By Lianne Kolirin
The British historian Sir Simon Schama has spoken out about the “toxic” spread of antisemitism in popular culture since 7 October 2023.
He said that the rise of anti-Jewish hatred was “extremely upsetting” before the events of that day, but that the hatred had now spread like an “infection”.
Sir Simon described the “trivialisation and debasement” of Holocaust memory by controversial public figures with vast social media followings.
He singled out disgraced rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, for the design of his latest album which he said was “nothing more than an enormous swastika”; and the billionaire Elon Musk for doing the “heil salute twice in a public setting”.
The remarks were part of a keynote lecture that Sir Simon delivered at the Contemporary Antisemitism London 2025 conference at the JW3 centre this week. It came days before the screening of his latest film, Simon Schama: The Road to Auschwitz, which airs on BBC2 on 7 April.
Despite having written extensively about Jewish history and the holocaust, Sir Simon — who was born two weeks after the liberation of Auschwitz — had never previously visited the Nazi death camp.
“It’s when you see this really horrifying transfusion of this toxin into popular culture, when it’s coupled with data from the Anti-Defamation League and the Claims Conference that it’s the younger generation … who are least likely to be familiar with the Holocaust and are most likely to dismiss its magnitude, that really if you happen to be in a position to get to make the kind of film that I have, that you want to grab that opportunity,” he said.
The documentary sees Sir Simon travel to mass killing sites in Lithuania, the home of his mother’s family, and to the Netherlands — a nation famed for its long history of tolerance — to reveal how deep-rooted prejudice was weaponised across the continent to turn people against their Jewish neighbours.
Speaking at JW3, he said that he feels the Holocaust memory “has, in a way, been reduced to Anne Frank on the one hand and Auschwitz on the other”. He explained this by saying he believes the memory of the Holocaust has been de-Judaised and made more palatable for a broad audience.
His film, he said, was an attempt to “reanimate Jewish presence” and “resist the temptation to dilute, to moderate, to universalise”.
Jointly hosted by the London Centre for Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and the Comper Center for the Study of Antisemitism at the University of Haifa in Israel, the three-day conference attracted about 300 academics and 100 other participants from as far afield as Brazil, Australia and India to come together for what they hope will become an annual event.
Tensions have been growing on campuses around the world — both for students and staff alike — since the Israel-Gaza war erupted. This conference, according to the organisers, aimed to provide a “safe space” for academics to discuss and debate contemporary antisemitism in all its guises.
Other keynote speakers included Jan Grabowski, a Polish-Canadian history professor at the University of Ottawa who was threatened by the Polish government for writing about Polish collaboration in the Holocaust. Pamela Nadell, who served on the US Congress committee for combating antisemitism, also spoke at the conference.
Attendees heard lectures on subjects ranging from antisemitism in gender studies to the roles of AI and social media. The surge in antisemitism over the past 18 months could clearly be seen as a global phenomenon, though with different characteristics in different parts of the world.
That came across particularly starkly in a session on Monday entitled The Experience of Being Boycotted. This featured panellists from the UK, South Africa, Israel, Finland, and the United States who had all been “boycotted” since 7 October over their attempts to confront antisemitism in the public arena.
Chairing the debate was Professor Dibyesh Anand, deputy vice-chancellor at the University of Westminster, who said he had been criticised for refusing to join efforts to boycott Israeli academics.
He said that while he was not Jewish nor an expert in antisemitism, he regarded this cancel culture as “an attack on the humanity of Jews”, as well as democracy and liberal values. He added: “Jewish students and colleagues in universities have as much as a right to flourish as to be safe [on campus].”
The conference was deemed a “huge success” by organisers Professor David Hirsh, academic director and chief executive of the London Centre for Study of Contemporary Antisemitism, and Dr David Barak-Gorodetsky, director of the Comper Centre.
“Scholars of antisemitism, and scholars who engage with antisemitism in their disciplines, have stepped outside of the hostile environment in which they generally have to work, to discuss their research in a uniquely open, supportive and rigorous community of scholarship,” they said in closing comments, as they announced that follow-up events would be staged in Haifa and then Philadelphia over the next two years.
“This is quickly establishing itself as the annual academic conference on the subject of contemporary antisemitism, a field that is crucially important to the health of the universities, to our democracy, and above all, to the safety and wellbeing of Jews.”
