Exceptional Hatred: Antisemitism and the Fight Over Free Speech in Modern America

By James Loeffler

A leading historian's revelatory exploration of antisemitism--from 1940s anti-Jewish riots until today--showing that it has long served as a frontline in our wars over freedom of speech and the possibilities of American liberalism

Few issues are as vexed today as antisemitism and free speech. There is scarcely an arena--college campuses, congressional hearings, immigration courtrooms, social media platforms--where we are not polarized over what counts as antisemitism, which speech is protected by the First Amendment, and what the law should do about hatred. At a time of crisis for American liberalism, antisemitism has become a point of ideological obsession.

None of this is new. In a sweeping, poignant history of ideas, law, and the human lives behind iconic court cases, James Loeffler recovers the vital yet forgotten roots of our contemporary turmoil. He excavates two antisemitic riots in 1940s Chicago that sparked two critical Supreme Court cases, pointing the way to a possible constitutional ban on hate speech. He turns to the late 1970s, a time of reckoning over civil rights, when a neo-Nazi march in Skokie, Illinois, confirmed an expansive understanding of the First Amendment. And he shows how, in our own time, the 2017 Charlottesville Unite the Right rally and subsequent hate crimes trials, along with the government crackdown on campus protests, stem from tensions at the heart of liberal democracy: Are some hatreds more dangerous than others? Is tolerating hate speech the price we must pay for free speech? And will liberalism ever make good on its vaunted promise to end hatred through law?

Confronting these questions, Exceptional Hatred restores a missing history of hate speech, antisemitism, and the law, one that points to how we might protect difference without surrendering our principles of equality and freedom.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1250806070
• ISBN13: 9781250806079
• Release Date: August 2026
• Publisher: Metropolitan Books
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.1" x 9.3"