In June 2023, Ayal Feinberg was hired as the director of the Center for Holocaust Studies and Human Rights at Gratz College. By November of that year, he had already gotten approval for a first-of-its-kind master’s program in antisemitism studies at the Jewish college in Bala Cynwyd. The program debuted in 2024.

Now, Feinberg and Gratz are helping to formalize the study of antisemitism across the world.

During the Contemporary Antisemitism Studies Conference at the University of Haifa on July 7, Feinberg, Gratz, the London Centre for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism, and the Comper Center for the Study of Antisemitism and Racism at the University of Haifa announced the formation of the Contemporary Antisemitism Studies Association. The group includes more than 150 “leading international scholars of antisemitism and related fields,” according to a news release.

The association will establish “a scholarly infrastructure for the study of contemporary antisemitism.” Through its advisory board, CASA will plan annual conferences, publish an academic journal and maintain a research hub, among other activities. Its goal will be to coalesce research and findings on contemporary antisemitism into a body of knowledge that can inform responses and policies in governments, schools and other institutions.

It comes at a time when antisemitism is rising in the United States and across the globe.

The Anti-Defamation League has reported consistent increases in antisemitic incidents since around 2015. In a survey last year, the American Jewish Committee found that most Jews had experienced antisemitism online.

Political support for Israel also continues to decline: More House Democrats recently voted for an amendment to end $3.3 billion in aid to the Jewish state than the number that voted against the amendment. Vice President JD Vance, a Republican, also recently told a member of the Israeli cabinet that President Donald Trump was Israel’s last powerful ally left in the world.

“The association marks a significant milestone in the development of antisemitism studies as an academic field,” the release stated.

After earning his doctor of philosophy in international affairs and relations from the University of North Texas in 2019, Feinberg began his academic career in the Texas A&M University System. He was a political scientist who studied antisemitism.

But as he told Philadelphia Jewish Exponent in 2023, political science departments categorized antisemitism as a niche field, while Jewish studies departments classified it as part of history.

Feinberg saw it differently.

When interviewed for the role of director of Gratz’s Center for Holocaust Studies, Feinberg explained that the Holocaust didn’t end in 1945. It was still influencing events and perceptions today.

The scholar had already started using “event count analysis,” as he described it, to study contemporary antisemitism. He found that Nazi-like perceptions were still at the root of many incidents, including the 2018 Tree of Life synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh, the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history. The shooter, Robert Bowers, had been radicalized on Gab, a social media platform where users espoused those types of views.

“This notion of Jews as a race. Jews as an all-powerful, conspiratorial, monolithic entity,” Feinberg said then. “Jews as an enemy of white European race and society.”

It is this type of research that led Gratz to formalize the study of antisemitism the year after Feinberg was hired. It is also what led the scholar and the school to do so with other like-minded professors and institutions.

“Antisemitism is a global problem, but the field devoted to understanding and countering it remains too fragmented,” Feinberg said via email after the event in Haifa to announce the association. “Scholars, educators, policymakers, and practitioners often work in parallel when they should be working together.”

Gratz now offers a master’s and a Ph.D. in antisemitism studies.

“At Gratz, we have made a clear commitment to becoming the world leader in applied Antisemitism Studies — not simply by describing the problem, but by producing better research, training the next generation of experts, and developing interventions that can be evaluated and improved,” Feinberg said. “CASA is an important part of that broader international effort.”

The ADL audits bring light to the state of antisemitism in the physical world. Surveys like the AJC’s help offer clarity about the problem as it exists online. Jewish federations across the country organize funding for security at synagogues and programming at Jewish educational institutions.

But the fight against antisemitism needs that deeper understanding of its causes, according to Feinberg. That’s the role that intellectuals and higher education institutions can play.

“This moment demands a serious field: one with stronger evidence, clearer standards, deeper international collaboration, and a willingness to test what actually works. Gratz is helping to spearhead that effort because the cost of intellectual complacency is no longer abstract,” he said.

jsaffren@midatlanticmedia.com