The French philosopher and author Bernard-Henri Lévy (Bernard-Henri Lévy) closed the Contemporary Antisemitism Haifa 2026 conference with a stark warning — one that he has been sounding for 50 years now — but also with a glimmer of hope.
Antisemitism, he said, survives not through crude, discredited slurs but by reinventing itself as a grand accusation, one that casts Jews — and now the Jewish state — as responsible for the world’s ills. Lévy described confronting pro-Palestinian encampments on American campuses this past year and what he called a chilling new register of hatred cloaked in the language of solidarity.
Speaking to eJewishPhilanthropy after his speech, Lévy reflected on why this moment feels unlike any other for Jews around the world, weighed in on what a conference and a new academic journal can realistically accomplish in the fight against antisemitism, warned about AI’s growing role in amplifying antisemitic narratives and shared what he wants Jewish philanthropists to understand.
"What is different today, compared with the 1930s, is that a Jew facing persecution no longer has many safe places to go. In Israel, you are threatened on seven fronts. In the United States, antisemitism is surging — just as it is almost everywhere else. Europe, of course, is no exception; the entire continent is being swept by the fever. And as for the Global South, the situation may be even worse. For the first time, antisemitism is rising everywhere at once, at the same pace and with the same intensity."
Read the full interview: ejphil.com/5at8k ... See MoreSee Less
