Abstract: Holocaust Memorial Day 2026 reached more people than ever before, with millions engaging across the UK through national moments of remembrance, education and community activity. From Light the Darkness to events in schools, workplaces and public spaces, this year showed the growing impact of coming together to remember, learn and stand against all prejudice today.
Central to this was the Light the Darkness campaign, which saw 230 buildings and landmarks illuminated in purple at 8pm as part of a nationwide act of remembrance – an increase from 200 in 2025. Delivered in partnership with Ocean Outdoor and supported by JCDecaux, Global and Bauer Media, the campaign appeared on 3,000 billboards across the UK, generating over 10 million impacts\*. HMDT’s radio advert aired more than 900 times across Global’s network, reaching a further 14 million impacts.
Engagement also grew at community level, with 3,800 organisations marking HMD – up from 3,500 the previous year. This was mirrored by a surge in digital participation on the day, with social media interactions across HMDT’s Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn rising by 140%, from 10,000 in 2025 to 24,000 in 2026.
Crucially, the 2026 impact data highlights the reversal of a decline over the past two years in secondary school participation, which had previously attracted national concern. More than 1,000 secondary schools marked Holocaust Memorial Day this year – 17% of the total number of secondary schools nationwide, which increased from just 9% last year. This was further bolstered by the reach of the charity’s educational film, *It began with words*, which was viewed by over 130,000 pupils, helping ensure that the lessons of the Holocaust remain central to younger generations.
To take a deeper look at the key moments behind this year’s commemoration, read our Impact Report for Holocaust Memorial Day 2026. From a special event hosted by Their Majesties The King and Queen to acts of remembrance in communities across the UK, the report captures the scale and significance of HMD 2026.
Abstract: Expressions of antisemitic hate abound on social media today, reinvigorating ancient stereotypes around Jewish people and their history. The current user-centered study examined the shapes and the extent of antisemitic stereotypes from the point of view of emerging adults and their daily social media consumption. Emerging adults (N = 47) between 18 and 30 years of age were asked to keep guided media diaries of their social media activity over a period of 21 days (February to May 2022), zooming in on Jewish people, Jewish life, the Middle East conflict, and other topics associated with Jewry. A sample of N = 1,024 threads from a variety of social media channels was collected, encompassing textual and visual material. Qualitative content analysis was used to determine the presence of antisemitism, how explicit/implicit it was, and the types of argumentation used to support antisemitic claims. Frequency analysis and Chi-Square tests yielded beyond-chance patterns in the data. Findings reveal a high prevalence of explicit Israel-related antisemitic discourse encountered by emerging adults on social media, as well as highly ambiguous and implicit content that eludes easy detection by emerging adult users. Findings also point to the highly interactive nature in which antisemitism is co-constructed online.
Abstract: Dans les familles juives composées de personnes issues de l'ex-URSS mariées avec des conjoints français on observe des tensions mémorielles spécifiques qui s'expriment souvent par des formes de silence ou d'occultation. Ces familles incarnent en effet des espaces où s'entrelacent et parfois s'opposent des mémoires nationales et individuelles divergentes, façonnées par des contextes historiques et politiques distincts, notamment en lien avec l'expérience de la guerre et de l'antisémitisme.
En URSS, la mémoire officielle exaltait l'héroïsme collectif, glorifiant les soldats soviétiques, tout en passant sous silence les expériences spécifiques, telles que la Shoah par balles ou les persécutions staliniennes. Ces épisodes, marqués par des arrestations, des exécutions et des formes de silence imposé (Nora, 1984), créent des lacunes mémorielles profondément ressenties dans les familles. En France, les conjoints français valorisent des récits axés sur la Shoah, influencés par une mémoire nationale ayant longtemps occulté la collaboration, comme l'a montré Rousso (1987). Les enfants, récepteurs de ces récits fragmentés, développent une post-mémoire hybride (Hirsch, 1994), marquée par des tensions entre héroïsme et victimisation. Les parents, confrontés à des récits douloureux, pratiquent souvent une forme d'auto-censure inconsciente pour protéger leurs enfants des traumatismes familiaux. Ce phénomène engendre ce que Kaufmann (2004) appelle une "réinvention identitaire", où les individus reconstruisent leur identité à partir de fragments narratifs lacunaires. L'oubli, qu'il soit volontaire ou inconscient, joue un rôle central en tant qu'outil dynamique permettant de naviguer entre les silences imposés, les récits collectifs contradictoires et les besoins identitaires du présent. Basée sur ma thèse de doctorat (2024), cette étude montre comment les familles juives transnationales reconfigurent constamment leurs récits mémoriels en intégrant les héritages soviétiques, français et juifs.
Abstract: Public concern about antisemitism has increased globally in the twenty-first century, sparking renewed interest from social scientists. However, the crucial question of why trajectories of antisemitic hostility differ between countries remains unanswered due to a lack of studies designed to track temporal and cross-national variation. Addressing this gap, I evaluate the explanatory power of two main lines of argument that divide the literature: generalist and particularist. While generalists see antisemitism as a manifestation of general outgroup hostility common to various forms of prejudice, particularists stress the contextual specificity of antisemitism and posit that its twenty-first-century expressions are distinctively linked to anti-Zionist sentiment (enmity toward Israel and its supporters). I derive observable implications from these positions and conduct a comparative, longitudinal case study of antisemitic hostility in Germany, Sweden, and Russia (1990–2020), using a mixed-methods approach to integrate incident counts, victimization surveys, media analysis, and expert interviews. Findings match predictions from the particularist position, with flare-ups in the Israel–Palestine conflict generating or catalyzing antisemitic hostility depending on the strength of local anti-Zionist sentiment, thus demonstrating the centrality of the “Israel factor” in contemporary antisemitism.
Abstract: The study, preservation and dissemination of the synagogues of Greece has been a 30-year project initiated by the author in 1993. It included a journey to cities throughout Greece, documenting synagogues—some in use, others abandoned or in ruins—engaging in surveys and interviews. The project focused on people, architecture, the urban context and local history. Over the years, the work evolved to give a form and a voice to invisible buildings and places once vibrant with Jewish life. Through digital tools, books, exhibitions and in-situ journeys, the author aims to make this invisible architectural and historic evidence visible again, and accessible to a wider audience. This chapter addresses the question “How lost synagogues become visible again?” The author unfolds a methodology that combines low and high tech, and examples of restoration and dissemination projects, spanning three-decades until today. The survey and study of the synagogues of Greece that began between 1993 and 1999 is still in progress. Architectural restorations were completed between 2016 and 2023, while numerous exhibitions, presentations and publications has made his work accessible to a wider audience since 1997.
Abstract: Our point of departure being that free speech by all sides must be protected and that pro-Palestinian speech is not antisemitic by definition, this chapter examines the extent to which Greek political parties’ critique of Israeli policies diachronically might implicitly or explicitly contribute to the dissemination of antisemitic mythopoesis. Moving beyond the conventional focus on far-right rhetoric, this analysis explores how antisemitic tropes are reproduced within the discourses of mainstream political actors, including the conservative party New Democracy and the socialist PASOK. Particular emphasis is placed on the Greek left, a heterogeneous political formation encompassing a broad spectrum of ideologies that ostensibly uphold human rights and progressive values. The presence of discriminatory discourse within such frameworks reveals the deep entrenchment of antisemitic attitudes in Greek society, where they function as a form of ideological common sense. By examining periods such as the Greek debt crisis and the War in Gaza starting in 2023, we argue that this latent antisemitism tends to resurface during periods of socio-political crisis and permeates the entire political spectrum, challenging assumptions about its marginality or exclusivity to far right politics and rhetoric. At this point, and in light of the turbulent historical moment we are witnessing—marked by an ongoing humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip, the endless suffering of the Palestinean people and the widespread instability throughout the Middle East—we deem it necessary to clarify that it is not our intention to intervene in the broader debate surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In contrast, our objective is to examine the phenomenon of antisemitism through a historical, cultural, and political lens, with a specific focus on how public opinion is shaped with regard to Greek Jewish citizens—and Jews more broadly—within the discourse articulated by Greek political actors. We would like to explicitly state that antisemitism, in this context, is not to be understood solely as a contemporary political manifestation, but as a multidimensional and diachronic phenomenon. With reference to the events of October 7th and their aftermath, we align ourselves with the position articulated by Gabor Maté, who, discussing the trauma and Palestinian suffering, emphatically stated that: “Any colonial power does precisely what Israel is doing and has been doing. (…) So, there is nothing specifically ‘Jewish’ about this. It also goes along with the colonial trajectory
Topics: Antisemitism: Far right, Antisemitism: Muslim, Attitudes to Jews, Attitudes to Israel, Islamophobia, Jewish Perceptions of Antisemitism, Holocaust Commemoration, Authoritarianism, Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial, Populism, Political Parties, Politics
Abstract: In the early 2020s, two seemingly unrelated political developments came to a head in the Netherlands. First, in January 2020, then-Prime Minister Mark Rutte of the center-right VVD party issued an official apology on behalf of the Dutch government for its complicity in the deaths of more than 100,000 Dutch Jews in the Holocaust. Second, in the November 2023 national elections, Geert Wilders’s anti-Muslim, pro-Israel PVV party won the highest percentage of votes, leading to the formation of a far-right cabinet under Prime Minister Dick Schoof in July 2024. In this article, we argue that this double consolidation of the historical legacy of the Holocaust and of racist, right-wing politics has put Dutch Jews in a dangerous bind. On the one hand, the memory of the Holocaust and the contemporary safety of Dutch Jews have been elevated as a paramount concern in Dutch institutional, legal, and political life. On the other hand, Dutch Jews have been positioned as the perennial would-be victims of violent antisemitism—virtually always, it is falsely imagined, at the hands of Dutch Muslims. The historical persecution of the Jews in the Holocaust is now used to underwrite a “proprietary” form of Jewish victimhood in the present: non-Jewish white Dutch people position themselves as the saviors of Jews, and thereby claim ownership over their past, their collective fate, and the political means to secure their safety.
Abstract: Introduction. This study addresses the representation of ethnic minority cultures in online museum collections, which often reflect diverse viewpoints. We propose a data-driven methodology to construct a large-scale multi-viewpoint knowledge graph, using Jewish cultural heritage as a case study.
Method. We developed an LLM-based pipeline that combines object typing, named entity recognition, relation extraction, enrichment, and clustering.
Results. An analysis of 647,951 records and 178,444 extracted subjects from the collections of Jewish museums across the globe revealed diverse thematic emphases: Israel and the Netherlands prioritised religious themes, while others highlighted everyday life. Surprisingly, only Australia emphasised the Holocaust.
Conclusion(s). The central contribution of this study is the development of a knowledge organisation system capable of tracing major trends and identifying patterns in the polyvocality of perspectives. The methodology provides quantifiable, scalable analysis of multi-viewpoint cultural heritage, extendable to other minorities.
Abstract: This roundtable offers a collaborative, multi-vocal forum on the topic of teaching Jewish Studies in the Nordic region, featuring contributions from scholars and instructors based in Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden. Conceived as a reflective platform, it weaves together critical insights, pedagogical experiences, and institutional perspectives. Topics include national contexts, classroom practices, both conventional and experimental curricular offerings, strategies for integrating Jewish Studies into broader academic frameworks, and reflections on the impact of 7 October 2023. Beyond mapping current conditions, the roundtable aims to envision what Jewish Studies in the Nordics could become, foregrounding both the challenges and the possibilities that shape its future
Abstract: Wir untersuchen Manifestationen von Online-Antisemitismus im deutschen Sprachraum anhand von Tweets über Jüdinnen, Juden und Israel aus den Jahren 2019–2022. Die manuell annotierten Zufallsstichproben von insgesamt mehr als 8000 Tweets geben Aufschluss darüber, wie in sozialen Medien im deutschen Sprachraum vor dem 7. Oktober 2023 über jüdisches Leben und Israel gesprochen wurde.
Auch wenn nur ein kleiner Teil der Kommentare, mit 312 Nachrichten etwa vier Prozent, antisemitisch laut der IHRA-Definition von Antisemitismus waren, zeigen sie eine große Bandbreite an Formen von Antisemitismus auf. So wird sichtbar, dass viele der nach dem 7. Oktober 2023 gemachten Anschuldigungen gegen Israel auch schon vorher vorhanden waren.
Aber auch die als nicht antisemitisch gelabelten Posts bilden viele unterschiedliche Aspekte und Perspektiven ab, mit denen in Deutschland über jüdisches Leben und Antisemitismus gesprochen wird. Ein Thema war die Shoah. Dabei wurden zum Teil fragwürdige Vergleiche gezogen, etwa zwischen der Verfolgung von Jüdinnen und Juden während des Nationalsozialismus und zeitgenössischen Themen. Beispiele dafür sind die öffentliche Kritik an Personen, die sich gegen Maßnahmen zur Eindämmung der COVID-19-Pandemie stellen, das Diskriminierungsempfinden von Muslim_innen oder AfD-Sympathisant_innen sowie das Leid der Palästinenser_innen. Ein weiters Thema war Antisemitismus und die Verurteilung dessen, meist allgemein, gelegentlich aber auch konkret in Bezug auf eine bestimmte Äußerung oder Handlung. Eine zentrale Erkenntnis der Untersuchung ist, dass sich die meisten Online-Diskurse, in denen die Begriffe „Juden“ oder „Israel“ verwendet wurden, in irgendeiner Form mit Antisemitismus in Vergangenheit oder Gegenwart befassten – der Alltag von Jüdinnen, Juden und Israelis spielte dagegen eine untergeordnete Rolle.
Abstract: This article addresses the interrelation between the state and its ethnic minorities, and the ideological labor furnished by these minorities, as it applies to postwar German Jewry. The German Jewish community of today is not organically related to German Jewry as it existed before 1933; although, to ennoble its genealogy, its representatives lay claim to that Jewish past. There is a contradiction, therefore, between attempts to connect to prewar German Jewry on the one hand and, on the other, the community’s signaling, for many years at least, a rupture with this past with statements such as “this is not my country” and “sitting on packed suitcases.” However, with significant immigration of Jews from the former Soviet Union since the late 1980s, a viable new Jewish community in Germany has come into being. It is increasingly characterized by uniform and central institutions as well as—especially since the war in Gaza and an escalation of antisemitism—an increasingly close relationship to German society and politics.
Abstract: In an extremely critical public sphere surrounding Jewish–Muslim relations in Germany, the multi-award-winning miniseries The Zweiflers has uniquely navigated this intense scrutiny, depicting a nuanced subplot of Jewish–Muslim coexistence. Inspired by HBO’s The Sopranos, the series centres on the Zweifler family, exploring their complex intergenerational dynamics, transnational diasporic ties and alleged connections to Frankfurt’’s underworld. While initially lauded for its portrayal of a modern German-Jewish identity, this article takes a closer look at the significant theme of Jewish–Muslim cooperation in post-war Germany. Drawing on ethnographic research conducted in Frankfurt’s Bahnhofsviertel (train station district), where the series was filmed, The Zweiflers is critically analysed and compared with insights from that long-term fieldwork. This analysis is further contextualized by engaging with the crucial works of diasporic artists and post-migrant filmmakers, alongside scholarship on urban multiculture and anti-essentialist concepts in sociology and cultural studies. The Jewish–Muslim relationships depicted in the series are not merely fictional; they reflect real, historically evolved partnerships characterized by a collective will to overcome contradictions. This nuanced depiction counters static assumptions about community relations often found in the polarized debates surrounding the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, offering a vital contribution to understanding contemporary German society.
Abstract: Dal 1991 la Fondazione CDEC produce un rapporto annuale sull’antisemitismo in Italia. L’ultimo, che analizza i dati raccolti nel corso del 2025, evidenzia un quadro particolarmente allarmante: le manifestazioni di odio antiebraico in Italia continuano a crescere. Anche in termini qualitativi la situazione è nettamente peggiorata, poiché gli atti più gravi hanno conosciuto un aumento maggiore.
Nel corso dell’anno si sono registrati 963 episodi di antisemitismo, a fronte di 1492 segnalazioni ricevute. Questo dato rappresenta una crescita di circa il 10% rispetto allo scorso anno, del 100% rispetto al 2023 e di ben il 400% rispetto al 2022. Si tratta, dunque, di un trend in continua crescita.
Nel corso del 2025 la matrice principale delle manifestazioni di odio è stata legata a Israele. Antichi pregiudizi — come l’accusa del sangue, il mito dell’elezione e l’odio verso il genere umano — sono stati trasferiti sul sionismo e sullo Stato di Israele.
Sebbene le diffamazioni rappresentino la maggior parte degli episodi, seguite dalle minacce, gli incrementi maggiori rispetto allo scorso anno hanno riguardato le discriminazioni (+100%) e le aggressioni fisiche (+225%). In altri termini, gli atti più gravi sono cresciuti maggiormente.
Le manifestazioni di palese antisemitismo online rappresentano oltre il 66% dei casi. Particolarmente diffuso è l’uso di emoji o numeri apparentemente innocui (come il gufo, il polpo, 109, 14/88, le triple parentesi (((cognome))), il triangolo rosso) per veicolare messaggi d’odio nelle subculture digitali.
I mesi estivi, e in particolare giugno e luglio, hanno mostrato picchi particolarmente elevati. Anche le Olimpiadi di Milano-Cortina, all’inizio del 2026, hanno evidenziato vari episodi di antisemitismo. In termini geografici, gli episodi di antisemitismo fisico da noi osservati si sono concentrati in Lombardia e Lazio, seguiti da Toscana, Emilia-Romagna, Piemonte e Veneto.
Forse il dato più inquietante è che il 14% degli italiani concorda con l’ipotesi di espellere gli ebrei dall’Italia. Manifestare la propria identità (ad esempio parlare in ebraico o indossare la kippah) comporta oggi rischi particolarmente elevati di aggressione e marginalizzazione.
Il Rapporto si basa sulla definizione operativa di antisemitismo dell’International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), largamente in uso internazionalmente e analizzata nel contributo scientifico del prof. Sergio Della Pergola.
Abstract: This report finds that the decision to ban away supporters from the fixture was reached through a flawed risk assessment process.
We argue that the prohibition was not justified by the risks as assessed, and it represented an unnecessary departure from ordinary policing practice, which we believe would likely have been sufficient to secure the match.
The Parliamentary Select Committee similarly concludes that the decision-making process was flawed. However, it maintains that the prohibition was proportionate to the level of risk, even if that risk had been more rigorously assessed.
Our analysis considers a further, key point. A central weakness in the decision-making process was the failure clearly to specify the nature and source of the risk.
If the primary risk came from away supporters themselves, then exclusion may have been justified. But if the principal risk derived from anti-Israel protestors, boycott activists, and antizionist actors seeking to disrupt or attack the match, then banning the away supporters risked punishing those who were being threatened and who did not themselves constitute a significant threat.
In such circumstances, the appropriate response would have required consideration beyond technical policing calculations. If there was a significant antisemitic threat, a policy priority might have been to mobilise sufficient police resources to defend the match, the visiting team, and their supporters rather than excluding them.
The decision-making process appears to have overestimated the risk posed by Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters, in part through a misreading of the Amsterdam precedent and perhaps through reliance on politically committed sources of advice. It may have given insufficient weight to risks arising from boycott activism and to the risk of antisemitic violence of the kind that occurred in Amsterdam.
The process did not engage in a serious way with institutions or individuals from the Jewish community either locally or nationally, or with HM Independent Advisor on Antisemitism. Doing so would have given it a better chance of avoiding the mistakes that it made in understanding the precedent, possible alternatives and the predictable impact of the away fans ban on Jewish communities.
If there was a significant antisemitic dimension to the threat environment, the risk assessment process did not identify or articulate it clearly.
Abstract: This article explores the ways in which oral testimonies of Jewish survivors allow a critical reflection on the understanding of gratitude as a social emotion in the context of hiding under German occupation in Poland. Examined alongside oral interviews with non-Jewish rescuers and helpers, these testimonies unveil the social hierarchy between the non-Jewish majority and the Jewish minority. Consequently, the article scrutinizes the topoi of ‘an ungrateful Jew’ within the context of the Polish public sphere which excludes Jewish narratives, experiences, and memories. Based on oral history interviews and in-depth individual interviews with Jewish survivors, rescuers, and helpers, their descendants, as well as residents of two Polish towns in the Lublin area, Biłgoraj and Izbica, the article presents two case studies of rescue and survival. The analysis investigates the narratives, cultural norms involved, and the underlying power dynamics between rescuers or helpers and Jewish individuals.
Abstract: We provide a comparative analysis of how European radical left parties (RLPs) politicise the Israel – Palestine and Russia – Ukraine conflicts. Examining the positions of 25 RLPs, we test four hypotheses examining variation in Israel-hostility, Russia-related stances, cross-conflict coherence, and the dynamics of war fatigue. Patterns of politicisation are complex and there is no unified party family response. We show that while no RLP is Israel-friendly, levels of Israel-hostility vary substantially and tend to intensify as the Gaza war persists. By contrast, positions on Russia – Ukraine remain deeply divided, with no linear shift towards Russia-friendliness. Ideological subtype shapes, but does not determine, party responses, while broader contextual factors, most notably the ‘Trump effect’, repoliticise questions of European security. However, further politicisation is limited by the weakness of cross-conflict coherence. Several parties express consistent anti-imperialist logic in their response, but most disaggregate their critiques. RLP foreign policy emerges as ideologically-driven but contextually responsive.
Abstract: This article examines how normative logic embedded in reparations law continues to shape contemporary German criminal law, taking the Luxembourg Agreement of 1952 between the Federal Republic of Germany, the State of Israel and the Jewish Conference on Material Claims against Germany (JCC) as its very conceptual point of departure. Against the backdrop of rising antisemitic criminal offenses in Germany, the article focuses on the amendment of Section 46 (2) of the German Criminal Code (StGB; Strafgesetzbuch), which explicitly includes antisemitic motives among the circumstances relevant for sentencing. While this amendment has been criticized as merely declaratory or even ‘symbolic’, this article argues that such criticism overlooks the deeper legal genealogy of state responsibility that ultimately originates in the Luxembourg Agreement. Antisemitic motives intensify culpability and wrongfulness because they engage the foundational commitments of the post-war legal order that emerged in response to antisemitic state-driven violence. Explicitly naming such motives in sentencing law therefore constitutes a crucial institutional function by shaping investigative practices, judicial reasoning, and normative expectations within the criminal justice system. From a criminal legal perspective, the article develops an account of motives as normative indicators that affect both culpability and wrongfulness. Antisemitic motives, it argues, intensify the Unrechtsgehalt of an offense because they negate the equal moral status of the victim and symbolically attack the legal order that emerged in response to antisemitic state violence. The article concludes that the explicit inclusion of antisemitic motives in Section 46 (2) StGB reflects a coherent and legally grounded response to historically specific injustice and underscores the role of criminal law in stabilizing responsibility within the German legal order.
Abstract: For this report, the Union of Jewish Students has collated dozens of testimonies from students who have
experienced antisemitism on campus.
The UJS also commissioned polling of 1,000 students, across all faiths and none, to assess the
impact of campus protests and the rise of antisemitism. The findings reveal alarming levels of campus
antisemitism, significant disruption caused by protests, and perceptions of Jewish students marred by
hostility and intolerance.
Key Findings:
1.Antisemitism has become normalised on our campuses.
- One in four students (23%) have seen behaviour that targets Jewish students for their religion/ethnicity.
- One in five (20%) students would be reluctant to, or would never, houseshare with a Jewish student.
- Jewish students have told us they have faced physical and verbal abuse, social ostracisation and
widespread antisemitic attitudes.
2.Glorification of terrorism is prevalent and unpunished.
- Our research has found that student groups have explicitly called for violence against Jews, even justifying the terrorist attack at Bondi Beach in December 2025.
- 49% of students have heard slogans or chants glorifying Hamas, Hezbollah or other proscribed groups on campus.
- 47% have witnessed justification of the October 7th attacks, rising to 77% among those who encounter Israel-Palestine protests regularly.
3. Protests disrupt all students, and universities have a clear mandate from students to take firmer action.
-Protests have disrupted learning for 65% of students, and 40% have altered their journey on campus to avoid disruption.
- Universities where protests are more frequent have seen higher levels of antisemitism, and four in ten (39%) of students who witness regular Israel-Palestine protests have seen Jewish students harassed often.
- 69% of students disapprove of protests blocking access to learning, and 82% deem calls to 'globalise the intifada' to be antisemitic.
Abstract: In June 2025, Hadassah UK partnered with the Hadassah Medical Organization in Jerusalem to undertake important mental health research in the community. Developed by leading Israeli trauma experts, a UK-wide survey was presented to the community to understand how British Jews were coping with the psychological and social impact of October 7th, the ongoing conflict, and rising antisemitism.
This research involved 511 participants from diverse backgrounds within the UK Jewish community, representing various denominational affiliations, geographic locations, and demographic characteristics. The completed study provided robust statistical power for examining complex relationships between trauma exposure, psychological symptoms, and protective factors.Our comprehensive statistical analysis reveals critical insights into the psychological impact of exposure to the October 7th events and subsequent antisemitism on the UK Jewish community.
Participants were recruited through multiple channels including synagogues, Jewish community organisations, and social networks to ensure broad representation, as well as help to capture the full spectrum of experiences within the UK Jewish community.
From our study, we can see that the psychological impact of October 7th and subsequent events created significant mental health challenges within the UK Jewish community. A key finding showed that over one-third of participants exhibited clinically significant PTSD symptoms, including intrusive memories of attack imagery, avoidance of trauma reminders, and heightened reactive responses.
Abstract: Homogenization, monochromatic rendering, and the process of schematic imposition is readily apparent in modern mainstream Jewish French politics. The Jewish Maghreb explores complex self and communal understandings of Maghrebi Jewish populations and their descendants in France through ethnography across generations. This study examines how colonial history, migration, and geopolitics shape ongoing Maghrebi belonging. From commercial networks in Paris to Algerian pilgrimage journeys, the book reveals communal North African Jewish navigation of plural sediments of self and history. The heuristic ‘maghrebinicité,’ works to illuminate ongoing negotiations of memory, citizenship, and cultural transmission in postcolonial France, offering fresh insights into diaspora, return, and the persistence of transnational connections.
Abstract: The study examines antisemitism and anti-Israel attitudes in Sweden, analyzing their links to prejudicial attitudes, conspiracy beliefs, and institutional trust. Based on a representative survey of 3,507 individuals, the findings reveal that antisemitism and anti-Israel attitudes are related, but differ in important ways. Antisemitism is associated with anti-immigrant and sexist attitudes and greater endorsement of conspiracy beliefs, but is unrelated to institutional trust. By contrast, anti-Israel attitudes are unrelated to anti-immigrant attitudes and are positively associated with governemnt trust and media confidence. Cluster analyses have identified three profiles: Neutral Moderates (low antisemitism and low anti-Israel attitudes), Critical Engagers (low antisemitism but moderate anti-Israel attitudes), and Distrustful Sceptics (heightened levels of both). These profiles differ in socio-demographic characteristics, prejudicial attitudes, and conspiracy beliefs, with higher institutional trust increasing the likelihood of belonging to Critical Engagers. The findings suggest that institutional trust may channel individuals toward stronger anti-Israel attitudes, particularly in Sweden.
Abstract: In 1976, German political scientist Wolf Oschlies published Bulgaria – A Country with No Antisemitism. Since then, the slogan ‘A Country with No Antisemitism’ has circulated in Bulgaria as evidence of international recognition of the so-called ‘Rescue of Bulgarian Jews during World War II.’ Official Holocaust remembrance policies rely heavily on this discourse, presenting Bulgaria as the only country in German-controlled Europe to have saved its entire Jewish population from Nazi extermination camps. This celebratory framing serves as proof of civic values and ethnic tolerance, while marginalizing the fate of Jews in territories administered by Bulgaria during the war.
This article examines how that official discourse is translated into educational narratives through state requirements and history textbooks. It asks what Bulgarian students are expected to learn about the ‘rescue’ and the rescuers of the Jews, and analyzes how the theme is presented in terms of scope, depth, and emphasis. The findings show that textbooks largely reproduce the official discourse, but in the form of simplified narratives that place collective ‘rescue’ at the center, silence Jewish voices, and obscure contradictions in Bulgaria’s wartime policies. The article concludes by discussing the implications of these representations for Bulgaria’s nation-building strategies, as well as for the projection of a positive national image abroad.
Abstract: Golden Dawn (GD), Greece’s most prominent far-right political organization, strategically utilized antisemitism as its core ideological principle rather than a marginal prejudice or rhetorical device. This article argues that antisemitism served primarily as an epistemological conspiratorial framework central to GD’s ideological worldview, providing a coherent interpretive lens through which all political, economic, and social phenomena were explained as elements of a singular Jewish-orchestrated plot. Drawing on qualitative discourse analysis of over 10,300 GD publications spanning 1993 to 2020, the study illustrates how this epistemological master frame enabled the party to unify diverse domestic and international issues, from foreign policy tensions and immigration debates to economic crises, under a consistent antisemitic narrative. Additionally, by explicitly employing Holocaust denial, endorsing Nazi symbolism, and openly propagating antisemitic conspiracies, GD deliberately violated post-Holocaust European norms. This normative transgression was integral to the party’s identity, positioning it in overt defiance of mainstream moral and political boundaries. The article thus demonstrates how GD’s antisemitism functioned not merely as a rhetorical provocation but as the foundation of a comprehensive ideological system that consciously challenged established European taboos. These findings also suggest broader implications for understanding the role and adaptability of conspiratorial antisemitism and normative transgression in other extremist ideologies beyond the Greek context.
Abstract: This article explores hate crime targeting three specific religious groups in the United Kingdom: Muslims, Jews and Hindus. Drawing on qualitative interviews with victims, the research considers both hate crimes and noncriminal incidents such as bias and discrimination. The central aim is to examine how individuals from these groups perceive and respond to their experiences of victimization. The article presents data from interviews with 30 participants and three focus groups, focusing particularly on the participants’ immediate reactions to incidents of hate crime. The research identifies both similarities and differences in how each group responded at the time of the incident. Participants described their immediate reactions in one of four ways: inaction (outwardly not reacting), seeking some form of recourse, verbally confronting the perpetrator or retaliating with violence. Notably, none of the Jewish or Hindu participants reported responding with verbal confrontation, retaliation or physical aggression; their typical response was inaction. In contrast, Muslim participants exhibited a broader range of immediate responses, including verbal confrontation, physical retaliation and seeking recourse. This article is the first to offer insight into the varied immediate responses to hate crime among these religious communities in the United Kingdom.
Abstract: CST recorded 3,700 antisemitic incidents in the UK in 2025, the second-highest total ever reported to CST in a single calendar year. This is an increase of 4% from the 3,556 anti-Jewish hate incidents recorded by CST in 2024, and 14% lower than the highest ever annual total of 4,298 antisemitic incidents reported in 2023. CST recorded 1,662 antisemitic incidents in 2022, and 2,261 in 2021.
The increase from the total recorded in 2024 reflects that antisemitic incident levels remain at a significantly higher rate than was the case prior to Hamas’ terror attack on Israel on 7 October 2023. There was an immediate and significant spike in recorded cases of anti-Jewish hate in the UK in the aftermath of that attack. The subsequent war, and its grip of public and media attention even during periods of ceasefire, has continued to impact the amount and nature of anti-Jewish hate reported in the 27 months since that date.
Abstract: This research paper examines safety perceptions among Jewish minorities at European places of worship (PoWs) between October 2023 and April 2024. The study utilizes PROTONE survey data from Belgium (N = 571), Germany (N = 734), Spain (N = 1198), and Italy (N = 895), specifically comparing 79 Jewish and 3,318 non-Jewish respondents. Qualitative components include 43 interviews with faith leaders (including 16 Rabbis) and five focus groups conducted in Brussels, Berlin, Rome, and Madrid. Grounded in postsecularism, vulnerability assessment models, and securitization theories, the research explores how threats and security measures shape feelings of insecurity. Key findings indicate that violent attacks and property damage strongly predict perceived unsafety. Comparative analysis reveals that Jewish respondents perceive significantly higher levels of anti-Semitic hostility and hate crimes than non-Jewish groups perceive regarding their own communities. While positive community and authority relations marginally mitigate fear, structural vulnerabilities like outdated infrastructure persist. Attitudes toward security vary; CCTV is universally accepted, but armed guards raise concerns about carization. Generational differences appear, with younger Jewish individuals reporting notably higher anxiety and avoidance behaviors. The study contextualizes these findings within broader socio-cultural and political processes, highlighting the dual role of Jewish PoWs as essential and sacred sites for spiritual fulfillment and robust local communal resilience.
