Abstract: The Sixth Survey of European Jewish Community Leaders and Professionals, 2024, presents the results of an online survey offered in 10 languages and administered to 879 respondents in 31 countries. Conducted every three years using the same format, the survey seeks to identify trends and their evolution over time.
The 2024 survey came during a historically fraught moment for the Jewish people globally. The impact of the horrific October 7th attacks and the subsequent war in Israel cannot be understated. How is this affecting Jewish leadership and Jewish communal life? Therefore, in addition to the regular topics covered by the survey (community priorities, threats, security concerns, attitudes towards Europe and Israel), this edition included a special section designed to understand the impact of October 7th on Jewish life in Europe.
That October 7th has profoundly affected Jewish Europe is evident across multiple sections throughout the survey. Concern about antisemitism and the threat of physical attack has intensified. A large majority of 78% feel less safe living as Jews in their cities than they did before the Hamas attack, and respondents are more cautious about how they identify themselves as Jews. They are also more distant from their wider environments, with 38% reporting they have become more distant from non-Jewish friends.
The respondents were comprised of presidents and chairpersons of nationwide “umbrella organizations” or Federations; presidents and executive directors of private Jewish foundations, charities, and other privately funded initiatives; presidents and main representatives of Jewish communities that are organized at a city level; executive directors and programme coordinators, as well as current and former board members of Jewish organizations; among others
Abstract: FRA’s third survey on discrimination and hate crime against Jews in the EU reveals their experiences and perceptions of antisemitism, and shows the obstacles they face in living an openly Jewish life.
The survey pre-dates the Hamas attacks on 7 October 2023 and Israel’s military response in Gaza. But the report includes information about antisemitism collected from 12 Jewish community organisations more recently. Jewish people have experienced more antisemitic incidents since October 2023, with some organisations reporting an increase of more than 400%.
The survey results point to:
Rising antisemitism: 80% of respondents feel that antisemitism has grown in their country in the five years before the survey.
High levels of antisemitism online: 90% of respondents encountered antisemitism online in the year before the survey.
Antisemitism in the public sphere: in the year before the survey, 56% of respondents encountered offline antisemitism from people they know and 51% in the media.
Harassment: 37% say they were harassed because they are Jewish in the year before the survey. Most of them experienced harassment multiple times. Antisemitic harassment and violence mostly take place in streets, parks, or shops.
Safety and security concerns: Most respondents continue to worry for their own (53%) and their family’s (60%) safety and security. Over the years, FRA research has shown that antisemitism tends to increase in times of tension in the Middle East. In this survey, 75% feel that people hold them responsible for the Israeli government’s actions because they are Jewish.
Hidden lives: 76% hide their Jewish identity at least occasionally and 34% avoid Jewish events or sites because they do not feel safe. As a reaction to online antisemitism, 24% avoid posting content that would identify them as Jewish, 23% say that they limited their participation in online discussions, and 16% reduced their use of certain platforms, websites or services.
The EU and its Member States have put in place measures against antisemitism, which have led to some progress. These include the EU’s first ever strategy on combating antisemitism and action plans in some EU countries. The report suggests concrete ways for building on that progress:
Monitoring and adequately funding antisemitism strategies and action plans: This includes adopting plans in those EU countries which do not have them and developing indicators to monitor progress.
Securing the safety and security of Jewish communities: Countries need to invest more in protecting Jewish people, working closely with the affected communities.
Tackling antisemitism online: Online platforms need to address and remove antisemitic content online, to adhere tothe EU’s Digital Services Act. They also need to better investigate and prosecute illegal antisemitic content online.
Encouraging reporting and improving recording of antisemitism: National authorities should step up efforts to raise rights awareness among Jews, encourage them to report antisemitic incidents and improve the recording of such incidents. Greater use of third-party and anonymous reporting could help.
The survey covers Austria, Belgium, Czechia, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Spain and Sweden where around 96% of the EU’s estimated Jewish population live. Almost 8,000 Jews aged 16 or over took part in the online survey from January to June 2023. This is the third survey of its kind, following those of 2013 and 2018.
Abstract: Rising antisemitism in the twenty-first century has alarmed Jewish communities and the general public, but antisemitic hate crime victimization remains understudied outside the US context. This study primarily relies on a comprehensive survey of 16,400 Jews across twelve European countries, supplemented with data from additional sources, to assess individual and country-level predictors of Jews’ experiences and fears of antisemitic harassment and violence. Multilevel models indicate that young age, perceived discrimination, identity visibility, and identification with Israel are pronounced individual risk factors for victimization. On the country level, negative opinion of Israel and Muslim population share predict victimization, highlighting the role of a “new” or Israel-derived antisemitism in the twenty-first century. The factors most strongly associated with fear are young age, previous victimization, perceptions of an ambient antisemitic threat, and recent occurrence of fatal antisemitic violence. Overall, the findings underscore the importance of integrating general theory on hate crime and victimization with context-specific factors when seeking to understand the experiences of targeted groups.
Abstract: The present report provides an overview of data on antisemitism as recorded by international organisations and by official and unofficial sources in the European Union (EU) Member States. Furthermore, the report includes data concerning the United Kingdom, which in 2019 was still a Member State of the EU. For the first time, the report also presents available statistics and other information with respect to North Macedonia and Serbia, as countries with an observer status to the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA). All data presented in the report are based on the respective countries’ own definitions and categorisations of antisemitic behaviour. At the same time, an increasing number of countries are using the working definition of antisemitism developed by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), and there are efforts to further improve hate crime data collection in the EU, including through the work of the Working Group on hate crime recording, data collection and encouraging reporting (2019–2021), which FRA facilitates. ‘Official data’ are understood in the context of this report as those collected by law enforcement agencies, other authorities that are part of criminal justice systems and relevant state ministries at national level. ‘Unofficial data’ refers to data collected by civil society organisations.
This annual overview provides an update on the most recent figures on antisemitic incidents, covering the period 1 January 2009 – 31 December 2019, across the EU Member States, where data are available. It includes a section that presents the legal framework and evidence from international organisations. The report also provides an overview of national action plans and other measures to prevent and combat antisemitism, as well as information on how countries have adopted or endorsed the non-legally binding working definition of antisemitism adopted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) (2016) as well as how they use or intend to use it.
This is the 16th edition of FRA’s report on the situation of data collection on antisemitism in the EU (including reports published by FRA’s predecessor, the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia).
Abstract: Denne rapport beskriver og analyserer antallet af registrerede antisemitiske hændelser i Danmark i 2020. Rapporten er udarbejdet på grundlag af anmeldelser til AKVAH, der udgør en del af Det Jødiske Samfunds ikkerhedsorganisation. AKVAH har i 2020 registreret 23 antisemitiske hændelser i Danmark fordelt på følgende kategorier: 1) verbalt overfald, 2) Hærværk og anden chikane, 3) antisemitiske ytringer. Hændelserne fordeler sig på ét tilfælde af verbalt overfald, syv tilfælde af hærværk og anden chikane, samt 15 tilfælde af antisemitiske ytringer. Ud af de i alt 23 medtagne hændelser er der to der kan betegnes som blot værende potentielt antisemitisk, da de ikke kan endeligt verificeres. Generelt set er der sket et støt fald i antallet af hændelser ift tidligere år. Dette
kan både være grundet oplysningsarbejde, intens fokus på coronapandemien blandt den bredere befolkning hvilket også har medført begrænset social omgang, samt et ‘roligt’ år ift. Mellemøstkonflikten. Der ses dog ‘spidsperioder’ hvad angår antisemitiske hændelser i 2020. Disse binder sig i høj grad til jødiske helligdage, hvor højreradikale grupper, der som i tidligere år, igangsætter såkaldte ‘aktioner’mod jødiske mål, samt ved tiltagende debat vedrørende omskæring. Her observeres det at tonen der følger omskærelsesdebatten på nettet i mange tilfælde bliver skærpet.
Udover det positive fald i antallet af hændelser, ses det også som værende positivt at de ekstra grove hændelser såsom vold, trusler og diskrimination ikke har haft deres forekomst i 2020.
Abstract: In this report:
We look into Jewish migration from 15 European countries - representing 94% of Jews living in Europe - comparing data from recent years to previous periods over the last century, and focusing on the signal that the current levels of Jewish migration from Europe send about the political realities perceived and experienced by European Jews.
Some of the key findings in this report:
Peak periods of Jewish migration in the past century – from Germany in the 1930s, North Africa in the 1960s and the Former Soviet Union in the 1990s, saw 50%-75% of national Jewish populations migrate in no more than a decade;
No European Jewish population has shown signs of migration at anywhere near that level for several decades, although recent patterns from Russia and Ukraine point to that possibility over the coming years;
France, Belgium, Italy and Spain saw strong surges in Jewish emigration in the first half of the 2010s, which declined subsequently, but not as far as pre-surge levels;
However, the higher levels of migration measured in these counties during the last decade have not reached the critical values indicating any serious Jewish ‘exodus’ from them;
For Russian and Ukrainian Jews, 2022 was a watershed year: if migration from these countries continues for seven years at the levels seen in 2022 and early 2023, 80%-90% of the 2021 Jewish population of Ukraine and 50%-60% of the 2021 Jewish population of Russia will have emigrated;
Jewish emigration from the UK, Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands, Austria and Denmark has mainly been stable or declining since the mid-1980s;
In Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands, there has been some decline in Jewish migration over the observed period, with migration eventually settling at a new, lower level.
Abstract: Existing scholarship on contemporary antisemitism tends to sacrifice breadth for depth, typically focusing on a specific dimension of the phenomenon or a single national or ideological context. This myopia threatens to limit our understanding of current antisemitism because separate parts of a complex picture are studied in isolation, and because crucial questions about temporal and cross-national variation remain understudied. To help remedy this situation, this article introduces a more comprehensive conceptual and empirical framework along with a new dataset intended to encourage the study of antisemitism as a multidimensional, cross-national, and dynamic phenomenon. The framework provides a model for studying antisemitism in four core dimensions—attitudes, incidents, cultural imagery, and Jews’ exposure—and specifies relevant variables and indicators, thus facilitating future research and data collection efforts. To supplement the framework, the article introduces a new dataset (DIMA—Dimensions of Antisemitism) featuring publicly available data covering three of the four dimensions: attitudes, incidents, and exposure. Based on patterns emerging from these data, hypotheses for further study are suggested. These contributions are intended to prepare the ground for a new and theoretically more ambitious research agenda in the field of contemporary antisemitism research.
Abstract: Muslim–Jewish relations have a long and complex history. However, notions that all Jews and Muslims are eternal enemies are proven wrong both historically and by today’s survey data. A comprehensive review of the available survey data from the last two decades provides a glimpse into the views of Muslims and Jews of each other in countries where both communities are a minority. It is based on surveys from Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Spain, Sweden, the U.K., and the U.S., including more than 91,000 respondents, comprising almost 27,000 Muslims and, in additional surveys, more than 52,000 Jewish respondents. Many Muslims and Jews acknowledge that the other community suffers from discrimination, albeit to varying degrees. Jews often see Islam and Muslim extremists as a threat to Jews, but most Jews, more than society in general, seem to distinguish between Muslim extremists and Muslims in general. Antisemitic attitudes are significantly higher among Muslims than among the general population in all surveys, even though the majority of Muslims in most European countries and in the United States do not exhibit antisemitic attitudes. The differences in anti-Jewish attitudes between Muslims and non-Muslims do not disappear when controlling for sociodemographic factors.
Abstract: How attached do European Jews feel to the countries in which they live? Or to the European Union? And are their loyalties ‘divided’ in some way – between their home country and Israel? Answering these types of questions helps us to see how integrated European Jews feel today, and brings some empiricism to the antisemitic claim that Jews don’t fully ‘belong.’
This mini-report, based on JPR's groundbreaking report ‘The Jewish identities of European Jews’, explores European Jews’ levels of attachment to the countries in which they live, to Israel, and to the European Union, and compares them with those of wider society and other minority groups across Europe. Some of the key findings in this study written by Professor Sergio DellaPergola and Dr Daniel Staetsky of JPR’s European Jewish Demography Unit include:
European Jews tend to feel somewhat less strongly attached to the countries in which they live than the general population of those countries, but more strongly attached than other minority groups and people of no religion.
That said, levels of strong attachment to country vary significantly from one country to another, both among Jews and others.
European Jews tend to feel somewhat more strongly attached to the European Union than the general populations of their countries, although in many cases, the distinctions are small.
Some European Jewish populations feel more strongly attached to Israel than to the countries in which they live, and some do not. The Jewish populations that tend to feel more attached to Israel than the countries in which they live often have high proportions of recent Jewish immigrants.
Having a strong attachment to Israel has no bearing on Jewish people's attachments to the EU or the countries in which they live, and vice versa: one attachment does not come at the expense of another. They are neither competitive nor complementary; they are rather completely unrelated.
Jews of different denominations show very similar levels of attachment to the countries in which they live, but rather different levels of attachment to Israel and the EU.
Abstract: This article deals with antisemitism in Europe and post-Holocaust Sweden and Denmark specifically. The idea that it is always “the same old antisemitism” that pops up and “shows its ugly face” does not find support in this study. Instead, we distinguish between three different kinds of contemporary antisemitisms: Classic antisemitism, Aufklärungsantisemitismus, and Israel-derived antisemitism. Our findings suggest that each of these antisemitisms is inspired by different underlying “philosophies,” and that they are carried by different social groups and manifested in different ways. In the Scandinavian countries today, we find that there is less classic antisemitism, much more Aufklärungsantisemitismus, and a relatively stronger presence of Israel-derived antisemitism. In our analysis this specifically Scandinavian pattern of antisemitisms is closely related to the highly developed processes of modernization in the Scandinavian countries on the one hand and the relatively large numbers of recently arrived immigrants from the Middle East on the other. This appears to imply that antisemitism based on racial prejudices is losing ground, as is antisemitism based on religious convictions. However, according to the European Union Agency For Fundamental Rights (FRA) in Antisemitism: Overview of Data Available in the European Union 2007-2017 (Luxembourg: Luxembourg Publications Office of the European Union, 2018), the incidence of violent antisemitic attacks seems to be on the rise. These typically emanate from small pockets of individuals in the population who share an image of all Jews being accomplices to whatever the State of Israel does. Considering how the processes of modernization operate it is assumed that other countries in Europe will follow a similar trajectory. Rationalization, secularization, and individuation will also come to penetrate these societies and weaken notions of “race” and “religion” as springboards for antisemitism. Thus, tendencies towards Aufklärungsantisemitismus will be strengthened. If integrating and getting rid of the marginalization and condescending treatment of its newly arrived Muslim inhabitants does not succeed, Israel-derived antisemitism can be expected to thrive. The pattern of antisemitisms in Denmark and Sweden might be a preview of what antisemitisms in twenty-first-century Europe could come to look like.
Abstract: The third of four mini-reports highlighting different aspects and findings from JPR’s major study ‘The Jewish identities of European Jews: what, why and how’, dives deeper into the different religious lifestyles and denominations of European Jews. Is there a single Jewish voice – or a majority Jewish voice – that represents the entire community? And if there is one – who holds it? In today’s political culture, understanding lifestyle differences within ethnic and religious groups is critical, both to understand their needs and concerns, and to address them.
The new mini-report highlights different aspects of how European Jews express their Jewishness through their choice of denomination – or lack of – and through different Jewish rituals:
• The most numerically significant subgroup is the ‘Just Jewish’ (38%), a general category indicating no clear denominational alignment, followed by the ‘Traditional’;
• European Jewry is undergoing a process of desecularisation: Today, across Europe, the share of more religious persons (Haredi and Orthodox) among younger age groups is substantially larger than among the older;
• The most traditional communities are those in Western Europe. In these communities, about 40%-60% of adult Jews identify as Traditional, Orthodox or Haredi;
• The less traditionally observant lifestyles are in the 74%-78% range in Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands, and reach 90% in Hungary and Poland;
• Attending a Passover Seder and fasting on Yom Kippur are observed by most Jews, including those outside of the Haredi/Orthodox fold. Lighting candles on Friday night and keeping kosher at home are also observed by a much broader range of Jews than just those from the Haredi and Orthodox communities.
The report is based on research conducted in twelve European Union Member States in 2018, which, together, are home to about 80% of the Jewish population of Europe. The study includes the opinions and experiences of over 16,000 respondents – the largest sample of Jews ever surveyed in Europe.
Abstract: First International Resources was commissioned by the AntiDefamation League to research attitudes and opinions toward Jews, the Middle East and the global financial crisis in sevenEuropean countries.
¾ Our research focused on the attitudes of the general public in
Austria, France, Hungary, Poland, Germany, Spain and the
United Kingdom.
¾ Data results for each individual country were weighted based
on age and gender. The completed interview data underwent
minor weighting to national population data using official
government information on age and gender.
¾ In addition to the individual country results, we have compiled
overall statistics which take into account the findings from the
seven countries surveyed as a whole. These figures are
combined results from our surveys, with each country’s
findings being weighted equally as one-seventh of the whole.
¾ Fieldwork was done by Taylor Nelson Sofres (TNS), which
conducted a total of 3,500 telephone interviews -- 500 in each of
the seven countries -- among the general public between
December 1, 2008 – January 13, 2009.
¾ Interviews were conducted in the native language of each of the
countries and were completed by TNS.
¾ The margin of error for each country is +/- 4 at 95% level of
confidence.
Abstract: First International Resources was commissioned by the AntiDefamation League to research attitudes and opinions toward Jews in twelve European countries.
• Our research focused on the prevalent attitudes of the general public
in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Denmark, Belgium, the
Netherlands, Austria, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, and for the first time,
Poland and Hungary.
• Data results for each individual country were weighted based on age
and gender. The completed interview data underwent minor weighting
to national population data using official government information on
age and gender.
• In addition to the individual country results, we have compiled overall
“European” statistics which take into account the findings from the
twelve countries surveyed as a whole. These “European” figures are
combined results from our surveys, with each country’s findings being
weighted equally as one-twelfth of the whole.
• Fieldwork was done by Taylor Nelson Sofres, which conducted a total
of 6,000 telephone interviews -- 500 in each of the twelve countries --
among the general public between April 11 -- May 6, 2005.
• Interviews were conducted in the native language of each of the
countries and were completed by TNS.
• The margin of error for each country is +/- 4.5 at 95% level of
confidence.
Abstract: First International Resources was commissioned by the AntiDefamation League to research attitudes and opinions in ten European countries toward Jews, Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
• Our research focused on the prevalent attitudes of the general public
in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Denmark, Belgium, the
Netherlands, Austria, Italy, Spain, and Switzerland.
• Data results for each individual country were weighted based on age
and gender. The completed interview data underwent minor weighting
to national population data using official government information on
age and gender.
• Fieldwork was done by Taylor Nelson Sofres, which conducted a total
of 5,000 telephone interviews -- 500 in each of the ten countries --
among the general public between March 16-April 8, 2004.
• Interviews were conducted in the native language of each of the
countries and were completed by TNS.
• The margin of error for each country is +/- 4.4 at 95% level of
confidence.
Abstract: Little is known about the gendered dimension of anti-Semitism. Emerging from a literature review on social identity theory, anti-Semitism, sexism, and Jewish feminism, I demonstrate the urgency of examining the link between gender and experiences of anti-Semitism, using the FRA’s 2018 dataset “Experiences and Perceptions of Antisemitism: Second Survey on Discrimination and Hate Crime against Jews in the EU,” a large-scale survey of Jews in thirteen countries across Europe. The independent variable is gender identity. Five dependent variables relate to experiences of sex/gender discrimination, physical attacks, offensive/threatening comments, offensive gestures/staring, and online harassment. Using five control variables—being identifiable as a Jew in public, country, Jewish identity, education level, and Jewish population in one’s neighborhood—I engage with descriptive statistics and binary logistic regression analysis to analyze my variables. The findings show that while women are more likely to experience gender discrimination, men are significantly more likely to experience anti-Semitism.
Abstract: Throughout 2021, JPR researchers Professor Sergio DellaPergola and Dr Daniel Staetsky analysed the responses of over 16,000 European Jews in 12 European countries who participated in the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights survey conducted by JPR and Ipsos in 2018. The result of their hard work and innovative approach is ‘The Jewish identities of European Jews’, a study into the what, why and how of Jewish identity.
The report finds some extraordinary differences and similarities between Jews across Europe, including:
European Jews are much more likely to see themselves as a religious minority than an ethnic one, yet fewer than half of all Jewish adults across Europe light candles most Friday nights;
Jewish identity is strongest in Belgium, the UK, France, Austria, Spain and Italy, and weakest in Hungary and Poland;
The memory of the Holocaust and combating antisemitism played a more important part in people’s Jewish identity than support for Israel, belief in God or charitable giving. Rising perceptions of antisemitism may have stimulated a stronger bond with Jewish peoplehood;
Only about half of all Jews in Europe identify with a particular denomination, although there are significant differences at the national level;
Higher proportions of younger Jews are religiously observant than older Jews;
Belgium has the largest proportion of Jews identifying as Orthodox in its Jewish population, followed by the UK, Italy, France and Austria;
Spain has the largest proportion of Jews identifying as Reform/Progressive, followed by Germany and the Netherlands;
Levels of attachment to the European Union among European Jews are higher than, or very similar to, levels of attachment among their fellow citizens in the countries in which they live
Abstract: The Fifth Survey of European Jewish Community Leaders and Professionals, 2021 presents the results of an online survey offered in 10 languages and administered to 1054 respondents in 31 countries. Conducted every three years using the same format, the survey seeks to identify trends and their evolution in time.
Even if European Jewish leaders and community professionals rank antisemitism and combatting it among their first concerns and priorities, they are similarly committed to expanding Jewish communities and fostering future sustainability by engaging more young people and unaffiliated Jews.
The survey covers a wide variety of topics including the toll of COVID-19 on European Jewish communities and a widening generational gap around pivotal issues. Conducted every three years since 2008, the study is part of JDC’s wider work in Europe, which includes its partnerships with local Jewish communities and programs aiding needy Jews, fostering Jewish life and leaders, resilience training.
The respondents were comprised of presidents and chairpersons of nationwide “umbrella organizations” or Federations; presidents and executive directors of private Jewish foundations, charities, and other privately funded initiatives; presidents and main representatives of Jewish communities that are organized at a city level; executive directors and programme coordinators, as well as current and former board members of Jewish organizations; among others.
The JDC International Centre for Community Development established the survey as a means to identify the priorities, sensibilities and concerns of Europe’s top Jewish leaders and professionals working in Jewish institutions, taking into account the changes that European Jewry has gone through since 1989, and the current political challenges and uncertainties in the continent. In a landscape with few mechanisms that can truly gauge these phenomena, the European Jewish Community Leaders Survey is an essential tool for analysis and applied research in the field of community development.
Abstract: Artist Gunter Demnig’s counter-memorial project Stolpersteine (stumbling blocks) installs small brass plaques into the pavement in front of homes from which Nazi victims were deported. Extending to 27 countries, over 70,000 plaques are embossed with the names and fates of individuals memorialized. This article discusses the material, visual and narrative representations of the afterlives of the victims, addressing how the memory of their lives has been muted, forgotten and reinserted into the landscape. It is based on fieldwork throughout Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland. Stolpersteine, as objets chargés, engender contestations: they are celebrated, banned, cherished and vandalized. For some, Stolpersteine can serve as ersatz gravestones. Their afterlives are complex and destabilizing, both inspiring and politically controversial. Drawing from Nora’s notion lieux de mémoires, the concept of lieux chargés is introduced to theorize the salient sites and events relating to the processes, dynamics and emerging rituals surrounding Stolpersteine.
Abstract: From the Foreword:
The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Education Research Project aims to provide an overview of empirical research on teaching and learning about the Holocaust (TLH) with a cross-cultural and multilingual perspective. The outcomes include transferring knowledge between various regions and countries, intensifying dialogue between scholars and educational decision makers and enhancing networking among researchers.
To fulfill these aims, in 2012 the IHRA established a Steering Committee and tasked a team of researchers with skills in a large range of languages. Early in the process, the decision was made to focus upon research which deals with deliberate efforts to educate about the Holocaust and to limit the search accordingly. This decision
meant there was a focus on both teaching and learning. The teaching focused on school settings – although there is also some explicit instruction at museums and sites of memory. Certainly, learning takes place in both school settings and museums/ sites of memory. This focus meant that some areas of scholarship are generally not
included in this collection. Firstly, non-empirical work, which is extensive and important, was beyond the scope of this research. Secondly, analyses of materials such as curricula, films, and textbooks were also beyond the scope.
The Education Research Project culminated in the publication of volume 3 of the IHRA book series Research in Teaching and Learning about the Holocaust: A Dialogue Beyond Borders, edited by Monique Eckmann, Doyle Stevick and Jolanta Ambrosewicz-Jacobs. The book is available in hard copy for purchase and as a free PDF download.
The second outcome is this set of eight bibliographies. These eight bibliographies comprise references to empirical research on teaching and learning about the Holocaust. They also include abstracts or summaries of most of publications. Each bibliography includes research from a single language or related group of languages
(both geographically related or linguistically related). The research team identified almost 400 studies resulting in roughly 640 publications in fifteen languages that are grouped in the following eight language sets:
German, Polish, French, the languages of the Nordic countries, Romance languages other than French (specifically Spanish, Portuguese and Italian), East-Slavic languages (Belarussian, Russian and Ukrainian), English and Hebrew.
The bibliographies presented here contain titles in the original language and translations in English, as well as abstracts in English that were either written by the original authors, written by the research team or its contributors (or translated into English by the team). This set of bibliographies provides a unique tool for researchers
and educators, allowing them to gain insight into educational research dealing with teaching and learning about the Holocaust, not only in their own language, but also in languages they are not familiar with. We hope that this publication and these abstracts will provide a tool that facilitates research across language borders and contributes to further exchange, discussion and cooperation between researchers and educators as well as the creation of international and cross-language networks.
Abstract: This detailed and thorough report is rapidly becoming the ‘must-read’ study on European Jews, taking the reader on an extraordinary journey through one thousand years of European Jewish history before arriving at the most comprehensive analysis of European Jewish demography today.
Written by leading Jewish demographers Professor Sergio DellaPergola and Dr Daniel Staetsky, the Chair and Director of JPR’s European Jewish Demography Unit respectively, it explores how the European Jewish population has ebbed and flowed over time. It begins as far back as the twelfth century, travelling through many years of population stability, until the tremendous growth of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, followed by the dramatic decline prompted by a combination of mass migration and the horrors of the Shoah. Extraordinarily, after all this time, the proportion of world Jewry living in Europe today is almost identical to the proportion living in Europe 900 years ago.
Using multiple definitions of Jewishness and a vast array of sources to determine the size of the contemporary population, the study proceeds to measure it in multiple ways, looking at the major blocs of the European Union and the European countries of the Former Soviet Union, as well as providing country-by-country analyses, ranging from major centres such as France, the UK, Germany and Hungary, to tiny territories such as Gibraltar, Monaco and even the Holy See.
The report also contains the most up-to-date analysis we have on the key mechanisms of demographic change in Europe, touching variously on patterns of migration in and out of Europe, fertility, intermarriage, conversion and age compositions. While the report itself is a fascinating and important read, the underlying data are essential tools for the JPR team to utilise as it supports Jewish organisations across the continent to plan for the future.
Abstract: This paper aims at providing a new systemic contribution to research about perceptions of antisemitism/Judeophobia by contemporary Jews in 12 European Union countries. The perspective – the viewpoint of the offended side – has been less prominent relatively in research literature on antisemitism. The data analysis demonstrates the potential power of Similarity Structure Analysis (SSA) as a better theoretical and empirical tool to describe and conceptualize the contents of chosen research issues. After a brief review of some methodological problems in the study of antisemitism, this paper will re-elaborate data first published in the report of the 2018 FRA study Experiences and Perceptions of Antisemitism – Second survey on Discrimination and Hate Crimes against Jews in the EU (FRA 2018a). Topics include the perceived importance of antisemitism as a societal issue, the contents of anti-Jewish prejudice and discrimination, channels of transmission, perpetrators of offenses, regional differences within Europe, and the role of antisemitism perceptions as a component of Jewish identification. Special attention is paid to the distinction between cognitive and experiential perceptions of antisemitism, and to the typology of practical, populist, political, and narrative antisemitism.
Abstract: The Hebrew term kosher means ‘fit’ or ‘proper’ and it traditionally signifies foods that conform to Jewish dietary law (kashrut). This article explores how kosher is understood, practised and contested in contemporary Denmark. In recent years, the rules regulating kosher consumption have been supplemented by elaborate rules concerning globalised mass production, which have had an impact on the way people handle questions of kashrut. During the same period, global markets for kosher have proliferated; this article explores the everyday kosher consumption among Jews in Denmark in the light of these transformations. Everyday kosher consumption among a minority group such as Jews in Denmark is not well understood, and I argue that globalised forms of regulation increasingly condition this type of consumption. Even though Denmark is a small and relatively secular country and Jews comprise only about 7,000 individuals, kosher production and regulation have national economic significance. Methodologically, I build on ethnographic data from contemporary Denmark, that is, participant observation and interviews.
Abstract: Antisemitism can be expressed in the form of verbal and physical attacks, threats, harassment, discrimination and unequal treatment, property damage and graffiti or other forms of speech or text, including on the internet. Antisemitic incidents and hate crime violate fundamental rights, especially the right to human dignity, the right to equality of treatment and the freedom of thought, conscience and religion.
The present report provides an overview of data on antisemitism as recorded by international organisations and by official and unofficial sources in the 28 European Union (EU) Member States, based on their own definitions and categorisations. ‘Official data’ are understood here as those collected by law enforcement agencies, other authorities that are part of criminal justice systems and relevant state ministries at the national level. ‘Unofficial data’ refers to data collected by civil society organisations.
This is the 15th edition of FRA’s report on the situation of data collection on antisemitism in the EU (including reports published by FRA’s predecessor, the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia).
Abstract: Denne rapport beskriver og analyserer antallet af registrerede antisemitiske hændelser i Danmark i 2018. Rapporten er udarbejdet på grundlag af anmeldelser til AKVAH, der udgør en del af Det Jødiske Samfunds sikkerhedsorganisation.
AKVAH har i 2018 registreret 45 antisemitiske hændelser i Danmark fordelt på følgende kategorier: 1) Overfaldssituationer og fysisk chikane, 2) trusler, 3) hærværk, 4) antisemitiske ytringer, 5) diskrimination og 6) anden chikane. Hændelserne fordeler sig på fire tilfælde af overfaldssituationer og fysisk chikane, et tilfælde af trusler, tre tilfælde af hærværk, 35 tilfælde af antisemitiske ytringer, et tilfælde af diskrimination og et tilfælde af anden chikane. Ud af de 45 registrerede antisemitiske hændelser er der tre hændelser, hvor det er vurderet, at de alene kan betegnes som potentielt antisemitiske.
De 45 registrerede antisemitiske hændelser i 2018 er 15 hændelser flere end antallet af registrerede
hændelser i 2017, der var på 30.