On 15 January 2018, enrollment opened for a new Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) created by Yad Vashem, entitled "Antisemitism: From Its Origins to the Present." Launched on 19 March on the UK FutureLearn digital education platform, the course navigates more than 2,000 years of history, attempting to answer many of the major questions surrounding the evolution and nature of antisemitism, including: What are the origins of antisemitism? How has it changed throughout history? How has it served a range of cultures, societies and ideologies? How have major historical events affected its development? What is it about antisemitism that enabled it to become the driving force behind one of the worst atrocities of our times – the Holocaust? What happened to antisemitism after the Holocaust? And how do Israel and Zionism fit into the story of antisemitism?
"Holocaust education and the study of antisemitism, particularly its contemporary forms, have become – in many contexts and for many purposes – interlinked. Effective educational activity about the one involves and requires knowledge regarding the other. In 2015, Yad Vashem developed its first MOOC, titled: 'The Holocaust: An Introduction.' Dedicated solely to the topic of the Holocaust, the course has attracted over 90,000 learners thus far. Our new MOOC moves to the wider subject of antisemitism throughout the ages, providing its learners with tools to better understand and identify this phenomenon, both in the past and in the present."
Dr. Naama Shik, Director of the e-Learning Department at Yad Vashem's International School for Holocaust Studies
The six-week course is based on short video lectures presented by fifty leading researchers and public figures from Yad Vashem and from around the world: historians, sociologists, linguists, philosophers and political scientists, as well as policy makers and religious leaders. The first half deals with the evolution of antisemitism until the Holocaust, beginning with the Greco-Roman Age, and continuing through the Middle Ages and modernity. The second half looks at antisemitism in the world today, focusing mainly on antisemitism on the far-right and far-left political spectrums, as well as in the Arab and Islamic world, showing the perseverance of old antisemitic tropes and the emergence of new ones, namely Holocaust denial and anti-Zionism.
Yad Vashem's MOOC on antisemitism was developed in part thanks to the generosity of the Philigence Foundation (Geneva).
This article originally appeared in the "Yad Vashem Jerusalem Magazine," volume 85.
