From Theory to Practice: Fighting Antisemitism in Education

Interview conducted by Lindsey Bodner, Executive Director of the Naomi Foundation

Edited for length and clarity

This fall’s political violence, alongside leaders who mainstream ideologies that fuel it, has made one thing unmistakably clear: education is not a neutral space—it’s where our civic values are formed or fractured.

In a conversation hosted by the Naomi Foundation, I had the privilege of speaking with Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt and Professor Vivek Venkatesh about antisemitism within schools of education. The dialogue explores the nature of the threats we face and how educators and institutions can respond.

Lipstadt, one of the world’s leading historians of antisemitism and Holocaust denial, served as the U.S. Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism. Venkatesh serves as Dean of the Faculty of Education at McGill University and UNESCO Co-Chair on Preventing Radicalisation and Violent Extremism. The two met through the GW Institute on Antisemitism and Jewish Identity in Educational Settings, a Naomi Foundation–supported initiative that brings together faculty and administrators in schools of education to confront antisemitism in K–12 schools and on university campuses.

1. The Blind Spot in Teacher Preparation

Lindsey Bodner: Thank you both for being here. What role should schools of education play—not only in what they teach, but in the ideologies they legitimize or challenge?

Deborah Lipstadt: Schools of education, social work, and public health are among the most problematic areas in higher education. College students are malleable, but these are future leaders, and the trends of the past few decades are worrying. Post–October 7, those trends have only intensified.

You probably have a dozen such examples: Consider a required course at Columbia on the impact of settler‑colonialism on public health. Many operate within a rigid framework dividing the world into oppressed and oppressor. Jews are automatically cast as the latter.

I know I’m painting with a broad brush here, but it’s like chametz on Pesach—no mixing allowed. If you’re white, privileged, powerful, you’re an oppressor. If you’re a person of color, not privileged, not powerful, you’re oppressed. There’s no room for nuance—no matter how many Jews live in poverty or are themselves people of color. The ideology doesn’t allow it.

2. What Makes Antisemitism Different: Conspiracy Theory

LB: How would you guide administrators in schools of education to do better? Where do you start?

DL: Honestly, if they would be neutral, I would be happy. But to address antisemitism, first, they need to understand its nature. It’s a multi-tiered threat—not only to Jews, but to democracy, law, and social stability. It’s a prejudice like—and unlike—other prejudices. Unlike any other, it is also a conspiracy theory, used to disrupt and destabilize society at large. Addressing antisemitism isn’t about “being kind to Jews”—it’s about safeguarding democratic society.

What starts with the Jews rarely ends with the Jews. Because antisemitism is conspiratorial, it corrodes institutions, and attacks on Jews lead to attacks on others. I dislike the cliché “canary in the coal mine”—the canary is already dead. Still, how I describe this phenomenon, when meeting with federal agencies, law enforcement, intelligence agencies, etc, is ‘the flashing amber light.’ The actual red light may not be more antisemitism, but the flashing amber light of antisemitism is a harbinger of bad things to come. 

Vivek Venkatesh:
That’s something I came to understand more deeply during the ASJI fellowship. Antisemitism isn’t just another form of bias—it’s often a gateway to radicalization. In my own research with former right-wing extremists reintegrating into society, conspiracy thinking is everywhere.

DL:
Exactly. Antisemitism’s core is conspiracy. Look at the Epstein scandal—scroll any comment thread and you’ll find claims he worked for Mossad or that “the Jews” are hiding something.

VV:
It’s a textbook case of what my colleague Emily Laidlaw calls malinformation—not just misinformation, but deliberate, harmful distortion. And it spreads through both online and offline networks.

3. Practical Entry Points: Digital Literacy and Familiar Frames

LB:
Where should schools of education begin, especially when so much of the harmful rhetoric exists in online spaces? And how do you get through to faculty who may not see antisemitism as a pressing concern?

VV:
One effective strategy is to approach it through cyber-literacy. Students—and faculty—are often more willing to discuss how digital information ecosystems work than to address a specific group or prejudice directly.

Cyber-literacy trains educators to evaluate sources, question narratives, and teach students to do the same. From there, you can show how conspiracies, including antisemitism, take root and spread. It’s a bridge.

DL:
It meets people where they are, which I think is critical. I would recommend schools of education start by teaching about conspiracy thinking. Even intelligent, savvy people fall for conspiracy theories. I have a friend—she’ll say, “They say Hillary has Parkinson’s.” I’ll ask, “Who’s they?” She’ll say, “I read it online.” By the third question—“What’s the source?”—she gives up. That’s how fragile these narratives are.

I’m being blunt here: most faculty in education schools are left-leaning. They’re primed to see danger on the right. But antisemitism crosses ideological lines.

When we teach about conspiracies that led to violence at Mother Emanuel Church, Christchurch, or the Pulse nightclub, there’s already a framework people on the left can recognize. Then we can say: “Now let’s look at the oldest conspiracy theory—antisemitism.” Tactically, you start with something they already agree with, then build on it.

4. How Ideology Plays a Part in Conspiratorial Thinking

LB: How do we fight antisemitism when some refuse to recognize it—preferring to call it anti-Zionism or justify it in other ways?

DL: I’m often asked what causes antisemitism. I usually have two answers. First, antisemitism is a prejudice—by definition, irrational. If I were attacked by a bald man and decided to hate all bald men, you’d tell me I was crazy.

But when a prejudice aligns with a stereotype, people are more willing to accept it. If I were attacked by a Black man and became racist, some might say, “I get it.” So my point is: nothing can truly cause an irrational belief like antisemitism, nor dislodge it. It isn’t a logical response to a specific event. 

The best answer? As my friend Dr. Erica Brown says: “What causes antisemitism? Antisemitism.”

LB: They may be irrational, but antisemitic conspiracies don’t arise in a vacuum—they’re rooted in specific ideologies. Sometimes they come from Islamism, Marxism, fascism, or Nazism. How much of our work combatting antisemitism should focus on directly calling out instances of conspiratorial thinking, versus confronting the underlying ideologies that give rise to it?

DL: I don’t think it’s an either or. Antisemitic tropes—whether found in Islamism, Marxism, communism, or elsewhere—can be traced back to the New Testament’s account of the death of Jesus. In its telling, the Jews—specifically the Judeans, who had no real power—are portrayed as conspiring with Rome, the most powerful empire in the world, to execute an innocent, divine figure. That framing is itself a conspiracy theory, and it laid the foundation for centuries of antisemitism.

You see the same pattern in the Church’s blood libel, in certain Islamic narratives, in Martin Luther’s writings. Antisemitic conspiracy theories cross ideological lines and eras—they are not confined to right or left.

LB: Because conspiracy theories are so irrational, it’s hard to stop them. It’s very hard to “prove” something illogical is untrue.

DL: Exactly.

5. Handling Controversy on Campus and the “Parity Police”

LB:
How should universities handle controversial speakers? What responsibility do administrators have in articulating the purpose of larger conversations taking place on campus?

VV:
We need to distinguish between freedom of expression and academic freedom. Freedom of expression is a public right, but academic freedom comes with responsibilities and values. As educators, we need to be intentional. A university is not obliged to offer a platform just because someone has the right to speak.

We also need to separate the idea that’s being discussed from the person who is talking about it. We tend to vilify—or deify—speakers. But the phenomenon [they are discussing] exists separate and apart from the person.  We have to learn how to engage with a phenomenon on its own terms.

In practice, I think about whether bringing together polarized voices will lead to productive engagement—or just ignite a firestorm. I reject the notion that if you have a speaker on one side, you must bring in the ‘other side.’ 

LB: Like when discussing antisemitism, and someone insists on adding “Islamophobia, and all other forms of bigotry” as if antisemitism alone is not valid to address.

DL:
I write about what I call “parity police” in my book. Yes, we must oppose all forms of hatred, and you can’t be against one hatred and not against another, but pairing antisemitism with Islamophobia in every breath is often a false equivalence. Empirically, statistically, and historically, they are not the same. Antisemitism is an age-old, ubiquitous conspiracy theory; Islamophobia is prejudice or fear of a religion or its adherents. So in that sense, it is a categorical or ontological mistake or mispairing. 

There’s an example I’ve been exploring with how the National Lawyers Guild, a far left group which describes itself as an alternative to the American Bar Association, responded to the Tree of Life murders. They wrote a statement on ‘antisemitism and Islamophobia’—then shifted to Palestinian mistreatment. These were Jews murdered for being Jews. It had nothing to do with Islamophobia! That kind of reflexive pairing can itself be antisemitic—first it implies that [antisemitic violence] is somehow justified. And it implies that condemning antisemitism alone is suspect—that unless you also denounce Islamophobia in the same breath, you must be anti-Muslim. That’s an unfair and corrosive standard.

6. Teaching Through Discomfort

LB:
What about classroom dynamics? How do we help educators lead difficult conversations in environments where discomfort is often pathologized?

VV:
Discomfort is central to social pedagogy. But we rarely teach people to parse their discomfort—to ask, “What exactly am I uncomfortable with?” That’s where growth happens. Yet educators often bear the emotional cost.

I had a student become very upset when another student brought up the case of an arts professor who was fired for showing a historical drawing of the Prophet Mohammad. I hadn’t planned to discuss it—it came from a peer—but the situation escalated quickly.

What helped was shifting the discussion to how censorship relates to misogyny and art in Quebec. It gave students a foothold. After class, I checked in with the student who was upset. She didn’t want to talk—but came back the next week. She appreciated that I followed up with her and that the door had been left open for discussion.

LB:
Sometimes there is no neat bow to tie around these moments. And yet—that’s education.

DL:
I hear so often, “This makes me feel unsafe.” I hate that. Uncomfortable is not the same as unsafe.

7. The Schtoch: Transformative Dialogue

VV:
One thing I’m working on is building space for uncomfortable but transformational dialogue—hence the musical instruments behind me. They’re part of my creative research practice. I just returned from Guadalajara, where I collaborated with local artists to explore how art can address crises caused by cartel violence in Mexico. We explored how to construct frameworks for action through the arts. 

DL:
That reminds me of Susan Neiman’s book, Learning from the Germans, which I reviewed in the New York Times Literary Supplement. When people say the Civil War was about ‘states’ rights,’ [ in order to disabuse them of this notion,] Neiman asks a simple but revealing question: ‘States’ rights to do what?’ No one would say ‘states’ rights for taxation’ or ‘for militia,’ because those rights already existed. No—they meant ‘states’ rights to own people,’ meaning, slavery.

That method of piercing through euphemisms to expose underlying absurdity is essential. In Yiddish we call this the shtoch—a jab that helps people see how illogical a belief is. Your work uses artistic expression in that same way: to reveal contradictions and shift perception.

VV:
That’s what we need in education. Not just policy changes—but cultural tools that shift what and how we see.

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Learn more about the Institute on Antisemitism and Jewish Identity in Educational Settings, and stay tuned for more news about ways to address antisemitism in New York City schools.