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.
In this seminar, Andrea Pető considers how different illiberal governments and political parties are hijacking the memory politics of the Holocaust.
In this seminar, Nonna Mayer addresses the question whether “old” antisemitism in France has been replaced by the rise of new forms of prejudice emanating from the far left and from among Muslims, driven by hatred of Israel and Zionism.
In the global present, antisemitism thrives on conspiracy theories, yet to date scholars have paid little attention to their content. This project will provide a pathbreaking inventory and analysis of global antisemitic conspiracy theories and their claims to comprehend power relations both locally and globally. It will shed a unique light on the contemporary threat to democratic life and its connection to antisemitism.
Jan Rubak explores the Jewish militia established in Kraków during the collapse of the Habsburg Empire and the establishment of the Second Polish Republic, situating it in the context of local state building and anti-Jewish violence and self-defence.
Throughout the twentieth century, Britain used its network of imperial holdings as sites of detention, not only for migrants and refugees, but for civilians and political insurgents. 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 and explores interconnections with the legacies of empire and decolonisation.
Seminar | For Scholars
In the upheavals, wars, and revolutions that shaped Central and Eastern Europe in the long nineteenth century, Jews found themselves both as victims of violence and as active participants. Dr Jan Rybak analyses the recurring phenomenon of Jewish armed self-organisation and self-defence. Jews participated in the violent transformation of the region, fighting simultaneously for their own protection and their emancipation and to reshape the societies in which they lived.
This research project studies the growth of the Yiddish press internationally in the years 1890-1920 and the extent of its capacity to articulate, mediate, contribute to, and delimit modern Jewish politics and culture, as well as intervene in transnational phenomena such as antisemitism and the White Slave Trade.
In an age of populism and nationalism it is more important than ever to understand the connections between antisemitism and other forms of racialization.
Professor David Feldman, Director
