Why a historian thinks Jews are living through a ‘high tide’ of American antisemitism

In December 2023, Pamela Nadell, a professor of Jewish history at American University, testified alongside the presidents of Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and MIT at a congressional hearing on antisemitism on college campuses.

If you don’t recall her testimony, don’t blame her or yourself: That’s the hearing when two of the presidents, Harvard’s Claudine Gay and Penn’s Liz Magill , appeared to equivocate on how their schools were handling charges of antisemitism , and consequently resigned under pressure.

At the time, Nadell was at work on a history of antisemitism in America, and couldn’t have known that she would become a supporting player in a key moment in that story. Now she has completed the book, “ Antisemitism, an American Tradition ,” in which