The Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Antisemitism (YIISA), the first American institute tasted with studying the rise in global anti-Semitism, has expanded.
“We are witnessing a profound level of dehumanization of Israelis and by extension the Jewish people,” YIISA head Dr. Charles Small said on Tuesday adding that anti-Semitism is especially growing in Middle Eastern countries.
YIISA, based at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, distributes scholarly material to promote a more comprehensive understanding of policies that can be used to combat anti-Semitism.
According to a report in the Jerusalem Post, “The recently expanded Yale center in Connecticut has made great efforts to carve out new territory in the field of researching and combating rising contemporary anti-Semitism, which largely expresses itself as an intense loathing of Israel and its Jewish and non-Jewish supporters in the Diaspora.”
Last month, YIISA appointed political scientist Dr. Steven Smith as director of academic affairs. He is also the current chairman of Judaic Studies at Yale.
“YIISA encourages the study of anti-Semitism as an historical and a contemporary phenomenon. It will certainly never shy away from confronting and addressing the problem of genocidal anti-Semitism as expressed in various parts of the world today, especially in Iran,” Smith told the Jerusalem Post.
“I speak here only for myself, but faculty and students often seem reluctant to confront the fact of genocidal anti-Semitism lest they appear politically incorrect. Unless we can speak freely and openly about a problem that concerns everyone – not just Jews or the State of Israel – we abnegate our responsibilities as citizens of a democratic state,” Smith added.
