Charles Asher Small (DPhil, Oxon) 

Charles Asher Small is the Founding Director and President of the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP). He also serves as the Director of the ISGAP-Woolf Institute Fellowship Training Programme in Critical Contemporary Antisemitism Studies, Discrimination, and Human Rights at the Woolf Institute and is a Research Fellow at St. Edmund’s College, University of Cambridge. Additionally, he is the Director of the ISGAP-INSS Fellowship Training Programme in Critical Contemporary Antisemitism Studies at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), Tel Aviv University, with fellows at other institutions, including NYU, UPenn, and McMaster. Charles is also a Senior Research Fellow at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, Tel Aviv University.

In 2015, Charles established the ISGAP-Oxford Summer Institute in Critical Antisemitism Studies, which has since graduated more than 600 Scholars-in-Residence from 48 countries and over 190 institutions worldwide. This initiative has fostered a vital global network of scholars engaged in studying and teaching critical contemporary antisemitism studies.

Charles holds a BA in Political Science from McGill University, an MSc in Urban Economic Development Planning from University College London, and a Doctorate of Philosophy (DPhil) from St. Antony’s College, Oxford University. He completed postdoctoral research at the Groupement de Recherche Ethnicité et Société at the Université de Montréal. He was a VATAT Research Fellow (Ministry of Higher Education) at Ben-Gurion University and has taught in the departments of Sociology and Geography at Goldsmiths, University of London, Tel Aviv University, and the Institute of Urban Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Charles has convened groundbreaking academic seminar series in contemporary antisemitism studies at leading universities, including Columbia University, Fordham University, Harvard University, McGill University, the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy (Ukraine), Sapienza University (Rome), the Sorbonne and the CNRS (Paris), Stanford University, the University of Miami, and Yale University. He has also led academic training programs for professors at Oxford colleges, including Pembroke, Hertford, St. John’s, and St. Antony’s.

Previously, Charles was the Founding Director of the Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Antisemitism (YIISA), the first interdisciplinary research center on antisemitism at a North American university. At Yale, he taught in the Political Science Department and the Program on Ethics, Politics, and Economics and ran a postdoctoral and graduate fellowship program. He has also served as an Associate Professor and Director of Urban Studies at Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU) and as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography at Tel Aviv University.

An internationally recognized speaker, Charles has worked as a consultant and policy advisor across North America, Europe, Southern Africa, and the Middle East. His expertise spans social and cultural theory, globalization and national identity, sociocultural policy, social movements, and various forms of racism, including antisemitism.

He is the author of several books and articles, including the five-volume Global Antisemitism: A Crisis of Modernity, The Yale Papers: Antisemitism in Comparative Perspective, The ISGAP Papers: Antisemitism in Comparative Perspective, Volume Two, The ISGAP Papers: Antisemitism in Comparative Perspective, Volume Three, and Social Theory – A Historical Analysis of Canadian Socio-Cultural Policies, “Race” and the “Other”.

Charles is dedicated to advancing contemporary antisemitism studies at top-tier universities worldwide, working to establish it as a recognized academic discipline. He is currently leading an international research project on the impact of soft power and undocumented funding on higher education policy, particularly regarding antisemitism and liberal education.

He has also been actively engaged in human rights and social justice movements, having served as Chair of the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry and the Struggle for Ethiopian Jewry in Montreal, as well as Chair of the African National Congress Solidarity Committee of Canada. He has worked on Indigenous issues in Canada, particularly with the Innu Nation. His ongoing commitment is to combating contemporary antisemitism, the demonization of Israel and the Jewish people, and their intersection with other forms of hatred, racism, and reactionary social movements.