Let’s stop arguing about antisemitism and focus on researching it
- Written by: Weekend Times
Since the Bondi Beach terror attack last December, there has been heightened attention on antisemitism in Australia, as evidenced by the ongoing Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion.
As
with any form of prejudice, combating antisemitism requires understanding how it operates, why it persists over time and across populations, and how it can be addressed effectively. And as with all forms of prejudice, these questions cannot be answered without high-quality research.
Yet, research on antisemitism faces a double bind, which is preventing progress.
On one hand, there is too little of it in Australia. The size of the Jewish population and the assumption that general research on prejudice can sufficiently address antisemitism limit its funding appeal.
On the other hand, the research that does exist can be subjected to intense contestation, especially when findings do not align with commonly held viewpoints.
A review I conducted of journal articles published by Australia-affiliated academics between 1990 and 2025 demonstrates this effect. I identified only 173 articles on antisemitism, compared with 3,640 on racism.
More significantly, most articles were on historical forms of antisemitism, with only 26 presenting new empirical research. By contrast, 13 articles presented no new data. Instead, they disputed the presence of antisemitism or argued that claims of antisemitism were being weaponised for political purposes.
Australia is not alone. In 2024, a US research team published one of the first quantitative studies of antisemitism in the US healthcare sector. It was soon criticised in an editorial in another journal for its methods and analysis. The authors responded by pointing out their methods were on par with research on other forms of prejudice.
This creates a vicious cycle. A limited evidence base is used as a reason to question how widespread or serious the problem is. Efforts to strengthen that evidence base are then challenged over their definitions, samples, methods or alleged political motives.
What we learn when we study antisemitism
The recent special issue of the journal American Psychologist on antisemitism and psychology provides a useful illustration of what’s possible when experts focus on how antisemitism operates in practice.
Some articles tackled prior assumptions about antisemitism. My article with Wen Shan of the Singapore University of Social Sciences tackled the assumption that perceived Jewish success drives prejudice against Jews. We found that people in China admire Jewish success and try to emulate it, both materially and morally, suggesting envy is not necessarily a driver of antisemitism.
Similarly, Maria Babińska of Université Libre de Bruxelles and her colleagues found that in Poland and Germany, antisemitism was a predictor of Holocaust distortions, while Holocaust distortions were not a predictor of antisemitism. This suggests collective guilt over the Holocaust is not a driver of antisemitism.
Other articles examined the role of ideology. Britt Hadar of Reichman University in Israel found a key driver of anti-Jewish prejudice is the stereotyping of Jews as powerful. However, the rationale for this differs, depending on political ideology. Those on the right perceive Jews as threatening to the dominance of their own group, while those on the left perceive Jews as obstructing equality between people.
Jordan Moon of the University of Southampton and his colleagues examined how ideology impacts people’s responses to prejudice against Jews. They found progressives reacted more negatively than conservatives to someone expressing anti-Jewish prejudice without justification. However, this changed when prejudice was justified by opposition to Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.
And several studies addressed the complex relationship between antisemitism and perceptions of Israel. Johannes Due Enstad of the Norwegian Institute for Social Research found those who believe Israel’s treatment of Palestinians is equivalent to Nazi Germany’s treatment of Jews are more willing to justify harassment or violence against Jews.
Rutgers University psychologist Kent Harber and his colleagues found negative attitudes toward Israel were partly driven by stereotypes that Jews are dishonest, care only about their own group, consider themselves superior and expect special treatment.
These attitudes were also shaped by conspiracy beliefs portraying Israel as secretly engineering or exploiting conflict to advance its interests, and portraying Jewish organisations as using money, pressure and allegations of antisemitism to build support for Israel and suppress criticism.
Finally, Gal Gutman of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and Michael Gilead found negative Jewish stereotypes commonly found in the West also exist in large language models. This suggests artificial intelligence may reproduce and amplify anti-Jewish stereotypes.
What we need next
The key takeaway from these studies: antisemitism has distinctive features that cannot be assumed to operate in the same way as other forms of prejudice. This is why it warrants dedicated attention.
So let’s debate theories, challenge measures, improve samples and test competing explanations. But let’s not delegitimise research simply because we dislike the findings.
And to further advance our understanding of antisemitism, we need more research, involving larger studies. This will help us identify effective ways of reducing it.
Josh Keller is a member of the Australian Academic Alliance Against Antisemitism (5A).
