The Birkbeck Institute for the Study of Antisemitism is a centre of innovative research and teaching on antisemitism, racialization and religious intolerance. It contributes to knowledge and understanding, policy formation and public debate.
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The Birkbeck Institute for the Study of Antisemitism was established in 2010 by Birkbeck, University of London and Pears Foundation.
We are the only university centre in the UK dedicated to the study of antisemitism and one of only two in Europe. The Institute is renowned internationally for its innovative research and teaching.
Our work is framed by our conviction that antisemitism is a distinctive form of racism. Through our research and public activity we establish points of connection between the problem of antisemitism and the challenge of racisms more broadly.
Our scholarship contributes to public debate on antisemitism, racialization and religious intolerance and we provide expertise and advice to a wide range of institutions in the UK, Europe and the wider world.
The Birkbeck Institute for the Study of Antisemitism is both independent and inclusive.
This article analyses German responses to the typhus epidemic in German-occupied Poland during WWI and shows the close connection between health policies and antisemitic and nationalist ideological narratives and projects.
Jan Rybak identifies this racialization of disease as a key moment in the development of German antisemitism.
Symposium on Brendan McGeever’s prize-winning book ‘Antisemitism and the Russian Revolution’.
This collection of essays highlights the ever-present issue of the relationship between antisemitism and other forms of racism, as well as the importance of identity in political confrontations with antisemitism and in anti-racism.
Throughout the twentieth century, Britain used its network of imperial holdings as sites of detention. One of the largest cohorts to be interned across the Empire were European Jews. This research project seeks to uncover the neglected histories of these detention sites, by reconfiguring our understanding of the Holocaust beyond central Europe.
In this roundtable, scholars with diverse views will discuss the questions of whether anti-Zionism is antisemitic. Is it right to link the fight against antisemitism to other struggles against racism and xenophobia? Can antisemitism be defined, and do existing definitions advance the fight against it?
Seminar | For Scholars
Placed throughout Europe, Stolpersteine (stumbling stones) are memorials which mark the final homes of victims of Nazi violence. Based on multi-sited research on the German artist, Gunter Demnig’s Stolperstein Holocaust memorial project, this talk will focus on the improvised rituals that descendants create to accompany the dedications and installations.
SEMINAR SERIES | ANTISEMITISM NOW
In this seminar, Sergio DellaPergola will examine the perceptions and experiences of antisemitism following an inductive approach, turning the conventional analyses upside down to focus on the voices and perspectives of the object and victims of hostility and prejudice – the Jews.
In this lecture David Feldman explores the appeal of conspiracy theory in the years after the First World War and the responses of British Jews to the threat they faced. He asks how this history can illumine the challenges we face combatting antisemitism today.
Our work shows how antisemitism has often been intertwined with anti-Muslim, anti-migrant, anti-black and anti-Irish bigotries. Antisemitism and other racisms should not be considered in isolation and still less in competition.
Professor David Feldman, Director
