Bibliographic Information
Neuberger, Julia, Antisemitism: What It Is, What It Isn't, Why It Matters (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2019)
ISBN: 978-1-4746-1240-1

Summary

Julia Neuberger, a distinguished British rabbi and university chancellor wrote this elegant treatment of antisemitism. Her book, published in 2019, is reasoned, and persuasive.

She opens with a concise presentation of the historical development of antisemitism. The focus shifts to the British Jewish community’s recent experience with overt expressions of antisemitism in British society. While events in the British Labour Party were the presenting issue, Neuberger is careful to note groups and individuals’ troubling public conduct on the right. Finally, she notes the connections to other prejudices, most strikingly to the problem of Islamophobia in Britain.

Context

It may be Rabbi Neuberger’s perspective as a community religious leader that led her away from the strident style that can afflict anti-antisemitic literature. In this context, her book can serve as a model for a perhaps more effective way to address education meant to sensitize students to oppose bigotry in general and antisemitism in particular.

Style

Neuberger writes elegantly, concisely, and clearly.

Classroom

This book is useful in its presentation of the history of antisemitic prejudice in societies rooted in Christianity and Islam, Nineteenth and Twentieth Century iterations of antisemitism as race-based ideology, and questions around anti-Zionism as antisemitism. Teachers will want to bear in mind that Neuberger’s British focus can work in two ways. It can make the book difficult to use for non-British students who may not be aware of the events in Britain that drove Rabbi Neuberger to write. On the other hand, sometimes distance can help non-British students to greater understanding by giving them a sense of how a topic applies in a society where they may have no personal stake. It can also help them to see antisemitism as a global phenomenon.