In the last weeks of July 2024, anti-Israel activists at New York University (NYU) rebranded their Palestine Solidarity Committee as The People’s Solidarity Coalition. They expressed their willingness to embrace “armed struggle” alongside non-violence on college campuses, uniting 44 NYU-affiliated organizations, including groups like The Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine and Jews Against Zionism. Their mission is “the end of the Zionist entity.”
In this hostile context, the updated version of A Brief and Visual History of Antisemitism by Israel B. Bitton is a welcome addition to educate the public, particularly Jewish students.
Through its analysis of antisemitism from ancient to modern times, this comprehensive 617-page volume aims to inform young people and empower individuals amid today’s “avalanche of anti-Jewish invective.” Bitton engages readers with questions like “When, where, and how did antisemitism first emerge? How did the disease of Jew-hatred spread so far and wide?”
The book questions the resilience and mutations of antisemitism, illustrating its damaging expressions on university campuses with powerful and frightening posters about “Israeli Apartheid Week.” Bitton uses data from the AMCHA Initiative, a non-partisan organization that documents, investigates, and combats antisemitism on US college campuses, to convey the impact of anti-Jewish hostility on Jewish students. Strengthening Jewish identity could help students face the aggression of peers and the hostility of faculty involved in student activism.
As an added feature, the book uses augmented reality (AR) technology, allowing readers to use an app on their phones for an immersive perspective on historical landmarks. Copious endnotes cover crucial subjects like the plight of Jewish displaced persons in DP camps after World War II, general Patton’s antisemitism, and postwar pogroms in Europe, along with scholarly references and memoirs, providing a deeper understanding of these events’ impact on the creation of the State of Israel.
How can students unlearn biased information?
Today, in the aftermath of the October 7 massacre perpetrated by Hamas in Israel, readers may ask: “How can students unlearn biased information?” This book, published in 2022, offers a historical perspective and linguistic reflection that provides a useful tool at a time when many Jewish students lack the historical knowledge to argue against biased professors and fellow students whose information comes from antisemitic social networks.
Countering innocuous wording that masks bias, ignorance, and ideology is a challenging endeavor. The alarming increase of antisemitism following the October 7 massacre is impressive in universities funded by billions of dollars from Qatar, as Charles Asher Small, executive director of ISGAP (Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy), has revealed in The Jerusalem Report and The Jerusalem Post.
Dedicated to countering social hatred through data, media, and education, Bitton serves as executive director of Americans Against Antisemitism. His visually engaging coffee-table book may not cover every key antisemitic event, such as the Durban conferences, initiated by the United Nations to fight racism but which turned out to single out the state of the Jews and fueled virulent anti-Israel sentiment. Though extremely informative, this book is not a scholarly history of antisemitism. The author vividly takes sides and does not mince his words, since he knows deep inside that antisemitism can kill: his father and his brother were nearly murdered in the 1991 Crown Heights riots. The questions his book raises are most relevant for Jews and non-Jews alike. They lead us to reflect on crucial terms such as “apartheid” and “genocide” and to weigh the now ingrained anti-Israel bias. His reflection on the fundamentals defining antisemitism and its core ingredients, while deconstructing the linguistic mechanisms at work, are most helpful today. With powerful illustrations (often derisive and humorous), Bitton attempts to debunk myths that, if left unchallenged, can threaten the security of Jews in the United States and other countries where conspiracy theories and misleading narratives are rampant.
Bitton’s commitment to the transmission of Jewish memory will certainly strengthen the vanishing Jewish identity of many individuals. The pride that emerges from the awareness of Jewish resilience and achievements after the Holocaust can only invigorate and empower those who have to cope with anti-Jewish attitudes.■
Dr. Françoise Ouzan is the author of True to My God and Country: How Young Holocaust Survivors Rebuilt Their Lives (Indiana University Press, Studies in Antisemitism); and Leaving Tomorrow, a novel about Jewish displaced persons. Her books in French include Demain, nous partons; and Réussir pour revivre.