David Hirsh

His book, Contemporary Left Antisemitism, which combined narrative and case study with sociological analysis and theory to understand the controversial and contested phenomenon of antisemitism on the left, was published in 2017.

In 2005, he co-founded the Engage website, a resource for those working to oppose the boycott of Israel. Hirsh took a leading role during 2005-07 in opposing boycotts of Israeli universities proposed by British academics. 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".

Hirsh won the Philip Abrams Prize for the best first book in sociology for 2004, from the British Sociological Association, for his book Law Against Genocide: Cosmopolitan trials. The book, on the significance of "cosmopolitan law", contains an account of the 1999 British trial of Anthony Sawoniuk for Holocaust-related crimes committed in Belarus in 1942.

Hirsh grew up in a Jewish family in Highgate, London and attended Highgate School until he was 15, when he persuaded his parents to allow him to transfer to Woodhouse Grammar School. For several years, he was a member of the Trotskyist Alliance for Workers' Liberty and, during the 1980s, a leading activist in the National Organisation of Labour Students. He briefly studied Physics at Sheffield University, then worked as a driver for several years. He is a graduate of City University, London and holds an M.A. in Philosophy and Social Theory and a PhD from theUniversity of Warwick, writing his dissertation on Crimes Against Humanity and International Law.

David Hirsh (born 29 September 1967) is a lecturer in Sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London, and co-founder of Engage, a campaign against the academic boycott of Israel.