2025 Bernard Lewis PrizeEuropean anti-Semitism, in both its theological and racist versions, was essentially alien to Islamic traditions, culture, and modes of thought. But to an astonishing degree, the ideas, the literature, even the crudest inventions of the Nazis and their predecessors have been internalized and Islamized. The major themes—poisoning the wells, the invented Talmud quotations, ritual murder, the hatred of mankind, the Masonic and other conspiracy theories, taking over the world—remain; but with an Islamic, even a Qur’anic twist. - Prof. Bernard Lewis The 2025 Bernard Lewis Prize will be awarded to scholars or practitioners engaged in the study of issues on antisemitism that were of great importance to our founding chairman, Prof. Bernard Lewis. While Christian antisemitism is well-studied, a stigma remains around addressing antisemitism in the Muslim world. Beyond this, relatively few scholars focus on the Middle Eastern dimensions of Christian antisemitism in religious and cultural terms, much less the political impacts in the West. The Bernard Lewis Prize will award scholarly work, either published or unpublished, that addresses the aforementioned issues. Recipients of the $2,500 prize will be announced and awarded at the Eighteenth Annual ASMEA Conference on November 1 – 3, 2025 in Washington, D.C. Additionally, all finalists will present and discuss their work during the Conference. Guidelines:
Apply HereRead Dr. Martin Kramer's article, "Semites, Antisemites, and Bernard Lewis: The Life and Afterlife of a Seminal Book" in the journal Antisemitism Studies (Volume 8, Number 2, Fall 2024) Abstract: In 1986, Bernard Lewis published a highly influential book, Semites and Anti-Semites: An Inquiry into Conflict and Prejudice. For Lewis, who was then the pre-eminent British-American historian of the Islamic world, the book represented a departure from his prior research agenda. Although Lewis was Jewish, his scholarly work had touched little on Jews. In this book (and its companion, The Jews of Islam), Lewis portrayed the legacy of Islam as one of broad toleration of Jews, tinged with contempt but void of hatred. He traced the outbreak of virulent antisemitism among Arabs not to the tradition of Islam, but to the influence of European and especially Nazi antisemitism. This interpretation may have been inspired and reinforced by Lewis's own personal exposure to Arab antisemitism during the Second World War and in the aftermath of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. Download the Article Here |