As the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) announces a formal enquiry into antisemitism in the UK Labour party, the Fathom Highlight features three pieces on the roots and nature of contemporary antisemitism and the strategies needed to defeat it. Shalom Lappin argues that because profound economic and social changes over 40 years have produced anti-globalist movements of left and right which are now using anti-Jewish demonology to identify the ‘enemy’ within and without, fighting antisemitism must also mean efforts to restore our frayed social contract. British commentator on contemporary left antisemitism in the Labour Party, Keith Kahn Harris, explores themes from his latest book, Strange Hate: Antisemitism, Racism and the Limits of Diversity. And Dan Davison pays tribute to the late social theorist and activist Robert Fine whose writings on Israel, Palestine and antisemitism were a sophisticated challenged to antisemitic forms of ‘anti-Zionism’ found on the far-left. Finally, we remind readers of the 2019 Fathom Report, Institutionally Antisemitic: Contemporary Left Antisemitism and the Crisis in the British Labour Party.

Our Voice of the Week is The Washington Institute’s Soref Fellow Phillip Smyth talking about his new comprehensive research project of Shia militias across the Middle East, charting their location, movements, ties to Iran, and involvements in conflicts in Iraq and Syria.

Our Image of the Week is residents checking what is left of their homes after the devastating forest fire that wiped out most of Mevo Modi’im, near Ben Shemen Forest, 26 May 2019. Photo by Hadas Parush. Flash90.

The Re-emergence of the Jewish Question

by Shalom Lappin