Contemporary Antisemitism Enters a New Stage

by Paul Spoonley

The anxieties of the COVID years, combined with a vitriolic online environment and the events in Israel/Gaza, have intensified but also changed aspects of contemporary antisemitism, I would argue.

There is an emotional and conspiratorial tone to much of the commentary, with a significant rise in hostility and hate online.

There is, what Jonathan Boyd, writing for the Institute for Jewish Policy Research (UK), calls “ambient antisemitism” – Jews experiencing antisemitism that is not directed at them personally.

And the politics and possibilities of responding have become more challenging and, at times, ineffective. It feels as though those who want to understand and oppose contemporary antisemitism are largely talking to those who are sympathetic, with little chance to influence other bubbles.

I will try to unpack this as I see it, but also raise some questions that I am struggling to answer.

Distinguished Professor Emeritus Paul Spoonley FRSNZ

Paul was Pro Vice-Chancellor of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Massey University, New Zealand, from 2013 to 2019.

He was then appointed as an advisor to the Commissioner of Police and in 2022, was appointed as the Co-Director of He Whenua Taurikura (National Centre for Countering Violent Extremism) by PM Jacinda Ardern.

Paul is a Fellow of the Auckland Museum and a Board member, a Visiting Researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Göttingen, and he was a Fulbright Senior Scholar at the University of California Berkeley in 2010.

He is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand. Paul is the author or editor of 29 books, the most recent being The New New Zealand. Facing Demographic Disruption (2021) and Histories of Hate. The Radical Right in Aotearoa New Zealand (2023).

He has researched and written on demographic change in Aotearoa New Zealand, white supremacy and antisemitism, immigration policy, and the impacts of diversity.

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