Antisemitism has gone global, and the newly established Contemporary Antisemitism Studies Association is bringing an international reach and a sense of academic rigor to the study of the world’s oldest hatred.

The international academic group dedicated to the study of contemporary antisemitism was launched this week at the University of Haifa, as leading scholars across disciplines from around the world gathered there this week for the Contemporary Antisemitism Haifa 2026 conference, one of the field’s largest gatherings. 

More than 150 academics have already signed on as founding members, and an advisory board of senior scholars in the field has been established to help guide the organization going forward.

The new organization grew out of a partnership among three institutions that have jointly organized this expanding conference series: the London Centre for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism, Gratz College in suburban Philadelphia and the Elizabeth and Tony Comper Center for the Study of Antisemitism and Racism at the University of Haifa. Under the arrangement, the London Centre will serve as CASA’s administrative center, Gratz College will host its new academic journal and the Comper Center will build out CASA’s international research hub and fellowship programs. 

Organizers called the launch a milestone for antisemitism studies as a formal academic field. CASA aims to unite researchers from diverse disciplines under one professional umbrella, building infrastructure the field has lacked — international conferences, research networks, a peer-reviewed journal, a book series and a research hub — while also connecting findings to policymakers and educators. Organizers said the initiative reflects the field’s rapid growth, with more scholars from more countries and disciplines now engaged in the topic.

The Haifa conference featured panels and addresses over three days, with speakers including Emory historian and former U.S. antisemitism envoy Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt, French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy and sociologist Karin Stögner, among others.

CASA’s founders — the London Centre’s David Hirsh, Gratz College’s Ayal Feinberg and University of Haifa’s David Barak-Gorodetsky — described the association as putting a formal structure around a research community that has been growing informally for years. 

David Hirsh, academic director and CEO of the London Centre, said CASA is committed to putting “all aspects of contemporary antisemitism — including anti-Zionist antisemitism — on the table for discussion, without prejudice.” Hirsh described the association’s planned journal, symposia and research hub as the “academic infrastructure” needed to build the network of scholarship and define the field.

Tal-Or Cohen Montemayor, the founder of online antisemitism tracker CyberWell who attended the Haifa conference, said the gathering offered a useful outside perspective on her organization’s own work. “Listening to both the experts and the new research initiatives… has been helpful in terms of filling in the gaps of some of our own challenges in the AI development that CyberWell is doing,” she said, adding that the conference’s AI-focused track shaped how her organization is approaching solutions for online antisemitism. 

Cohen Montemayor said CASA is filling a role as “a holistic convener bringing different academic and research perspectives” to bear on contemporary antisemitism. But she said one key audience was largely missing from the room: philanthropic funders. “The philanthropic community is the heart and bloodline for new civil society initiatives, and they too have a gap in understanding this new research and new tech,” she said, adding that she’d recommend CASA actively invite funders to future conferences.

Asked what the point of studying antisemitism is if — as many argued at the conference — the phenomenon itself can’t be fixed, Jacob Laviel Dallal, managing director of the University of Haifa’s Comper Center, pointed to where he sees today’s antisemitism actually coming from. “Much of antisemitism today manifests as anti-Zionism,” he said. “The intellectual basis for today’s anti-Zionism was born in Western universities over the last 20 to 30 years. So it is little wonder that today the university has become an increasingly unfriendly place for Jews.” 

He said reversing that trend has to start inside the academy itself. “We need to create space for a frank discussion within the academy on what Jew hate is today and where it comes from. This conference is here to help academics learn from their peers and then return to their institutions and create spaces within them for discussion of contemporary antisemitism.”

In a statement, CASA said that it will look at antisemitism across the ideological map, pointing to sources on the political right and left, in religious extremism and in contemporary anti-Zionist antisemitism. The association describes its own approach as built on academic rigor, evidence-based research and democratic values, while pushing back against antisemitic assumptions and discrimination wherever they show up in academic, cultural or public settings.

The Haifa conference drew a large international turnout. The gathering was originally scheduled for mid-March but had to be postponed after the war with Iran broke out in late February. 

By organizers’ account, it was the biggest academic gathering on the subject that Israel has hosted in years, with 547 attendees and scholars traveling from as far afield as Sri Lanka, India, Brazil and Colombia. Dallal called the turnout “unprecedented” for an academic conference on contemporary antisemitism and said the willingness of scholars to travel to Israel “under these security circumstances” reflected their determination to engage with the topic — and put the Comper Center “on the map as a leading academic center internationally” for antisemitism research.

The conference was funded through registration fees and support from institutional sponsors, including the Jewish National Fund, the City of Haifa, Taglit-Birthright Israel and Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism.

Among those who made the trip was Dammika Kulatunga, director of Sri Lanka’s Center for Research and Internship. “Antisemitism is actually centered on hatred — hating people,” he said. “Hatred is something very bad. You target a particular community or ethnic group and disseminate against them and verbally abuse them. This must not be done to any community.” Kulatunga said he hopes to bring what he learned home to educate people in Sri Lanka about Israel and the Jewish people.

Reflecting on why a field like this needs collaborative institutions like CASA, Julie Ancis, whose research focuses on the intersection of psychology and technology at the New Jersey Institute of Technology and who delivered a keynote at the conference, framed the conference in more academic terms.

“Academics provide the theoretical and empirical grounding to this work,” she said, pointing to her own research on social media influencers as an example. “Is this making a difference? Is it effective? Can we change the antisemitic narratives we are seeing online? From an empirical research perspective, we need that.”