ANTISEMITISM FOR EGGHEADS

Wondering why anti-Jewish ideas seem the rage on campuses? There’s a reason.

What Oxford has become.

To understand modern antisemitism, you have to start with a paradox.

The Enlightenment was supposed to kill it.

Before the Enlightenment, antisemitism in Europe was relatively straightforward. It was theological. Jews were hated as a religious minority — accused of rejecting Christianity, blamed for the death of Jesus, segregated by law, excluded from professions, and confined to ghettos. It was ugly, explicit, and rooted in doctrine.

Then came the Enlightenment. Reason replaced revelation. Science replaced superstition. Intellectuals congratulated themselves for transcending the crude prejudices of the past.

And, for a moment, it looked like they had.

The old language of antisemitism — openly religious, explicitly theological — became unfashionable. You could no longer credibly denounce Jews as Christ-killers in an age that prided itself on rationality.

So antisemitism adapted.

The hatred remained, but the justification evolved. The religious accusation gave way to something far more modern — and far more insidious. Jews were no longer condemned for what they believed, but for who they are.

The Enlightenment overlapped somewhat with the age of nationalism, and identity shifted from religious affiliation to racial or national. Jews were recast not as religious outsiders, but as racial, ethnic, and national outsiders.

They were also, though, condemned not only for who they were, but for what they allegedly did.

They were denounced as financiers manipulating economies, shadowy actors pulling political strings, rootless cosmopolitans undermining national cohesion, and revolutionary agitators destabilizing societies from within.

In other words, antisemitism transformed not only from a theological prejudice into an ethnic prejudice, but importantly, into a conspiracy theory.

And conspiracy theories are uniquely attractive to people who believe themselves to be intelligent.

That is a key shift. Medieval antisemitism did not require intellectual sophistication. Enlightenment-era antisemitism did. It demanded a framework, a system, a theory of how the world really works beneath the surface. It allowed the believer to feel not just morally righteous, but intellectually superior — someone who sees what others cannot.

This is why modern antisemitism so often thrives in places we expect it least.

Not despite intelligence — but because of it.

There is a myth that education inoculates against prejudice. That exposure to ideas, to diversity, to critical thinking, naturally leads to tolerance. And in many cases, it does.

But it also creates a different vulnerability.

Educated people are particularly susceptible to sophisticated forms of irrationality — belief systems that present themselves as analytical, evidence-based, and morally urgent, while actually resting on deeply flawed premises. Conspiracy theories dressed up as critique. Prejudice reframed as insight.

Antisemitism fits that mold perfectly.

It offers a totalizing explanation for complex systems: finance, media, politics, globalization. It simplifies the chaos of the world into a coherent narrative. It identifies a hidden hand, a unifying force behind disparate phenomena. It turns confusion into clarity.

And it flatters the believer.

You are not misinformed. You are not biased. You are not bigoted.

You are perceptive. You are courageous. You are willing to challenge the dominant narrative.

This is catnip for people who think of themselves as thinkers.

Which brings us to today’s universities.

If there is any institution that should be resistant to this kind of thinking, it is the modern academy. It is supposed to be the home of critical inquiry, evidence-based reasoning, and intellectual humility.

And yet, again and again, universities have proven to be fertile ground for antisemitic ideas.

This is not new.

In fact, one of the most chilling historical precedents is the role of academia in Nazi Germany.

We like to imagine that the rise of Nazism was driven by uneducated masses, manipulated by propaganda and demagoguery. There is truth to that. But it is only part of the story.

German universities were not passive observers. They were crucial, active participants.

Professors, researchers, and intellectuals helped construct the pseudo-scientific frameworks that underpinned Nazi ideology. Racial “science,” eugenics, and theories of cultural degeneration were developed, refined, and legitimized within academic institutions.

The Nazis did not reject academia. They co-opted it.

They understood that to make their ideology durable, it needed intellectual scaffolding. It needed to be argued, systematized, and defended by people with credentials.

And they found plenty of Great Thinkers willing to do it.

This should permanently shatter the illusion that intelligence alone is a safeguard against antisemitism.

If anything, intelligence can make antisemitism more dangerous — because it makes it more persuasive.

Fast-forward to today, and the parallels are uncomfortable.

Antisemitism in contemporary academic environments rarely looks like the crude bigotry of the past. It is not typically expressed in explicitly racial or religious terms (though, increasingly, it is). Instead, it is embedded in frameworks, discourses, and theories that present themselves as morally and intellectually rigorous.

It shows up in the language of power and oppression, of colonialism and resistance, of structural analysis and systemic critique.

And to be clear, those frameworks are not inherently antisemitic. Many are valuable and necessary tools for understanding the world.

The problem arises when they are applied selectively — or when they are stretched to fit a predetermined conclusion.

When Jews are recast not as a vulnerable minority, but as a uniquely powerful oppressor class. When Israel is not merely criticized, but transformed into a singular embodiment of global injustice. When Jewish identity is flattened into political caricature.

Once again, antisemitism in new bottles offers the same aged wine, the fragrant, seductive appeal: a comprehensive explanation to the world’s confusion, a simple answer to tough questions, a sense of intellectual and ethical superiority.

The student who embraces it does not feel like a bigot. They feel like an activist. A critic. A truth-teller. A thinker, even.

That is what makes it so effective.

And so dangerous.

Because it allows antisemitism to persist in spaces that pride themselves on opposing all forms of prejudice. It allows it to be expressed not in spite of those values, but in the name of them.

The Enlightenment did not eliminate antisemitism. It upgraded it.

It took a blunt instrument and turned it into a precision tool. It replaced open hostility with coded language, overt exclusion with intellectual justification, raw prejudice with elaborate theory.

And in doing so, it made antisemitism compatible with modernity.

Even — especially — with sophistication.

Which brings us back to the present.

If we want to understand why antisemitism continues to surface in universities, in intellectual circles, in spaces that define themselves by reason and progress, we have to abandon the comforting assumption that these environments are immune.

They are so obviously not.

They are simply the latest arena in which antisemitism has adapted.

The question is not why it exists there.

The question is why we are still surprised.

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