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.
“The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till” (2005), produced and directed by Keith Beauchamp, presents a compelling examination of racism in 1950s America. This award winning documentary, which took over nine years to complete, examines the circumstances surrounding the murder of Emmett Till and the outrage that followed.
In this seminar Valentina Pisanty asks whether over the last twenty years the simultaneous growth of Holocaust memorialisation and racism are two independent historical threads, or whether there is a connection between them? She asks whether a society which wishes to oppose the current wave of xenophobia should examine this contradiction?
This lecture looks at popular suspicions that Jack the Ripper was a Jewish migrant and the reactions to these accusations among Jews. By looking at contemporary reportage in newspapers we will see how readers and writers used print media to draw attention to the boundaries between ‘Englishman’ and foreigner, fact and fiction, and the limits of religious certitude in the face of inexplicable evil.
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.
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.
We build alliances to promote knowledge and share understanding, making our work ever-more relevant in a world threatened by populisms and conspiracy theories from the political left and right
Professor David Feldman, Director
