In Slate, Rutgers professor of History David Greenberg reflects on Yale’s closure of YIISA, its establishment of YPSA, and how his political left ceded concern about antisemitism to the conservatives.
He ends with a not very optimistic assessment of general historical awareness of antisemitism which had served to chill anti-Jewish sentiment in recent decades, and a call for attention to how a commitment to concern about antisemitism can be renewed among progressives.
(Caution, the 247 comments to the piece get off to a bad start – not sure if they improve.)
Hat tip: @EquusontheBuses
Addendum: in the comments below Ignoblus links to an response by Phoebe who is “neck deep in 1840s France”, a piece about the historically populist appeal of economic antisemitism in the ‘first world’ – a world which today is experiencing fresh schism between marginalised and privileged.
Engage 
July 5, 2011 at 11:30 am
The comments are worse than Guardian CIF comments, and that is saying something…
July 5, 2011 at 2:40 pm
The second comment includes the notorious “Jewish Supremacy” tag line. The exact same tag line that was in plain and in your face sight on the David (1-2-3, everyone now) Freakin’ Duke.Com web page, complete with a scary graphic, that a certain “not-antisemetic” member of the UCU activist list happily linked to.
I stopped reading beyond that. (Comment #2! How Mira can go all the way to 247 is beyond me. And mind you, I only see one counter comment.) I can think of no better justification for a center dedicated to the study of anti-semitism.
July 5, 2011 at 2:45 pm
Phoebe Maltz has a response worth reading, with a broader historical context:
“Being on the left has always been about supporting the downtrodden, and since anti-Semitism is and always was about accusing Jews of being insufficiently downtrodden, there are only these rare moments when the obvious left-wing position is to get worked up about anti-Semitism – moments when anti-Semitism’s on-the-ground influence is so great (think the Dreyfus Affair, the Holocaust) that thinking of Jews as victims becomes uncontroversial.”
http://whatwouldphoebedo.blogspot.com/2011/07/anti-semitism-and-first-world-problems.html
July 5, 2011 at 4:06 pm
Love it. used it.
July 5, 2011 at 4:07 pm
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