David Hirsh (born September 29, 1967) is a professor of sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London, and a campaigner against antisemitism. As of June 2025, he has an h-index of 11 and an i10-index of 16.
He attended Highgate School until he was 15, when he persuaded his parents to let him transfer to Woodhouse Grammar School. He was once a member of the Trotskyist Alliance for Workers' Liberty, and a leading activist in the National Organisation of Labour Students.
He did physics briefly at the University of Sheffield, then worked as a driver for years. He is a graduate of City, University of London, holding an MA in Philosophy and Social Theory, and a PhD from the University of Warwick. He wrote his dissertation on crimes against humanity and international law.
Hirsh won the 2004 British Sociological Association Philip Abrams Memorial Prize for the best first book in sociology ‒ Law Against Genocide: Cosmopolitan trials. The book has an account of the 1999 British trial of Anthony Sawoniuk for Holocaust-related crimes within Belarus in 1942.
In 2005, he co-founded the website Engage to organize opposition to the boycott of Israel. Hirsh told The Guardian:
| “ | It may not have anti-semitic motivations, but if you organise an academic boycott of Israeli Jewish academics but no-one else in the world, that is an anti-semitic policy. | ” |
His 2017 book Contemporary Left Antisemitism, which combined narrative and case studies with sociological analysis and theory to understand left-wing antisemitism, was published in 2017. He developed, with Daniel Allington, the AzAs Scale, for quantitatively measuring antisemitism in relation to Israel.
In a 2022 article, he wrote that Zionist had become an antisemitic code word for Jews, arguing that this perpetuated institutional antisemitism, and that the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism was needed. He also wrote:
The left-wing tradition of antizionism, which professes unconditional opposition to antisemitism, is only one tradition. In the real world that tradition finds itself in a broad alliance with antisemitic movements [...] It is impossible to tell whether an element of antizionist rhetoric is right-wing, left-wing, or Islamist [...] Antizionism does not allow Jews, individuals or communities, to define their own identities. It defines their Zionism for them, against their will, and without consultation. It defines Zionism as racism and as support for apartheid. In so doing it defines most Jews as alien to any decent community of human beings.
In addition to being the editorial consultant of the Journal of Contemporary Antisemitism, Hirsh is the Academic Director and Chief Executive Officer of the London Centre for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism.
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