as academic theory has migrated from the crank fringes to the mainstream in the following two decades.

In a session about addressing antisemitism on campus, Kent Harber from Rutgers University said “I wasn’t previously aware that I was a Jewish academic, my subject is psychology” – but as with Jewish academics worldwide, he has necessarily been co-opted into the fight. There seems to be consensus that formal Networks are a useful mechanism. Some already exist, and some have been born or revamped out of necessity in recent years. Harber is instrumental in the success of the US based Academic Engagement Network (AEN) supporting academics to address antisemitism on campus, and which now has 25,000 members. The AEN undertakes a range of activities, not least of which is training, as well as giving microgrants to enable challenging initiatives to go ahead. With such a large membership it genuinely intervenes successfully in a range of areas, including with the somewhat “extremely toxic reputation of DEI across the Jewish academic world” as Ayal Feinberg of Gratz College puts it. “While the people who run programmes may be sincere, they simply don’t have the training to understand contemporary antisemitism or know how to address it”.

Another perspective came from an academic I spoke to from Brandeis University who thinks that after the crushing lowpoints of multiple externally organised encampments and vicious actions in 2024, the situation has improved. She says the reasons for this are varied; yes, a new political administration that has made it clear that universities will face financial penalties if they continue to allow the overt bullying of Jews on campus. Second, half the students who took part in the encampments have graduated and left. They are now out in the world, presumably to be tamed by reality or further radicalised. And finally, the universities themselves have often changed the student Code of Conduct to outlaw the types of actions that were so endemic. Her current research across Brandeis suggests that the perception from minority students across categories is that they all feel equally marginalised.

Are we past the worst? Can the demonic genie be put back in the bottle? Barely anyone thinks so. There are constantly new dogwhistles and new semantic formulations being twisted into service, particularly online. Liram Koblentz-Stenzler from the International Institute of Counter Terrorism explains the process of how the phrase “spiritually Israeli” is a new example of this. It’s a made up term that is semantically drifting and developing to a place where it can encompass ridiculous notions of ideological purity and taint or delegitimise anyone – Jewish, Israeli or otherwise – who speaks out against the prevailing culture of Israel as the source of all the world’s evils.

Inevitably, existing and refreshed Networks – however successful – are necessarily reactively pro-active; the problems already exist and have taken on a life of their own. This is where our own new network comes in, the Contemporary Antisemitism Studies Association, or CASA  for short.  Launched at the conference today to a packed audience, the founding directors are our own Professor David Hirsh, Ayal Feinberg of Gratz College in the US, and David Barak-Gorodetsky, director of the Comper Centre at Haifa University. They are very clear about its aims: “We are building a home and infrastructure of the new discipline of Antisemitism Studies” declared Hirsh at the launch. “We will be a home for the academically homeless, and provide the infrastructure and foundations for the discipline to grow in the years ahead”.

 To do that, the founders have identified five key practise areas that CASA will develop to turn their ideals into reality:

• An international membership of academics and scholars, with 150 founding members already.
• Conferences and opportunities to convene, with the next international conference taking place in Philadelphia in 2027.
• Publishing and in particular a new peer-reviewed Journal which will be open access and provide an eight-week turnaround for authors.  A robust, impressive and importantly numerous editorial board has already been assembled. It will open for its first submissions on 1st September.
• Active and formal mentoring of young and new scholars, providing the support and back up they need to find their way in what is, at its worst, a pretty dog eat dog academic world, even without antisemitism.
• Turning theory into active practice through a range of mechanisms to produce knowledge and research which will educate and influence in both targeted and generalised ways.

CASA is interesting and exciting. It is no accident that its three founding “stewards” run smallish institutions with minimal bureaucracy. This enables each to be powerful on their own terms, to observe, analyse, and propose solutions. They can take decisions on policy and practice, and get on with implementing initiatives speedily and with the resources of their respective organisations – a situation many institutional directors can only dream of. 

“We have a dream of many sub-networks,” says Hirsh. “We are already working on antisemitism and sport, and Islamic antisemitism. But we are counting on our membership to actively participate – if you want a sub-network, then create it!”

We have gone public with CASA now: www.contemporaryantisemitism.com It will become increasingly populated so keep an eye on our website and social media for our latest news and progress. Or sign up to our newsletter here: www.londonantisemitism.com