Antisemitism, an American Tradition – with Pamela Nadell

Mar 29, 2026

Pamela Nadell, a leading historian of American Jewish history and author of Antisemitism, an American Tradition, traces antisemitism from 1654 New Amsterdam to today. She outlines how medieval Christian tropes traveled to colonial America. The conversation covers the shift from religious anti‑Judaism to racial antisemitism, immigration restrictions, postwar changes, and how anti‑Zionism can become modern Jew‑hatred.

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INSIGHT

Anti-Semitism Replaced Anti-Judaism As Racial Ideology

The term "anti-Semitism" was coined in the 1870s by Wilhelm Marr to racialize Jews rather than criticize them religiously.
This shifted the target from conversion to immutable racial status, making discrimination permanent.

INSIGHT

U.S. Racialization Of Jews Tied To Nativism And Immigration

In the U.S., racialization of Jews emerged alongside post-Civil War racial debates and mass Eastern European immigration.
Jews were depicted as racially distinct, crafty, and culturally threatening amid nativist anxieties.

INSIGHT

Jewish Whiteness In America Is Contested And Conditional

Jewish whiteness in America is unstable and contingent; some historians mark assimilation in the 1960s but exclusion and contemporary contests persist.
White nationalists claim Jews are not white while some left movements view Jews as paradigmatic whites.

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Professor Pamela Nadell joins Dr. Rachel Fish to examine the long history of antisemitism in the United States and how it has evolved from the colonial era to the present. They begin with the arrival of Jews in New Amsterdam in 1654 and trace how anti-Jewish tropes rooted in Christian theology and European prejudice were carried into American life from the very beginning.

The conversation explores the shift from religious anti-Judaism to modern racial antisemitism, the role of immigration restriction in the early twentieth century, and the barriers Jews continued to face even as America projected ideals of freedom and equality.

The discussion also examines how antisemitism changed after World War II, the unstable place of Jews within America’s racial framework, and the emergence of antizionism as a contemporary expression of Jew-hatred. Along the way, they consider how these ideas have entered public discourse, higher education, and political life, and what it means for American democracy when Jew-hatred becomes normalized.

Further Reading

Antisemitism, an American Tradition (W. W. Norton & Company, 2025) by Pamela S. Nadell

Guest Bio

Professor Pamela S. Nadell holds the Patrick Clendenen Chair in Women’s and Gender History at American University and is a leading scholar of American Jewish history. She is the author of America’s Jewish Women: A History from Colonial Times to Today, which won the 2019 National Jewish Book Award, and her most recent book, Antisemitism: An American Tradition, traces the history of antisemitism in the United States from colonial times to today. The book received a National Endowment for the Humanities Public Scholars Award, won the 2025 National Jewish Book Award in American Jewish Studies, and was named a Wall Street Journal best book. A past president of the Association for Jewish Studies, Nadell has testified before Congress multiple times, including in hearings on antisemitism on college campuses, and serves as a consultant to Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life museum.