Join us for the launch of Kara Jessella’s new book, Feminist Antisemitism: An Intellectual History.
How did feminism get 7 October so wrong? The Hamas attacks and their aftermath exposed deep tensions within a feminist movement that has long claimed to stand with women affected byprejudice and discrimination.
As questions of race, privilege and power have moved to the centre of feminist politics, Jewish women have been recast as symbols of whiteness; and privilege, despite a long history of exclusion, discrimination and persecution. Why is antisemitism within feminism often treated differently from other forms of prejudice? What does that mean for the future of feminism? And is there a place for Jewish women in feminism anymore?
Kara Jesella argues that the answer lies not in a failure of information, but in the ideas that havecome to dominate contemporary feminist thinking. In this keynote, she will trace how theories of race, power, privilege and decolonisation have shaped feminist understandings of Jews and Zionism. She examines the assumptions that have marginalised Jewish women within progressive movements, and considers how the treatment of Jewish women after 7 October exposed weaknesses in feminist thinking that limit feminism’s ability to understand reality more broadly.
Following this Keynote, Kara Jesella will be joined on stage by Nimco Ali and Julie Bindel for a conversation moderated by Freya Papworth, co-founder of Feminists Against Antisemitism. They will discuss how we can challenge feminist antisemitism and fight for Jewish women’s liberation alongside the liberation of all women.
General admission tickets cost £20. A ticket with a copy of the book, including a special discount of 33%, costs £48.
Nimco Ali OBE is an author and one of Britain’s most influential campaigners for the rights of women and girls. As CEO and Co-Founder of The Five Foundation and a former UK Government Adviser on Violence Against Women and Girls, she has spent more than a decade driving global efforts to end FGM.
A prominent media commentator, Nimco has also emerged as a fearless voice challenging the failure of international women’s organisations to stand with Israeli women following 7 October and confronting the double standards faced by Jewish women within feminist spaces. She was awarded an OBE for services to tackling gender inequality and is the author of What We’re Told Not to Talk About (But We’re Going to Anyway).
Follow Nimco on X: @NimkoAli
Julie Bindel is a feminist campaigner, journalist, broadcaster and author. Her latest book is Lesbians: Where are we now? (2025). Her two latest podcast series, Julie in Genderland, and Dig Up Your Mam are published on her Substack. Julie has travelled the world researching and investigating atrocities against women and girls, and has reported from brothels in Nepal, breast-milk factories in Cambodia, a village built on prostitution in Rajasthan, India, and a ‘big fertility’ surrogacy clinic in California.
Follow Julie on X: @bindelj
Kara Jesella is a feminist scholar based in New York City and a Fellow of the London Centre for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism. She has a PhD and an MA in Performance Studies from New York University, where she was the Managing Editor of Women & Performance: a journal of feminist theory, and a BA in Women’s Studies and English from Vassar College. A former journalist, she has written for the New York Times, Quillette, Ms., and many other publications, and authored a book on Sassy magazine that was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Follow Kara on X: @karajesella
Freya Papworth is a co-founder and spokeswoman for Feminists Against Antisemitism (FAA), Feminist and Psychotherapist. Freya has a keen interest in how groups psychology, and modern sociological frameworks can end up reinforcing the very discrimination they aim to address, particularly when it comes to feminism and feminist principles.
Follow Freya on X: @FreyaVanadiss
Feminists Against Antisemitism (FAA) is a collective of feminists committed to ensuring that feminism lives up to its promise of solidarity for all women. Founded in response to the denial, minimisation and erasure of the sexual violence committed against Israeli women on 7 October, FAA seeks to confront antisemitism within feminist and progressive spaces while fostering honest dialogue, understanding and mutual respect.
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