Brendan McGeever
brendanmcgeever.bsky.social
Brendan McGeever
@brendanmcgeever.bsky.social

Senior Lecturer in Sociology, Birkbeck Institute for the Study of Antisemitism

Author: 'Antisemitism & the Russian Revolution' (CUP 2019) and 'Britain in Fragments' with Satnam Virdee (MUP 2023)

2024-25 Cornell Visiting Professor, Swarthmore College .. more

Political science 53%
Sociology 30%

Reposted by Satnam Virdee

Looking forward to welcoming colleagues to Ottawa next week for our international workshop on conspiracy theories as a threat to democracy. Part of Media Literacy Week @mediasmarts.bsky.social

www.carleton.ca/populistpublics/events
Events - Populist Publics
Hate, Conspiracy Theories, and the Challenge to Democracy (Closed Workshop)  Dates: October 28-30, 2025 Through the generous support of a SSHRC Connection
www.carleton.ca

Responses to Manchester have been predicated on a misrepresentation of what antisemitism in the UK looks like, and a caricature of the Jewish population as a whole. We can and must do better.

British Jews are more divided now, over this very issue, than they have been for a century, since the debates triggered by the 1917 Balfour Declaration.

This rests on the mistaken idea that British Jews are united in the view that pro-Palestine marches make them less safe. The reality could not be more different.

In drawing a straight line between the attack in Manchester and the Palestine solidarity movement, the British government has taken the dangerous decision to restrict the right to protest in the name of Jewish safety.

We question the alarmist narrative about a rising antisemitism that dominates the headlines. This narrative is predicated on a narrow and disputable approach to measuring antisemitism.

New article for @prospectmagazine.co.uk with my colleagues David Feldman (@dmf101.bsky.social) and Ben Gidley (@bengidley.bsky.social) in which we critically examine mainstream political responses to the attack on the Heaton Park synagogue in Manchester earlier this month.
The difficult truth about antisemitism
Why don’t we acknowledge that there are different ways of measuring the prevalence of anti-Jewish prejudice?
www.prospectmagazine.co.uk

This rests on the mistaken idea that British Jews are united in the view that pro-Palestine marches make them less safe. The reality could not be more different.

In drawing a straight line between the attack in Manchester and the Palestine solidarity movement, the British government has taken the dangerous decision to restrict the right to protest in the name of Jewish safety.

We question the alarmist narrative about a rising antisemitism that dominates the headlines. This narrative is predicated on a narrow and disputable approach to measuring antisemitism.
More Jewish people in Britain are concerned by general racism than the number who are worried by antisemitism. This is a building block for anti-racist politics, write three Birkbeck experts. @bisa-bkk.bsky.social
The difficult truth about antisemitism
Why don’t we acknowledge that there are different ways of measuring the prevalence of anti-Jewish prejudice?
www.prospectmagazine.co.uk

Reposted by Satnam Virdee

Thank you for sharing, Lia!

Thanks for sharing, Sue!

Thanks for sharing and for the kind words, Ben!

Reposted by Satnam Virdee

Reposted by Satnam Virdee

“We are in a historical moment in which key parts of the Jewish community are shifting: a moment in which the possibility of a politics of horizontal solidarity can be glimpsed.”

Brilliant Left meditation on fighting antisemitism in Britain

vashtimedia.com/against-poli...
Against political purity: A reply to Eli Machover
The authors of Facing antisemitism argue for embracing the shifting ground of the Jewish community.
vashtimedia.com

"The politics of purity, of friend and enemy, with us or against us, does not serve the anti-racist movement but undermines it”

David Feldman (@dmf101.bsky.social), @bengidley.bsky.social and I reply to Eli Machover.

Grateful to @vashtimedia.bsky.social for hosting this discussion. (2/2)
Against political purity: A reply to Eli Machover
The authors of Facing antisemitism argue for embracing the shifting ground of the Jewish community.
vashtimedia.com

“We are in a historical moment in which key parts of the Jewish community are shifting: a moment in which the possibility of a politics of horizontal solidarity can be glimpsed..." (1/2)

Alongside our interview, Vashti has also published a critical assessment of our work by Eli Machover. Grateful to Vashti for hosting this debate. vashtimedia.com/response-to-...
‘The choice is one between anti-racism and Zionism as such’
A response to the authors of Facing antisemitism.
vashtimedia.com

Some reflections on the politics of 'anti-antisemitism' in Britain. An interview with David Feldman, Ben Gidley and me for @vashtimedia.bsky.social. vashtimedia.com/state-of-ant...
The state of anti-antisemitism
An interview with the authors of a new Runnymede Trust report.
vashtimedia.com

Reposted by Satnam Virdee

The state of anti-antisemitism

An interview with @dmf101.bsky.social, @brendanmcgeever.bsky.social and me in @vashtimedia.bsky.social about our recent report on antisemitism for @runnymedetrust.bsky.social

vashtimedia.com/state-of-ant...
The state of anti-antisemitism
An interview with the authors of a new Runnymede Trust report.
vashtimedia.com

Reposted by Satnam Virdee

Important new report on antisemtism in the UK and how to counter it.

'Facing antisemitism: the struggle for safety and solidarity'

By David Feldman, Ben Gidley, Brendan McGeever

cdn.prod.website-files.com/61488f992b58...

@bengidley.bsky.social

Thanks to @runnymedetrust.bsky.social for commissioning this report. You can read it in full here: ow.ly/LEp550UFjVP. 8/8
Facing antisemitism: the struggle for safety and solidarity
Antisemitism is hardwired into UK society, but current methods of tackling it are not working
ow.ly

In short: we need a 360-degree anti-racism, one that confronts antisemitism alongside other forms of racism. And this will mean addressing the question of Palestine and the status and treatment of the Palestinians. 7/8

Our report calls for a new approach to combating antisemitism: one based not on a hierarchy of racisms but on building alliances between Jewish people and other racialised minorities. 6/8

Current approaches to antisemitism at times also serve to racialise other minorities, especially Muslims. We see this in the way Jews are presented as a 'model minority' and antisemitism is cast as a specifically 'Muslim problem', not one embedded in society as a whole. 5/8

These divisions are made worse by the conflation of anti-Zionism and criticism of Israel with antisemitism. 4/8

When the state and political parties put significant resources into combating antisemitic ideas but fail to act with similar force against Islamophobia or structural racism it confirms the perception of a hierarchy of racism. 3/8

Antisemitism is deeply embedded into UK society. Policies to tackle it too often focus on the pathology of individual antisemites and not on the more widely diffused and persistent reservoir of antisemitism that exists in our political culture. 2/8