Talking about Antisemitism in France Before and After Charlie Hebdo and Hyper Cacher
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Abstract
This article explores tensions in French Jewish discourses about antisemitism in the post-2000 period. Drawing on commentary from French Jewish intellectuals, national Jewish organizations, and the French Jewish press from the mid-2000s until after the Charlie Hebdo and Hyper Cacher attacks, I note a complex relationship between change and continuity in discursive characterizations of French antisemitism. While empirical manifestations of antisemitism were notably transformed by the Toulouse attacks of 2012, much French Jewish discourse insisted on continuity from the early 2000s onward. At the same time, Jewish narrative practices shifted rather dramatically. In a political context where Israel was often depicted as part of a history of violent settler colonialism, early 2000s Jewish discourse divorced French antisemitism from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and (post)colonial racism in France. After 2012, some Jewish commentators linked Israel to French antisemitism by likening terrorism in Israel with Islamic antisemitism in France. These disjunctures between narratives and empirical violence suggest that the “structures of feeling” behind Jewish reactions to contemporary antisemitism cannot be reduced to empirical questions about safety and security. Social scientists thus need to move beyond an empirical analysis of antisemitism itself and attend to the cultural and affective work Jewish discourses about antisemitism do in any particular moment.
Topics
Main Topic: Antisemitism Antisemitism Antisemitism: Muslim Jewish - Muslim Relations Terrorism Jewish Perceptions of Antisemitism Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
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Geographic Coverage
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Volume/Issue
32(1)
Page Number
77-97
Related
Where Do the Hijab and the Kippah Belong? On Being Publicly Jewish or Muslim in Post-Hebdo France (Part of same special issue)
Talking about Antisemitism in France Before and After Charlie Hebdo and Hyper Cacher (Part of same special issue)
Europe’s “New Jews”: France, Islamophobia, and Antisemitism in the Era of Mass Migration (Part of same special issue)
Introduction: Judeophobia and Islamophobia in France Before and After Charlie Hebdo and Hyper Cacher (Part of same special issue)
Talking about Antisemitism in France Before and After Charlie Hebdo and Hyper Cacher (Part of same special issue)
Europe’s “New Jews”: France, Islamophobia, and Antisemitism in the Era of Mass Migration (Part of same special issue)
Introduction: Judeophobia and Islamophobia in France Before and After Charlie Hebdo and Hyper Cacher (Part of same special issue)
DOI
Link
Link to article (paywalled), Talking about Antisemitism in France Before and After Charlie Hebdo and Hyper Cacher
Bibliographic Information
Talking about Antisemitism in France Before and After Charlie Hebdo and Hyper Cacher. 2018: 77-97. https://archive.jpr.org.uk/10.1007/s10835-018-9304-6
