Abstract: In this chapter I intend to present what happens when contemporary Western activist and academic anti-Zionism falls on the fertile soil of a country which is, firstly, semi-peripheral and, secondly, burdened with a history of antisemitism that is as intense as it is specific. Its specificity entails three postwar waves of Jewish emigration caused by antisemitic violence, primarily to Israel. The first two happened in 1946–9 and 1956–60, respectively. The third of these waves was triggered by what in Poland is generally referred to as ‘March’. The repression of student youth protesting against censorship intensified in March 1968, but the antisemitic campaign with which the state authorities cracked down on opposition within the party and on the streets lingered on for much longer. It was unleashed under the banner of ‘anti-Zionism’. I will first briefly outline the events of that period, since knowledge of them is essential to understanding the meanings with which the term ‘Zionism’ is imbued in Poland. Next I will outline the contemporary politics of remembrance of ‘March’ and, more broadly, the stakes of Polish historical politics, which are related to the collective manifestations of Poles’ attitudes towards Jews. These three phenomena – March 1968, the management of its memory and contemporary historical politics reproducing antisemitic clichés – form, so I would like to suggest, the first context against which the functioning of anti-Zionism in Poland today should be considered.
Abstract: Проаналізовано значення поняття «культура історичної пам’яті», розглянуто історію її формування у Західній Європі, особливості ландшафту пам’яті у Східній Європі та Україні, визначено ключові питання історичної політики України, які мають потенціал перешкодити європейській інтеграції України. Внаслідок проведеного дослідження встановлено, що Україна належить до східноєвропейського регіону історичної пам’яті, якому притаманні етатизм, єдність та героїчність, віктимність, сек’юритизація. На шляху до європейської інтеграції перед Україною поставатимуть проблеми піднесення ролі Голокосту в історичній пам’яті та визнання часткової відповідальності за злочини колаборантів, обмеження регулювання з боку держави історичної сфери, українсько-польських історичних конфліктів. Водночас може відбуватися дифузія західноєвропейської та східноєвропейської моделей пам’яті.
Abstract: At the time of writing, one consequence of Israel’s response to the massacre that took place in Israel by Hamas on 7 October 2023 is an unprecedented surge in global antisemitism. This massacre was the largest mass murder of Jewish civilians since the Holocaust; its scale, brutality and sadism have led to comparisons with the Holocaust, and to more and deeper sensitivities and controversies in Holocaust Education. In an attempt to address this, the proposed chapter will discuss the relationship between Holocaust Education and Antisemitism Education, and its relevance to Religious Education (RE) in schools.
Holocaust Education comprises learning about and from the Holocaust (Cowan and Maitles, Understanding and teaching Holocaust education. Sage, 2017). The former focuses on the historical narrative; the latter focuses on moral issues related to active citizenship. Research findings in England (Foster, Pettigrew and Pearce et al., What do students know and understand about the Holocaust? Evidence from English secondary schools. Centre for Holocaust Education, UCL Institute of Education, 2016, p. 1) were that 68% of students (n = 7952 students) were “unaware of what ‘antisemitism’ meant”. Similarly, during a group interview, following their return from a visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau organised by the Archdiocese of Glasgow, Scotland, each of the four students indicated that they did not understand the term “antisemitism” (Cowan & Maitles, 2017, p. 139). Further, Short’s discussion of the failings of learning from the Holocaust included the lack of reference to “the key role played by Christian antisemitism in preparing the groundwork for the Holocaust” (Short, Learning from genocide? A study in the failure of Holocaust education. Intercultural Education, 16(4), 367-380, 2005; Failing to learn from the Holocaust. In As the Witnesses Fall Silent: 21st Century Holocaust Education in Curriculum, Policy and Practice (pp. 455–468), 2015). Cowan and Maitles (2017, p. 56) further assert that historical antisemitism contributes to understanding present-day antisemitism.
Topics: Jewish Identity, Jewish Community, Denominations, Main Topic: Identity and Community, Jewish History, Reform/Liberal/Progressive Judaism, Conservative / Masorti Judaism, Orthodox Judaism, Chabad-Lubavitch, Haredi / Strictly Orthodox Jews, Israel-Diaspora Relations
Abstract: This chapter analyzes developments that profoundly transformed French Judaism over decades. The former paradigm of French Judaism, dating back to the nineteenth century, was of Judaism united and unified under the auspices of the Consistory, the central religious institution Napoleon created. In this model of "Israelitism," the symbiosis between Jewish and French affiliations was based on Judaism as a faith and French citizenship. International links were established towards the end of the 19th century, notably through the Alliance israélite universelle and intellectuals supporting the Zionist project, but it was the post-1945 world that witnessed a gradual departure from this confessional model. A new Franco-Judaism emerged in the 1970s-1980s, combining Jewish and French identities in new ways: solidarity with Israel, an attachment to diasporic Jewish cultures, an increasingly public affirmation of Jewishness, and advocacy against forms of Holocaust denial. It marked a definitive rupture with the older paradigm of Israelitism. This chapter also focuses on the development of religious pluralism and the increasing internationalization of French Judaism. It examines the four branches of French Jewish Orthodoxy (ultra-Orthodoxy, Chabad, Religious Zionism, and Modern Orthodoxy), as well as the more liberal Reform and Massorti movements. It provides a broad overview of the environments and actors constituting this reconfiguration of a new French Judaism, henceforth anchored in pluralism and internationalization.
Abstract: Prior to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, anti-Semitism (in both public discourse and policies and as manifested in the infrequency of anti-Semitic incidents) was at a historical low, and simultaneously Russia’s relationship with Israel was on the rise. Officially, the Kremlin denounced xenophobia and made a crucial distinction between the isolationist ethnic nationalism that it condemned and the broader Russian imperial nationalism that has become Putinism’s dominant framework, especially after 2014. T he war against Ukraine, which Russia conceptualises as the continuation of its “struggle against the Nazis,” is waged in the actual space where the Holocaust took place, and also, semantically, in the historical “bloodlands,” following Timothy Snyder’s term, that intersect with and evoke issues of Jewishness and Anti-Semitism, reactivating all manner of revisionist discourses about war-time collaboration, the Holocaust, and Ukrainian Jewish history. The Russian regime and its propagandists spin various conspiratorial narratives about the war and Ukraine’s leadership that both reactivate dormant Soviet-era prejudices and create new ones (e.g., “sects,” “global Satanism,” “Western elites,” “liberals as the fifth column,” etc.) that are linked to Jewishness. Russian anti-Semitism is an inherently dynamic phenomenon that is shaped by and is included in the escalation in the Middle East, Russia’s war against Ukraine, and Russia’s hostile relations with the “collective West” and as such should be considered within international, domestic, and historical contexts.
Abstract: Dem Staat Israel kommt in Deutschland regelmäßig eine im internationalen Vergleich große Aufmerksamkeit zu. Fast immer geht es hierbei um dessen Rolle im Nahostkonflikt, also in den jahrzehntelang bestehenden politischen Auseinandersetzungen mit den palästinensischen Akteur*innen, arabischen sowie weiteren Staaten der Region (wie etwa dem Iran). Diese Aufmerksamkeit verläuft konjunkturell und folgt dem Verlauf von Eskalationsphasen des Nahostkonflikts. In den letzten Jahre wurde der (mögliche) antisemitische Gehalt "israelkritischer" Positionen zunehmend diskutiert: "Debatten um Fragen des aktuellen Antisemitismus sind immer öfter zugleich Debatten um Wahrnehmungen Israels und des Nahostkonflikts" (Niehoff 2021, 73). Beide Themen werden häufig und zunehmend miteinander assoziiert. Gleichzeitig sind Unklarheiten und Unsicherheiten weit verbreitet, welche Positionierungen gegenüber dem Staat Israel, der sich als Nationalstaat des jüdischen Volkes versteht, als antisemitisch zu bewerten sind (und, so die Konsequenz, moralisch geächtet werden sollten) und welche Haltungen demgegenüber als "kritische" 1 einzustufen sind (und als solche legitimer Teil der kontroversen politischen Auseinandersetzung seien). Zu einer entsprechenden Sensibilisierung haben insbesondere Studien und Berichte mit dem Fokus auf Perspektiven von Betroffenen von Antisemitismus (Zick u.a. 2017a; Bernstein 2020; Chernivsky u.a. 2020) sowie die professionelle zivilgesellschaftliche Arbeit etwa von Monitoringstellen antisemitischer Vorfälle (Bundesverband RIAS/Internationales Institut für Bildung, Sozial-und Antisemitismusforschung 2021) beigetragen. Auch wissenschaftliche Forschung widmet sich verstärkt der Problematik. Deutlich sichtbar wurde diese insbesondere im Mai 2021, als anlässlich von militärischen Auseinandersetzung zwischen der palästinensischen Hamas und der israelischen Armee antiisraelische Demonstrationen in Deutschland stattfanden, in deren Kontext (vermeintliche) jüdische Personen, Synagogen sowie der Staat Israel bedroht und attackiert wurden (vgl. ebd., 14, 51-65). 1 Irritationen entstehen regelmäßig u.a. deswegen, da völlig unterschiedliche Nutzungen von "kritisch" in diesem Zusammenhang existieren (vgl. z.B. Schwarz-Friesel/Reinharz 2013, 194-209). Die Bandbreite reicht von Begriffsverständnissen, die alle nicht-antisemitischen negativen Positionierungen unter "kritisch" subsummieren, andere Verständnisse grenzen den "kritischen" Bereich eng(er) ein.
