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Contemporary Left Antisemitism
- Narrated by: Simon Schatzberger
- Length: 13 hrs
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Contemporary Left Antisemitism
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Publisher's Summary
Today’s antisemitism is difficult to recognize because it does not come dressed in a Nazi uniform and it does not openly proclaim its hatred or fear of Jews. This book looks at the kind of antisemitism which is tolerated or which goes unacknowledged in apparently democratic spaces: trade unions, churches, left-wing and liberal politics, social gatherings of the chattering classes and the seminars and journals of radical intellectuals. It analyses how criticism of Israel can mushroom into antisemitism and it looks at struggles over how antisemitism is defined. It focuses on ways in which those who raise the issue of antisemitism are often accused of doing so in bad faith in an attempt to silence or smear.
Hostility to Israel has become a signifier of identity, connected to opposition to imperialism, neo-liberalism and global capitalism; the "community of the good" takes on toxic ways of imagining most living Jewish people.
What the critics say
"For more than a decade, David Hirsh has campaigned courageously against the all-too-prevalent demonisation of Israel as the one nationalism in the world that must not only be criticised but ruled altogether illegitimate. This intellectual disgrace arouses not only his indignation but his commitment to gather evidence and to reason about it with care. What he asks of his readers is an equal commitment to plumb how it has happened that, in a world full of criminality and massacre, it is obsessed with the fundamental wrongheadedness of one and only national movement: Zionism." — Todd Gitlin, Professor of Journalism and Sociology, Columbia University, USA
"David Hirsh is one of our bravest and most thoughtful scholar-activists. In this excellent book of contemporary history and political argument, he makes an unanswerable case for anti-anti-Semitism." — Anthony Julius, Professor of Law and the Arts, UCL, and author of Trials of the Diaspora (OUP, 2010).
"David Hirsh writes as a sociologist, but much of the material in his fascinating book will be of great interest to people in other disciplines as well, including political philosophers. Having participated in quite a few of the events and debates which he recounts, Hirsh has done a commendable service by deftly highlighting an ugly vein of bigotry that disfigures some substantial portions of the political left in the UK and beyond." — Matthew H. Kramer FBA, Professor of Legal & Political Philosophy, Cambridge University, UK