Academics from more than 15 countries gathered at Oxford University on Sunday to take part in the ISGAP-Oxford Summer Institute for Antisemitism Studies, amid a worldwide explosion of antisemitism and unlawful anti-Israel encampments in university campuses around the world.
“The struggle against antisemitism must be led by intelligent and proud Jewish people connected to our culture and who stand up for the rights of Israel and Jewish people. By doing so, we will gain the respect of our allies,” Dr. Charles Asher Small, founder and executive director of ISGAP (the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy), told JNS in Oxford on Monday.
“We have to be strong; we have to be at the forefront but we also have to connect with our allies. We have amazing allies around the world, Muslims, Christians, Hindus, even from opposite ends of the political spectrum, we have good friends, but we have to be at the forefront,” he said.
The program, which kicked off at St Catherine’s College, will last until Aug. 9. Faculty members, joining from across the globe, will receive guidance in building antisemitism courses that they will teach.
“All these professors, Jewish and non-Jewish, are going to teach their students at their home university. It is creating a discipline of contemporary antisemitism studies and this should be open to scholars everywhere who care about discrimination and hate in society,” Small said.
Small, a prominent Canadian scholar who heads the U.S.-based ISGAP NGO, explained that what currently happens in universities all over the world in the battle of ideas will become normative with the larger society within a generation or two.
“If they are learning to hate Israel, if they learn that Israel is an apartheid, racist state… from the liberal human rights perspective, a Nazi apartheid racist state doesn’t have the moral authority to exist and has to be dismantled,” he said.
“We have to change the discourse of academia. The war against Jewish people has been waged for two generations in higher education and I am afraid we are at a tipping point. We have to show up in the battle of ideas and create more scholars to teach and help change the discourse,” Small said.
At the conference, JNS met Providence Umugwaneza, who survived the 1994 Rwanda genocide of Tutsis at age 11.
“We all have to learn about antisemitism. Like one of the speakers said yesterday, antisemitism starts with the Jews but doesn’t necessarily end with the Jews. I was shocked after what happened on October 7, that something like this could happen again after the Holocaust,” Umugwaneza, founder of the Kabeho Neza Initiative and a member of the Texas Holocaust and Antisemitism Commission, told JNS.
“After this, I’m going to Texas to speak to our African community. We have a huge community there, and they have to be educated about the Holocaust, genocide, antisemitism and the rise of hatred in our community,” she continued.
“It’s important to be able to educate them and counter ignorance for them to take the lead. They need to be able to identify hatred and when it’s happening, because this is not about Jews, this is about humankind,” Umugwaneza said.
Bahraini peace activist Fatema Alharbi, the Gulf affairs director at Sharaka (“Partnership” in Arabic), also participated in the program.
Sharaka, an NGO established in 2020 by leaders from Israel, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates after the signing of the Abraham Accords, aims to shape a new and peaceful Middle East through dialogue, understanding, cooperation, and ultimately friendship.
“We have a program where we bring people mostly from the Abraham Accords countries to educate them about the Holocaust and antisemitism. We hope to change their minds toward a peaceful future in the Middle East,” Alharbi told JNS.
“Following the Hamas October 7 attack, we saw people celebrating the death of others. The idea of people celebrating death in Islam is not appropriate. That’s why I work in this field as a Muslim woman, I want to educate people that what has been happening since October 7 is not the real Islam,” Alharbi said.
In Oxford, Professor Abderrahim Chhaibi, from Mohammed V University in Rabat, explained to JNS the origins of Moroccan antisemitism.
“It’s important to speak about antisemitism in Morocco because it’s a matter of history. The Jews have been an integral part of Morocco’s history for 3,000 years or more. And Moroccan Jews were the victims of classical antisemitism,” Chhaibi said.
Classical antisemitism, Chhaibi continued, helped maintain the attachment and the devotion of Muslims to Islam. An example of classical antisemitism he cited was how Jews were in the past not allowed to enter, or even pass near, a mosque and were only allowed to work in jobs unsuitable for Muslims.
“After Morocco gained its independence [in 1956], many ideologies were embraced including [that of] the Muslim Brotherhood and the ideologies of Arab nationalism. With both ideologies came the neo-antisemitism mixed with elements of European antisemitism, which found roots in classical antisemitism,” Chhaibi said.
“It’s important to protect Morocco’s Jewish heritage. We must protect Morocco’s identity and its multiculturalism, its Jewish, African, Amazigh and Mediterranean heritage and not reduce it to its Arab character,” he added.
Aside from academics, the summer institute also enrolled a few selected students including its youngest, a 15-year-old attending a private school in Manhattan.
“It is very important for me as a student in a school where there has been antisemitism to come here and learn so I can help my community,” the girl told JNS.
“Even before October 7, my little brother was eating lunch in the cafeteria and a fellow student stood up and started screaming that he hates all Jewish people. My brother was scared, it took him weeks to tell us. My mom was furious. The school did nothing. Since October 7 it’s gotten worse,” she added.
“Even five years before October 7, when my little brother was in second grade and eating lunch in the cafeteria, a fellow student stood on a lunch table and started screaming that he hates all Jewish people. My brother was scared, it took him weeks to tell us.
“My mom was angry and asked the school for help. The school did nothing, claiming that because the incident took place two weeks before we reported it, it was too late and there was nothing they could do. Since October 7, there have been many more attacks and bullying of Jewish students,” she added.
The girl’s mother came looking for tools for herself and fellow parents to deal with rampant antisemitism in schools.
“A lot of the parents try to help their children but they don’t know how. We have meetings with the school administration, the teachers. Sometimes the results are good, and sometimes you just feel like you are hitting your head against a wall,” she said.
As for her daughter, she said, “We’re very involved with the Latin American community and Chinese community and there is a lot of antisemitism there.
The people she works with in these communities love our daughter. This is an opportunity for her to gain tools and knowledge to be able to effectively reach out to those communities to help stop or prevent antisemitism from spreading.”