Quick Take
- Narration: Simon Schatzberger brings an appropriately serious, composed delivery to David Hirsh’s academic argumentation, clear and unhurried in a way that allows the more complex analytical passages to register.
- Themes: Antisemitism in progressive spaces, the politics of accusation, Israel-criticism versus Jew-hatred
- Mood: Rigorous and urgent, scholarly in method, political in stakes
- Verdict: One of the most careful analyses of how antisemitism survives in ostensibly tolerant spaces, essential listening for anyone trying to think clearly about one of contemporary politics’ most contested questions.
I came to David Hirsh’s book during a period when the debate about antisemitism in left and liberal spaces had become almost impossible to have productively. The terms had been weaponized in both directions. Accusations of antisemitism were dismissed as political bad faith; defenses of legitimate Israel criticism were treated as cover for Jew-hatred. What I found in Hirsh’s book was something I had not expected to find: a rigorous, patient, and intellectually honest attempt to actually think through the problem rather than score points within it.
Hirsh is a sociologist at Goldsmiths, University of London, and a longtime member of the Labour Party left. He is not approaching this subject as a conservative critic of progressive politics. He is approaching it as someone who has been inside the institutions he examines, trade unions, left-wing parties, academic seminars, progressive social circles, and who has watched, with increasing alarm, how antisemitism gets transmitted through those spaces while remaining unacknowledged or actively defended.
Our Take on Contemporary Left Antisemitism
The book’s central analytical contribution is the concept of the Livingstone Formulation, the rhetorical move by which anyone who raises the issue of antisemitism is accused of doing so in bad faith, as a smear or an attempt to silence. Hirsh identifies this pattern as itself a form of antisemitic exclusion: it removes Jewish experience and Jewish testimony from the conversation about what constitutes antisemitism. This is the kind of observation that is both obvious once named and genuinely invisible before someone names it.
He is also careful about the Israel-criticism distinction. He does not argue that criticism of Israel is inherently antisemitic. He argues that there are specific patterns of Israel-criticism, the recycling of classic antisemitic tropes (Jewish power, Jewish conspiracy, Jewish disloyalty) as commentary on Israeli policy, that cross a line that other political criticism does not cross. The distinction is analytical rather than political, and Hirsh works hard to keep it that way.
Why Listen to Contemporary Left Antisemitism
The reviewers here, spanning from 2017 to 2021, describe a book that proved prescient long before the events of October 2023 and its aftermath made the questions it raises impossible to ignore. One reviewer describes watching progressive friends share memes that replaced the Star of David with a swastika, and turning to Hirsh’s framework to understand what was happening. That testimonial captures something important: this is scholarship that is useful for people trying to process real experiences in real communities, not only for academic specialists.
Schatzberger’s narration suits the academic register of the text without making it feel remote. At thirteen hours, the content is dense, but Hirsh’s prose, analytical without being jargon-heavy, holds up in audio better than many books in the social science space.
What to Watch For in Contemporary Left Antisemitism
This is a book with a clear argumentative position, and readers who come to it hoping for pure neutrality will not find it. Hirsh believes contemporary left antisemitism is a real and serious phenomenon, and his book is structured to demonstrate that thesis. Those who disagree with his foundational premises will engage with it as a book to argue against rather than a book to learn from, which is not illegitimate, but is worth knowing going in.
The book also deals primarily with the British context, the Labour Party, British trade unions, British academic institutions, though many of its patterns are recognizable across Western left politics. Listeners primarily interested in the American context will find the analysis transferable but will need to make some adjustments.
Who Should Listen to Contemporary Left Antisemitism
Anyone who has found themselves confused or troubled by the antisemitism debates within progressive political spaces will find Hirsh’s framework genuinely clarifying. People who study or work within trade unions, religious institutions, or academic environments, the specific spaces Hirsh analyzes, will recognize dynamics the book names with precision. Those who approach the Israel-Palestine conflict primarily through the frame of one side’s justice claims may find this challenging; it asks for a different kind of attention than advocacy literature. And anyone trying to distinguish legitimate political criticism from something more troubling will find Hirsh’s analytical tools more useful than most of what is available on this subject.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does David Hirsh argue that all criticism of Israel is antisemitic?
No, explicitly not. Hirsh’s argument is carefully distinguished, he identifies specific patterns of Israel-criticism that replicate classical antisemitic tropes, and distinguishes those from legitimate political criticism. The distinction is one of his central analytical concerns throughout the book.
Is this book primarily about British politics, or does it apply to American and other Western contexts?
The primary examples are drawn from British institutions, Labour Party, British trade unions, British universities. The analytical framework, however, describes patterns that are recognizable across Western progressive politics. American readers will find the analysis applicable with some adjustment for different institutional contexts.
What is the Livingstone Formulation that Hirsh describes?
The Livingstone Formulation is Hirsh’s term for the rhetorical move that accuses anyone raising the issue of antisemitism of doing so in bad faith, as a smear or an attempt to silence political opposition. Hirsh argues this move is itself a form of exclusion because it disqualifies Jewish testimony from the conversation about what constitutes antisemitism.
Is this an academic text or is it accessible to general readers?
It sits between the two. Hirsh is a sociologist and the analytical method is rigorous, but the writing avoids heavy jargon and the examples are drawn from events that politically engaged general readers will recognize. Listeners who follow political commentary rather than academic journals will be able to follow the argument throughout.
