Abstract: n 2000, I was commissioned by Inter Nationes to update my 1997 brochure on Jews in Contemporary Germany. I submitted the following article in early 2001. Unfortunately, Inter Nationes felt that my new version was too long and too inflammatory; they felt that it might end up annoying too many people. So the Inter Nationes version which has since appeared in several languages is greatly abridged. This ‘original’ version reflects my own opinions, and has not been ‘politically corrected’. I believe, however, that it presents a more comprehensive, better balanced and ultimately more positive picture of Jews in Germany today. THE QUESTION COMPLEXES There are so many aspects to the ‘Jews in contemporary Germany’ theme that I find it practical to group them into three complexes. The first complex concerns Jews among themselves, and I call it ‘Germany’s Jews’. Who are the Jews living in Germany now, the remaining ‘establishment’ (the postwar, pre-unification community) and the newcomers? How and how well do they coexist? What are the major internal issues confronting the Jewish community today, and what is likely to be the future of Jewry in Germany? It is the second question complex which tends to attract the most attention, both within Germany and outside the country: ‘Jews and non-Jews in Germany’. How come there are still any Jews at all living in Germany after the Holocaust? How do these Jews get along with the Germans (a loaded question if ever there was once, since it assumes that Jews are not Germans, and Germans are not Jews) and vice versa? What role does anti- Semitism play in Germany, assuming that it does play one? What do the Jews living in Germany perceive as the major issues confronting their relationship with the ‘outside world’ – that is, with anybody and everybody who is not a Jew living in Germany, and in particular, with Jews living in the United States? And this last question brings us to the third complex, since we are back to considering Jews among themselves, this time not just within Germany but across the Atlantic. I call this complex ‘the American factor’ and extend it to include the current state of the so-called German-Jewish dialogue. This too is a loaded concept, complicated by the fact that the ‘Germans’ in this case are automatically non-Jews, and the ‘Jews’ are usually American Jews. In the pages to follow, I shall try to give a brief overview of all three complexes. The first is probably the most interesting, if only because only the people concerned, the Jews living in Germany, know anything much about it. Certainly, the internal Jewish complex is generally little known to, and even less understood by, the rest of the German population. For the most part, the rest of the world, including other Jewish populations, either have no interest in the topic, or have erroneous ideas based on myth and prejudice. I shall therefore start with the Jews among themselves.
Abstract: Статья исследует основные направления эмиграции горских евреев во второй половине XX – начале XXI века. Горские евреи, кавказские евреи или джууры, а если быть точнее, то их предки появились на Кавказе, предположительно в VI в. н.э. Местами их компактного расселения в данном регионе стали территории современной Азербайджанской Республики и юг Республики Дагестан. Горские евреи всегда в гармонии и мире проживали с другими народами на Кавказе. Ситуация поменялась в 1970-х. гг. когда они начали репатриироваться в Израиль. Однако, более массовый характер переселенческое движение приобрело в 1990-х гг. в период дезинтеграции СССР. Автор анализирует причины массового исхода представителей этой общины, включая политические, экономические и социальные факторы. Особое внимание уделяется миграционным маршрутам, таким как переезд в Израиль, США и Европу, а также особенностям адаптации горских евреев в новых условиях. В работе рассматриваются изменения в культурной идентичности и сохранении традиций в условиях диаспоры. Среди использованных в данном исследовании методов можно назвать исторический метод (историко-генетический), историко-сравнительный метод, историко-типологический метод, историко-структурный метод, документальный анализ. Исследование сочетает исторические и социологические аспекты эмиграции горских евреев, что позволяет более полно понять причинно-следственные связи. В статье представлены статистические данные, которые ранее не были учтены в исследованиях по данной тематике. Анализируются новые миграционные маршруты и связи с диаспорами, что актуализирует проблему идентичности и культурной адаптации. Исследуется влияние политических и экономических изменений в странах исхода и приема на динамику эмиграции. В ыводы: 1. Эмиграция горских евреев во второй половине XX века была преимущественно вызвана политическими и экономическими трудностями, а в начале XXI века – поиском лучших условий жизни и интеграции в новые общества. 2. Основные направления эмиграции: Израиль, США, Канада, Германия и Австрия, где горские евреи нашли возможность поддерживать свою культуру и идентичность. 3. Процесс эмиграции оказал значительное влияние на демографическую структуру, что привело, фактически, к исчезновению общин горских евреев в традиционных местах проживания.
Abstract: Значимость темы данного исследования заключается в том, что с момента создания Еврейской автономной области на ее территории успешно работали различные еврейские национальные коллективы. Однако в силу политических и экономических причин они прекратили свое существование в 1990-е годы. В рамках реализации «Стратегии культурной политики РФ» в 2000-е годы идея возрождения еврейского театрального искусства в Еврейской автономной области приобрела актуальный характер. Однако реализация этой идеи имела определенные сложности, на которых и останавливается автор статьи. Целью работы стал анализ имеющегося опыта возрождения еврейского театрального искусства на территории Еврейской автономной области посредством изучения творческой деятельности театра «Когалет». Предметом исследования стал еврейский театр, существовавший на территории ЕАО на протяжении XX века, а предметом попытки его возрождения в XXI веке. Автор статьи останавливается на процессах появления в регионе еврейских театральных коллективов в ХХ веке, говорит о важной роли их в процессе формирование социокультурного пространства дальневосточного региона. В результате, используя системный метод, автор провел не просто анализ материалов газеты «Биробиджанская звезда», но и выделил ряд проблем по вопросам возможного возрождения еврейского театра на территории ЕАО. Ведь значение еврейской культуры в национальной автономной области является главным фактором сохранение этого субъекта в федеративном устройстве России. В тоже время проблема заваленной темы состоит в самом существовании ЕАО, где евреи не являются титульной нацией, как следствие возникает вопрос о необходимости создании еврейских театров в современных условиях.
Abstract: En France, depuis le début des années 2000, au sein du judaïsme orthodoxe et moderne orthodoxe, de plus en plus de femmes mettent en place différentes stratégies d’« empouvoirement » pour accéder aux textes religieux, les étudier, les interpréter, les enseigner et exercer des fonctions religieuses. Tout en interrogeant leurs différentes mobilisations, l’autrice montre que ces femmes participent à la recomposition du religieux, et ce, en renégociant les frontières entre le public et le privé, et en contribuant à la production de discours religieux et féministes.
Abstract: The authors of this text, two Israeli historians, probe the background to the keynote speech delivered by Thomas Rose, the US ambassador to Poland, at the conference of the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Judges in Warsaw in November 2025. The newly appointed envoy—a Republican political appointee and former publisher of The Jerusalem Post—insisted that claims of any Polish complicity in the German annihilation of Polish Jewry amount to a “blood libel.” In Contrast, Dreifuss and Weinbaum contend that these remarks serve to reinforce ongoing efforts by individuals and Polish officialdom to delegitimize the rigorous scholarship of a determined band of Polish researchers who have been studying wartime Polish–Jewish relations for nearly three decades. While condemning the occasional conflation of Poles with the actual masterminds and prime perpetrators of the Final Solution, the authors emphasize that local participation in the degradation, dispossession, and destruction of Polish Jews was far more extensive than had been previously recognized. They further argue that both Communist and post-Communist governments, as well as Polish individuals and institutions at home and in exile, have resisted confronting these findings and that scholars and others who challenge more reassuring narratives have faced sustained and often vitriolic attacks. The authors conclude that this excruciating chapter of history must be confronted dispassionately—on the basis of meticulous scholarly inquiry—and should not be subordinated to diplomatic or political agendas.
Abstract: In his article, the author responds to Jörg Hermann Yiftach Fehige's criticism, expressed in the article “Jewish Theology as a Science in the Context of Post-Shoah Germany” in the fall 2026 issue of “Theology and Science”. He explains why theologies, as a subject, are an integral part of the arts and humanities within the Central European university system, and why Jewish theology was added as a university subject as late as 2013, 190 years after this had been demanded by Rabbis Abraham Geiger (1836) and Ludwig Philippson (1837) as a prerequisite for the successful emancipation of Jews in a “Christian State” (Friedrich Schlegel). He also speaks out against allegations reported in Fehige's contribution that he is an abuser, cheater, and plagiarist. Keywords: Paul Feyerabend, Abraham Geiger, German Science and Humanities Council, Jewish emancipation, Jewish identity, Jewish theology, liberal democracy, relationship between state and religions, Reform Judaism, Wissenschaft des Judentums, World Union for Progressive Judaism.
Abstract: This study explores how students negotiate complex and sensitive issues in schools, focussing on the October 7, 2023, attacks and their consequences. Drawing on discourse analysis informed by Foucault and discursive psychology, we analyse students’ talk in focus group discussions as situated social action, examining how they make sense of events, construct accounts and position themselves and others. The analysis provides empirical insights into how students navigate a contested topic and contributes to pedagogical approaches that support democratic dialogue and critical engagement. The results show that students negotiate meaning through a knowledge positioning discourse, which shapes students’ willingness to engage amid epistemic ambiguity; a moral positioning discourse, which introduces pressures to take a stance and challenges deliberative ideals; and an anti-antisemitism discourse, which exposes tensions between critique of Zionism and antisemitism. Findings reveal that reliance on media-informed narratives, moral framings and contested identity categories can both enable and constrain dialogue, sometimes reinforcing polarisation and feelings of alienation. The study argues for pedagogical strategies that foster epistemic security, promote perspective-taking and critically engage with the politics of language to dismantle stereotypes and prevent dichotomous narratives.
Abstract: Burchett's article sheds light on the community of Facebook users who interact with posts by the populist far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), and how they respond to the AfD’s contradictory narratives regarding Jews and antisemitism. The AfD uses its online space to construct an everyday reality of victimhood for its political community, which conditionally includes Jews. Jewish victimhood and inclusion are emphasized by the AfD when they fit its political aims, such as focusing on ‘Muslim-Arab’ antisemitism to underline an anti-immigration stance, but are minimized when Jewish victimhood is perceived to threaten non-Jewish German victimhood, as it is seen to do in the context of Holocaust remembrance. Burchett compares comment threads from these two thematic streams and finds that, regardless of the difference in victimhood framing by the AfD, users in both streams react with similar narratives of defensive, competitive and rejective victimhood, as well as a reluctance to include Jews in their in-group of victims, even when the AfD explicitly includes them. Her paper argues that so-called ‘secondary’ antisemitism, Jewish exclusion as a result of resistance to Holocaust guilt, also has an effect on contemporary Jewish victimhood.
Abstract: Im vorliegenden Beitrag werden Zusammenhänge zwischen Bildung und Antisemitismus erörtert,
mit dem Ziel, Perspektiven einer erfolgreichen antisemitismuskritischen Bildungsarbeit aufzuzeigen. Dafür wird zunächst der Frage nachgegangen, inwiefern Antisemitismus ein »Bildungsproblem« darstellt. Danach erfolgt ein Überblick über die gegenwärtige Vermittlungsarbeit in Österreich zum Themenfeld Antisemitismus in Schule, außerschulischer Jugendarbeit und Erwachsenenbildung, der aufgrund der schlechten Datenlage notwendigerweise lückenhaft bleibt. Daraus werden einige Fallstricke in der Bildungsarbeit zum Thema Antisemitismus abgeleitet. Im
Zentrum des Artikels stehen eine normative Definition antisemitismuskritischer Bildungsarbeit sowie Anregungen für die Praxis, die auch einen Exkurs zum islamisierten Antisemitismus enthalten. Der Beitrag zeigt auf, dass Bildung zwar nicht per se vor Antisemitismus schützt, eine Bildungsarbeit, die den Antisemitismus als strukturelles sowie individuelles Phänomen ernst nimmt, ihn im historischen Längsschnitt thematisiert und verschiedene Formen differenziert, jedoch maßgeblich zu seiner Reduktion beitragen kann.
Abstract: This article explores how Holocaust education can be reimagined through the lens of Critical Theory—particularly the work of Theodor W. Adorno—in order to more effectively confront contemporary antisemitism. While Holocaust education is often invoked as a response to rising antisemitism, its actual impact in this regard remains contested. Drawing on Adorno’s reflections on antisemitism and education after Auschwitz, the article highlights both the emancipatory potential and the limitations of education. Central themes include the importance of early childhood education, the critique of ideology, and the tension between pedagogical aims and societal structures. The article proposes eleven impulses for rethinking Holocaust education, emphasizing, among other points, the need to turn toward the subject, the dangers of half-education ( Halbbildung ), and the importance of linking historical specificity with sociological insight. Rather than offering a prescriptive model, it outlines a conceptual framework that situates Holocaust education within a broader project of social critique and enlightenment. Ultimately, it argues that Holocaust education alone cannot prevent antisemitism, but can meaningfully contribute to resisting it.
Abstract: Together we seek to model the redemptive, liberatory, activist, feminist approach to collaborative working to which both authors are committed as teachers, students, rabbis and activists. In our rabbinic chain of tradition (more particularly through other female rabbis) we explore, through the lenses of student and teacher, the 5-year rabbinic course at Leo Baeck College (LBC). We seek to demonstrate how, when working at its best, LBC trains rabbis as activists. Our contention is that the rabbinic education at LBC has the potential to be transformative in creating rabbis as activist leaders, an ideal which ought to transcend the rabbinic training seminary and be taken forward into community.
Abstract: Η διδασκαλία του Ολοκαυτώματος σε μικρές ηλικίες αποτελεί πρόκληση αλλά και σημαντική ευκαιρία για την ανάπτυξη αξιών, όπως η ενσυναίσθηση, η αλληλεγγύη και η διαπολιτισμική «κατανόηση». Ειδικά στο ελληνικό Δημοτικό σχολείο, η προσέγγιση τέτοιων θεμάτων απαιτεί προσαρμογή, μια και δεν υπάρχει αντίστοιχο κεφάλαιο ή οδηγίες στο ισχύον αναλυτικό πρόγραμμα ως προς τη διδασκαλία του ζητήματος αυτού, καθώς και προσεκτική προσέγγιση λόγω της ηλικιακής ομάδας των μαθητών. Στο πλαίσιο της Εκπαίδευσης για την Αειφορία και της Εκπαίδευσης για την Ιδιότητα του Παγκόσμιου Ενεργού Πολίτη, η διδασκαλία του Ολοκαυτώματος και των Ανθρωπίνων Δικαιωμάτων αποβλέπουν στην καλλιέργεια κοινωνικών δεξιοτήτων στους μαθητές μέσα από τη δημιουργία ενός μαθησιακού περιβάλλοντος που προάγει τη δημοκρατία, την ισότητα, την κοινωνική συνοχή, την επίλυση προβλήματος, τον σεβασμό στη διαφορετικότητα, την αποδοχή και την ένταξη με απώτερο στόχο την καλλιέργεια της κριτικής σκέψης. Η παρούσα εργασία εστιάζει στην παρουσίαση των παιδαγωγικών κατευθύνσεων και των διδακτικών πρακτικών που ακολουθήθηκαν για την υλοποίηση ενός καινοτόμου προγράμματος στην Ε΄ Τάξη Πειραματικού Δημοτικού Σχολείου, με στόχο μέσα από τη διερεύνηση των ιστορικών γεγονότων οι μαθητές να καλλιεργήσουν δεξιότητες μελλοντικών ενεργών πολιτών για την οικοδόμηση ενός πιο δίκαιου βιώσιμου κόσμου.
Abstract: The aim of this publication is to critically rethink Manfred Böcker’s classic notion of “Antisemitismus ohne Juden” (Böcker, M. 2000. Antisemitismus ohne Juden: Die zweite Republik, die antirepublikanische Rechte und die Juden. Spanien 1931 bis 1936. Berlin: Peter Lang) and to translate it within the contemporary context of the Spanish Nationalpopulismus (Hirschmann, K. 2017. Der Aufstieg des Nationalpopulismus. Wie westliche Gesellschaften polarisiert werden. Bonn: Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung; Wilp, M. 2019. “Konfrontation statt Konsens: Der Aufschwung des Nationalpopulismus in den Niederlanden: Die politische Auseinandersetzung um Migration und Integration.” In Rechtspopulismus in Einwanderungsgesellschaften, edited by H. U. Brinkmann, and I. Panreck, 187–215. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften) represented by the radical party Vox España. The existence of a formula of “Anti-Semitism without Jews and without Anti-Semites” (Botsch, G., and C. Kopke. 2016. “Antisemitismus ohne Antisemiten?” In Wut, Verachtung, Abwertung Rechtspopulismus in Deutschland, edited by R. Melzer, D. Molthagen, A. Zick, and B. Küpper, 178–194. Berlin: Friedrich Ebert Stiftung; Wodak, R. 2018. “The Radical Right and Antisemitism.” In The Oxford Handbook of the Radical Right, edited by J. Rydgren, 1–33. Oxford: Oxford Handbooks Online) seems to acquire corporeity in the “Civil-War-like” lexical arsenals (Rivas Venegas, M. 2018. Propaganda activities of Willi Münzenberg in Support of the Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War. An Approximation to His Visual and Rhetorical Communication Strategies. Berlin: Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung / Münzenberg Forum, 2019) of a party acutely connected to its Francoist past and to the paranoia of the “Francmason-Jewish-Bolshevist” conspiracy. This article aims to offer new perspectives on the study of national-populism via the parallel analysis of its “lexical arsenals” and visual-performative dispositives, what we here and in further publications identify as the messa in scena populista. It aims to fulfill the complex task of identifying the latent or indirect traces of Anti-Semitism in a party that chose the Muslim community as its preferred and most visible scapegoat, applied the tested political formula of the transnational nouvelle droite, yet never fully abandoned certain aspects of the Francoist and Spanish fascist worldview.
Abstract: The emergence of interactive online spaces and the evolution of internet-based communication have dramatically changed the way the individual relates to the world and interacts with other web users. The specificities of online communication such as anonymity and mutual reinforcement of web users have led to an increase and normalisation of hate speech (Troschke and Becker 2019. “Antisemitismus im Internet. Erscheinungsformen, Spezifika, Bekämpfung.” In Das neue Unbehagen. Antisemitismus in Deutschland und Europa heute, edited by Günther Jikeli and Olaf Glöckner, 151–72. Glöckner Hildesheim: Olms; Becker and Troschke 2023. “Decoding Implicit Hate Speech: The example of antisemitism.” In Challenges and perspectives of hate speech analysis: An interdisciplinary anthology, edited by Christian Strippel, Sünje Paasch-Colberg, Martin Emmer and Joachim Trebbe. Berlin: Digital Communication Research). This paper presents the results of our qualitative analysis of antisemitic content on Facebook profiles of British, French and German mainstream media, generated in the framework of the Decoding Antisemitism research project. The online debates of interest were identified in the context of discourse events – real-world events that have the potential to trigger antisemitic reactions – such as the Russian invasion of Ukraine, escalation phases in the Middle East conflict, including the events of October 2023, or scandals and instances of hate crime in Europe and beyond. The results of our analyses point to several commonalities in the three language communities in how Israel is conceptualised and evaluated through stereotypes in these comment sections. On the other hand, there are also consistent differences between the three corpora in the choice of stereotypes. Another significant difference concerns the verbal immediacy and frequency with which these mental concepts are communicated in online debates. This article will attempt to map the qualitative and quantitative patterns, compare and contrast the analyses for the three language communities and at the same time put forward for discussion possible socio-historical and -political reasons for this discursive behaviour (cf. Ascone et al. 2022. Decoding Antisemitism: An AI-driven Study on Hate Speech and Imagery Online. Discourse Report 4. Berlin: Technische Universität Berlin. Centre for Research on Antisemitism).
Abstract: Evaluative research in Jewish education often adopts a “silver bullet” approach, attributing identity outcomes to single programs or interventions. This article advances an ecosystem framework that situates Jewish schooling, family upbringing, and peer networks within their wider communal and societal contexts. Drawing on hierarchical regression analyses of large-scale survey data (n = 21,260) from four Jewish diaspora communities, we find that the impact of Jewish education depends on its interaction with family background, social capital, and national setting. Jewish identity thus emerges as a cumulative and relational process rather than the product of discrete experiences. These findings underscore the limitations of single-country studies, which often generalize about Jewish identity formation without considering the structural and contextual differences that shape communal life in different national settings. The findings also extend sociological theories of social capital, cultural capital, and the life course, offering new insight into how educational, familial, and communal forces together sustain Jewish identity in diaspora.
Abstract: This research investigates how recommender algorithms on TikTok and Rumble expose UK minors to antisemitic content.
Analysts created 10 TikTok profiles representing 15-year-old users with varied political and cultural interests, including neutral interest in the Israel-Palestine conflict, left and right-wing political interest, male lifestyle influencer content, far-right content and two neutral accounts. The profiles were prompted towards relevant topics for each interest through an hour and a half of manual content viewing, followed by content engagement via bespoke bot over 14 days, resulting in over 5,500 recommended videos. Thematic analysis clustered content into 10 core themes, revealing pathways from neutral lifestyle content to highly politicised and conspiratorial clusters. Relevant themes were manually reviewed, revealing that harmful content persisted through videos, comments, and TikTok’s sticker and sound features, illustrating systemic gaps in safeguarding minors.
On Rumble, analysts collected 4,412 videos from the platform’s “Editor’s Picks” over six months. Analysts filtered for antisemitism-related keywords and reviewed 259 videos potentially relevant to antisemitism. Findings show Rumble hosts more overt antisemitic content than TikTok, including slurs, Holocaust distortion and conspiracies about Jewish control. These findings underscore urgent gaps in platform accountability and the need for robust enforcement of the Online Safety Act to protect children from the normalisation and mainstreaming of antisemitic content.
