Public discussion of anti-Semitism typically focuses on its far-right variant – much less is said about its leftist form. Woke Anti-Semitism, by David Bernstein, is a welcome attempt to redress this imbalance. Bernstein is the founder of the Jewish Institute for Liberal Values (JILV), which aims to counter the illiberalism of woke ideas. He has proved to be one of America’s staunchest defenders of classical liberal notions of freedom.

He is not the first to notice the insidious trend of woke anti-Semitism, of course. There have been many important critiques in recent years. The first edition of the Sapir Journal, published in spring 2021, contained two important articles on how anti-Semitism and identity politics can intersect. And as far back as 2019, spiked’s Frank Furedi wrote about ‘Why identity politics has been so bad for Jews’. …

What’s more, woke identity politics views anyone who aspires to transcend such divisions – like the colourblind approach of Martin Luther King – with unremitting hostility. For instance, Ibram X Kendi, one of the most prominent advocates of so-called critical race theory, argues in his best-selling How to Be an Antiracist that: ‘The most threatening racist movement is not the alt-right’s unlikely drive for a white ethnostate but the regular American’s drive for a “race-neutral” one.’

This is an ugly worldview that rehabilitates old-fashioned racism in a new form. It emphasises the superficial aspects of our identity that divide us and downplays the common humanity that unites us. And it is viciously intolerant of anyone who dissents against its core tenets.