Topics: Antisemitism: Attitude Surveys, Antisemitism: Monitoring, Antisemitism: Online, Antisemitism: Left-Wing, Antisemitism: Muslim, Antisemitism: Discourse, Israel Criticism, Anti-Zionism, Main Topic: Antisemitism, Policy, October 7 2023 attacks + aftermath
Abstract: In this policy paper:
How have levels of antisemitism in the UK and across Europe changed since the October 7 attack on Israel and the war in Gaza? Using the most recent survey data from July 2024, this policy paper demonstrates how the antisemitic incident reporting figures most commonly quoted significantly underestimate the number of incidents happening in reality. The paper also introduces the concept of ‘ambient antisemitism’ – Jews experiencing antisemitism that isn’t personally directed at them –looking at how the context in which Jews are living today affects their perceptions of antisemitism. It also explores the general population’s attitudes to Jews and Israel before and after October 7, 2023.
The paper concludes that better research methods are required to accurately assess the general population’s attitudes to Jews and Israel and Jewish people’s perceptions and experiences of antisemitism. It points to a critical gap in research compared with the EU and calls on the UK Government and philanthropic community to plug it as a matter of urgency.
Some of the key findings in this policy paper:
Reports of antisemitic incidents increased dramatically in the months following the Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7 in multiple European countries.
Survey data demonstrate that the number of antisemitic incidents being recorded by the police and community monitoring agencies vastly underestimates the amount of antisemitism taking place.
An evident rise in antisemitism since October 7 has had a significant impact on Jewish people’s feelings of safety and security in the UK and across Europe.
The degree to which the Hamas attacks on October 7 were marked by open celebration and affirmation of violence reveals a level of antisemitic hate that exists within parts of Western Europe that poses a severe threat to Jews living on the continent.
A culture of ‘ambient antisemitism’ has emerged in the post-October 7 period, marked by incidents such as defacing or tearing down posters of Israeli hostages, that, whether strictly antisemitic or not, create a broader milieu that feels threatening and hostile to many Jewish people.
Inaccurate and irresponsible media reporting can lead directly to an increase in antisemitism, although more research is required to understand how and when this occurs.
There has been a significant increase in sympathy for the Palestinians among young people and those on the political left since October 7; levels of sympathy for Israel are much lower, even in the very immediate aftermath of the Hamas attacks.
The lack of sympathy for Israel is likely to lead to many Jews feeling a greater sense of alienation from the societies in which they live over time.
Given the apparent levels of concern among Jews today, much more needs to be done to invest in a robust and systematic approach to measuring antisemitism in society and its effects on Jews as part of a serious strategy to combat it going forward. This is particularly the case in the UK, which has fallen far behind the EU since leaving the European Union in this respect.
Abstract: In 2015, Spain passed a law that concedes Spanish citizenship extraterritorially to persons recognized as Sephardic Jews and descended from the Sephardic Jews expelled from Spanish kingdoms in the fifteenth century. This chapter explores the implications of this institutional effort to repair a historical injustice. Given Spain’s membership in the European Union, this granting of national citizenship implies by extension European citizenship as well. In addition to proving Sephardic ancestry, applicants need to demonstrate cultural ties to Spain. This cultural connection is inflected by the official notion of Hispanicness and its legal implications. However, the 2015 law omitted the expulsions of Muslims and Moriscos (converts to Christianity from Islam), which took place during a similar historical period. By doing so, the 2015 law established a three-pronged way of redefining certain collective identities as deserving, or undeserving, of Spanish/EU citizenship: by requiring proof of Sephardic origins; by requiring a recognized cultural connection to Spain; and by denying Muslim ancestry. This chapter argues that this law fits into a rewriting of Spanish and European identity, coding Europe in racialized terms. Multiple scales of inclusion/exclusion are at work in this law, ultimately through a process of de- and re-racialization of citizenship.
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: The spread of hate speech and anti-Semitic content has become endemic to social media. Faced
with a torrent of violent and offensive content, nations in Europe have begun to take measures to
remove such content from social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. However, these
measures have failed to curtail the spread, and possible impact of anti-Semitic content. Notably,
violence breeds violence and calls for action against Jewish minorities soon lead to calls for
violence against other ethnic or racial minorities. Online anti-Semitism thus drives social tensions
and harms social cohesion. Yet the spread of online anti-Semitism also has international
ramifications as conspiracy theories and disinformation campaigns now often focus on WWII and
the Holocaust.
On Nov 29, 2019, the Oxford Digital Diplomacy Research Group (DigDiploROx) held a one-day
symposium at the European Commission in Brussels. The symposium brought together diplomats,
EU officials, academics and civil society organizations in order to search for new ways to combat
the rise in online anti-Semitism. This policy brief offers an overview of the day’s discussions, the
challenges identified and a set of solutions that may aid nations looking to stem the flow of antiSemitic content online. Notably, these solutions, or recommendations, are not limited to the realm
of anti-Semitism and can to help combat all forms of discrimination, hate and bigotry online.
Chief among these recommendations is the need for a multi-stakeholder solution that brings
together governments, multilateral organisations, academic institutions, tech companies and
NGOs. For the EU itself, there is a need to increase collaborations between units dedicated to
fighting online crime, terrorism and anti-Semitism. This would enable the EU to share skills,
resources and working procedures. Moreover, the EU must adopt technological solutions, such as
automation, to identify, flag and remove hateful content in the quickest way possible. The EU
could also redefine its main activities - rather than combat incitement to violence online, it may
attempt to tackle incitement to hate, given that hate metastases online to calls for violence.
Finally, the EU should deepen its awareness to the potential harm of search engines. These offer
access to content that has already been removed by social media companies. Moreover, search
engines serve as a gateway to hateful content. The EU should thus deepen is collaborations with
companies such as Google and Yahoo, and not just Facebook or Twitter. It should be noted that
social media companies opted not to take part in the symposium demonstrating that the solution
to hate speech and rising anti-Semitism may be in legislation and not just in collaboration.
The rest of this brief consists of five parts. The first offers an up-to-date analysis of the prevalence
of anti-Semitic content online. The second, discuss the national and international implications of
this prevalence. The third part stresses the need for a multi-stakeholder solution while the fourth
offers an overview of the presentations made at the symposium. The final section includes a set
of policy recommendations that should be adopted by the EU and its members states.
Abstract: The recent Eurozone crisis and the outbreak of political and populist Euroscepticism pose an unprecedented challenge to advocates of the post-war ‘Idea of Europe’. In the United Kingdom and France, some of the most eloquent and impassioned defences of ‘Europe’ have been penned by Jewish intellectuals. The historian Walter Laqueur, the philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy and journalists such as David Aaronovich, for example, have all rallied to the cause of ‘Europe’. This article will focus on the responses of Robert Menasse and Henryk Broder, two Jewish intellectuals from Austria and Germany, who have recently published powerful reflections on the European idea. Menasse’s polemic of 2012, Der Europäische Landbote (The European Courier), defends the idea of Europe as a ‘Friedensprojekt’, or ‘peace project’, and the European Union as an institutional antidote to the destructive power of nationalism and the self-interest of the nation-state. Broder’s bestselling book of 2013, Die letzten Tage Europas: Wie wir eine gute Idee versenken (The Last Days of Europe: How we are Scuppering a Good Idea), embraces ‘European values’ but launches a critique of a European Union which stifles pluralism and critical debate. This paper analyses how Menasse and Broder define the idea of ‘Europe’ and argues that, despite their differences, in form and content, the work of Menasse and Broder draws on a common tradition of enlightened cosmopolitanism as well as informs the renewed academic debate in the humanities and social sciences about the place of ‘cosmopolitanism’ in our global world.
Abstract: This thesis is an examination of the international Jewish and non-Jewish politics of opposing antisemitism between 1960 and 2005. It begins with the condemnation of antisemitism by the UN Sub-Commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities in 1960. It ends with the European Union Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia’s (EUMC) working definition of antisemitism, published in 2005. Between these poles, lay a wealth of contestation about what antisemitism is and how to oppose it. Successive challenges and instability for Israel as well as global geopolitical upheaval during this time raised these questions anew. The thesis centres the political agency of a diverse and evolving group of Jewish internationalist actors, including NGOs, community representatives and academics, and analyses their political responses to this context. I explore how these actors debated and contested ideas about how to identify, measure and oppose antisemitism, and with whom to ally in this struggle. At stake was the relationship between antisemitism and anti-Zionism, between anti-antisemitism and anti-racism, between Israel and diaspora, and who represented Jewish interests in the arenas of global governance. These questions brought out significant divides in international Jewish politics, between state and diaspora and among diaspora actors themselves. The thesis ends with an investigation of the immediate roots of the EUMC document in Jewish internationalism; at the same time, I contextualise the EUMC document within the longer arc of the thesis. It was one expression of long-standing, multifaceted and heated debates within international Jewish politics, and of how these debates have played out in international Jewish and non-Jewish political efforts to oppose antisemitism. Overall, I demonstrate that ideas about what antisemitism is were constantly in flux during this period, subject to debate, contestation and negotiation among Jewish and non-Jewish political actors.
Abstract: Antisemitism was on the rise after 9/11, yet, until 2015, there was weak policy to address it at the national and EU levels. The following examines why and how antisemitism policy emerged on the EU agenda culminating in the creation of the 2021 comprehensive strategy to combat antisemitism. Utilizing punctuated equilibrium theory, crisification literature and literature on Commission entrepreneurship, the article explores why, although other violent attacks had occurred against Jews, it would take the double attacks in 2015 to bring attention to antisemitism within the Commission. Leadership at the EU level, NGOs working with EU institutions, a working definition of antisemitism, along with pre-existent EU legal bases in antidiscrimination law, would help promote antisemitism policy to the EU level. The EU's adoption of antisemitism policy demonstrates both Commission agenda setting and prioritizing antisemitism due to its threat to EU fundamental ideals, thus promoting a ‘European polity’ based on values.
Abstract: The Annual Antisemitism Worldwide Report, published by Tel Aviv University (TAU) and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), reveals that 2023 saw an increase of dozens of percentage points in the number of antisemitic incidents in Western countries in comparison to 2022. A particularly steep increase was recorded following the October 7 attacks, but the first nine months of 2023, before the war started, also witnessed a relative increase in the number of incidents in most countries with large Jewish minorities, including the United States, France, the UK, Australia, Italy, Brazil, and Mexico.
According to the Report, in New York, the city with the largest Jewish population in the world, NYPD recorded 325 anti-Jewish hate crimes in 2023 in comparison to the 261 it recorded in 2022, LAPD recorded 165 in comparison to 86, and CPD 50 in comparison to 39. The ADL recorded 7,523 incidents in 2023 compared to 3,697 in 2022 (and according to a broader definition applied, it recorded 8,873); the number of assaults increased from 111 in 2022 to 161 in 2023 and of vandalism from 1,288 to 2,106.
Other countries also saw dramatic increases in the number of antisemitic attacks, according to data collected by the Report from governmental agencies, law enforcement authorities, Jewish organizations, media, and fieldwork.
In France, the number of incidents increased from 436 in 2022 to 1,676 in 2023 (the number of physical assaults increased from 43 to 85); in the UK from 1, 662 to 4,103 (physical assaults from 136 to 266); in Argentina from 427 to 598; in Germany from 2,639 to 3,614; in Brazil from 432 to 1,774; in South Africa from 68 to 207; in Mexico from 21 to 78; in the Netherlands from 69 to 154; in Italy from 241 to 454; and in Austria from 719 to 1,147. Australia recorded 622 antisemitic incidents in October and November 2023, in comparison to 79 during the same period in 2022.
Antisemitic incidents increased also before October 7
While the dramatic increases in comparison to 2022 largely followed October 7, the Report emphasizes that most countries with large Jewish minorities saw relative increases also in the first nine months of 2023, before the war started.
For example, in the United States, ADL data (based on the narrower definition for antisemitic incidents) point to an increase from 1,000 incidents in October-December 2022 to 3,976 in the same period in 2023, but also to an increase from 2,697 incidents between January-September 2022 to 3,547 in the same period in 2023 (NYPD registered a decrease in that period, while LAPD an increase).
In France, the number of incidents during January-September 2023 increased to 434 from 329 during the same period in 2022; in Britain – from 1,270 to 1,404. In Australia, 371 incidents were recorded between January and September 2023, compared to 363 in the same period in 2022. On the other hand, Germany and Austria, where national programs for fighting antisemitism are applied, saw decreases.
Abstract: The experience and perceptions of the Jewish community and wider European population, recorded antisemitic incidents, the increasing level of antisemitic content online and sociological research show the persisting presence of antisemitism in the European Union. A 2021 survey on the prevalence and intensity of anti-Jewish prejudices in 16 European countries found that on average, 20 % of the population in the countries under scrutiny can be regarded as (strongly or moderately) antisemitic, whereas the proportion of latent antisemites was 14 %, with six countries where the aggregate proportion of strongly, moderately and latently antisemitic people was above 50 %. Research has also shown – and it has also been reported from a number of Member States in the context of the current report – that the consecutive crises of the Covid-19 pandemic and the Russian aggression on Ukraine have intensified antisemitic sentiments across Europe. The cut-off date of the research on which the report is based was 7 July 2023, therefore, the study does not reflect the unprecedented spike in antisemitism and antisemitic incidents in Europe and across the world following the horrific terrorist attacks by Hamas on Israeli civilians on 7 October 2023. Thus, the impact of the attacks and their aftermath could not be taken into account in this study. With a view to combating racial and/or religious hatred, including antisemitism, the European Union has not only adopted policies and commitments, but it has also put in place numerous legal instruments that can be used to counter different forms of antisemitism, including but not limited to the Framework Decision on combating certain forms of expressions of racism and xenophobia, the Racial Equality Directive, the Employment Equality Directive, and the Victims’ Rights Directive. The importance of effectively applying this legislation to fight antisemitism is emphasised in the EU Strategy on combating antisemitism and fostering Jewish life (2021-2030), in which the European Union pledged to ‘step up action to actively prevent and combat’ the phenomenon in all its forms. This thematic report provides a comparative overview of how these legal instruments have been complied with in the 27 EU Member States, and aims to establish how and to what extent the legal framework and its practical application in the different Member States provide protection against antisemitism in three main areas: (i) non-discrimination; (i) hate crimes; and (iii) hate speech. It identifies gaps in the existing legal protections and/or their enforcement across the EU Member States and makes recommendations on mechanisms for the provision of effective protection against acts motivated by antisemitism.
Abstract: EUJS has published a report on the Rise of Antisemitism at European Universities as a result of the October 7 Massacre. For the compilation of this report, we received more than one hundred and ten (110) reports of antisemitic incidents across Europe. However, this in no way reflects the true magnitude of incidents that have taken place, as many have gone unreported.
This report has been sent out to the European Commission, Members of the European Parliament, major Jewish organisations, Heads of Jewish communities, our Partners, Universities, and the press.
The message we want to spread with the report is: Jewish students do not feel safe on their campuses. Jewish students have even stopped attending classes out of fear due to the extremely hostile campus atmosphere. In 2024, this is unacceptable.
The European Union of Jewish Students will continue to gather information and data on antisemitism from University campuses across Europe. We will continue to fight against all forms of antisemitism, be it on campus or online, and to protect our Jewish students. We will continue, throughout, to advocate for a world that will allow for Jews to showcase and celebrate their Judaism in a positive way. But for this, collaboration on a university, institutional, governmental, and societal level is needed
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: Reflecting on the months since the recent October 7 attack, rarely has the theme of Holocaust Memorial Day 2024, ‘The Fragility of Freedom’, felt so poignant. Communities globally experienced the shattering of presumed security, and antisemitic incidents responsively spiked.
Antisemitism rose across both mainstream and fringe social media platforms, and communities resultantly reported a rise in insecurity and fear. CCOA constituent countries have recorded significant rises in antisemitic incidents, including an immediate 240% increase in Germany, a three-fold rise in France, and a marked increase in Italy.
The antisemitism landscape, including Holocaust denial and distortion, had shifted so drastically since October 7 that previous assumptions and understands now demand re-examination. In the run up to Holocaust Memorial Day 2024, this research compilation by members of the Coalition to Counter Online Antisemitism offers a vital contemporary examination of the current and emergent issues facing Holocaust denial and distortion online. As unique forms of antisemitism, denial and distortion are a tool of historical revisionism which specifically targets Jews, eroding Jewish experience and threatening democracy.
Across different geographies and knowledge fields, this compilation unites experts around the central and sustained proliferation of Holocaust denial and distortion on social media.
Abstract: Si l’on considère à deux ans de distance le débat sur la circoncision qui a secoué l’Allemagne en 2012, et du point de vue d’un combattant juif alors focalisé uniquement sur la circoncision juive de garçons, ma conclusion est que la circoncision a perdu son innocence. Certes, il y a toujours eu des livres de Juifs et des articles de non-Juifs pour s’en prendre à la circoncision ; et certes, il y eut de nombreuses discussions sur certaines pratiques, comme la Metzitza bePeh, la succion du sang par le mohel qui exécute la circoncision, par exemple quant à savoir si l’usage d’une paille en verre devait être rendu obligatoire – et malgré tout, la circoncision était un acte qui semblait aller de soi. Et quiconque souhaitait y renoncer pour son fils y renonçait.
Or, avec le débat sur la circoncision, qui a eu lieu dans une Europe centrale qui considère la religion avec méfiance dès qu’elle poursuit des buts autres que thérapeutiques, les choses ont changé d’un coup. Au prétexte des complications qui survinrent lors de la circoncision d’un garçon musulman, circoncision qui n’avait pour ainsi dire rien à avoir avec une berit milah (considérant l’âge du garçon, le lieu, les participants et les conditions de l’acte) – la circoncision a été prise dans une spirale de légitimations, qui n’avait pour ainsi dire rien à voir avec le rapport que la majorité des juifs entretiennent à l’égard de cette tradition, ou, pour employer ici le terme religieux, de cette mitsvah.
Abstract: Partons d’un constat, qui est à l’origine de notre volonté – avec Danielle Cohen-Levinas – d’organiser ce colloque pour le penser collectivement : en juin 2012, un jugement de la cour d’appel de Cologne déclarait la circoncision d’un enfant pour des raisons religieuses constitutive d’atteinte à l’intégrité corporelle. Cette pratique très ancienne et commune au judaïsme et à l’islam était dès lors interdite dans toute l’Allemagne. Quelques semaines plus tard, l’Autriche et les hôpitaux universitaires de certains cantons suisses décidaient à leur tour d’un moratoire sur les circoncisions rituelles. Dans cette Allemagne repentante depuis des décennies, les Juifs se sont retrouvés de manière inattendue et soudaine au cœur d’une polémique puissante qui les renvoyait, aux côtés des musulmans, à une pratique décrétée mutilatrice, archaïque, voire barbare. Ce rituel, fondamental au point que son interdiction rendait impossible la présence juive en Allemagne, selon le Zentralrat der Juden, semblait contredire et bafouer des valeurs essentielles de la République fédérale. Ce débat s’est élargi, puisqu’en octobre 2013 c’est le Conseil de l’Europe qui publiait un avis préconisant de légiférer dans le sens d’une limitation, voire d’une interdiction de la circoncision rituelle à l’échelle du continent. L’affaire est sérieuse, une incompatibilité entre l’Europe et ses minorités juive et musulmane est explicitement énoncée, ce fait est sans précédent depuis la fin du nazisme.
Abstract: Un nombre considérable de juifs a quitté la France dans la dernière décennie, sans que les paroles rassurantes émanant des plus hautes autorités de l’État aient pu arrêter l’hémorragie. Quant à ceux qui restent, ils ne peuvent éviter l’idée de devoir peut-être partir un jour, au regard des événements et d’un climat général dont chacun perçoit le poids.
La sociologie politique, curieusement, n’a que bien peu à dire sur un tel phénomène. Prolixe sur la question de l’immigration, elle est pratiquement muette sur le fait que la France ait pu ainsi devenir une terre d’émigration. Qu’est-il donc arrivé ? Pour le comprendre, l’invocation commode des tensions intercommunautaires et du radicalisme islamiste est bien loin de suffire. C’est une généalogie au long cours de notre situation qui est requise, une restitution des dynamiques complexes où sont intriqués, depuis la Seconde Guerre mondiale, les juifs, l’Europe et l’État d’Israël.
De cette manière, et de cette manière seulement, l’un des points les plus sensibles du malaise politique actuel peut enfin être affronté.
Abstract: This factsheet looks into Jewish education in the UK and the rest of Europe, highlighting parents’ different motives when choosing a Jewish or non-Jewish school for their children. The paper draws data from three sources: previous JPR research on school registration numbers, a 2018 pan-European study sponsored by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), conducted by a joint JPR-Ipsos team, and JPR’s spring 2023 survey of Jews in the UK.
Some of the key findings in this factsheet:
The number of Jewish children attending Jewish schools has increased significantly over time and is expected to reach about 40,000 by the mid-2020s;
In the UK, the number of children attending Haredi schools outnumbers the number of Jewish children in mainstream Jewish schools by about three to two.
Parents in the UK, France and across Europe are most likely to point to a desire for their child to develop a strong Jewish identity as a motive for registering their children to a Jewish school;
Jewish identity is followed in most places by a desire for their children to have friends with similar values, with the exception of France, where concern about antisemitism in non-Jewish schools is a more common motive;
In the UK and France, the most common motive for parents to send their children to a non-Jewish school is actively preferring a non-Jewish (integrated) environment, cited by about two-thirds of all such parents in both countries;
Convenience also commonly features as a reason not to send children to a Jewish school, coming second on the list in the UK and France, and topping it elsewhere in Europe.
Academic standards and availability are also marked highly as reasons parents prefer a non-Jewish school for their children, particularly in the UK.
Abstract: From Introduction:
Antisemitism is global and multifaceted. One area in which ADL has seen a growth of antisemitism is within elements of the political left. This often takes the form of anti-Zionism, a movement that rejects the Jewish right to self-determination and of Israel to exist as a Jewish state, and frequently employs antisemitic tropes to attack Israel and its supporters. It also manifests through the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, a campaign that promotes diplomatic, financial, professional, academic and cultural isolation of Israel, Israeli individuals, Israeli institutions, and Jews who support Israel’s right to exist.
Political actors and advocacy movements associated with some left-wing political organizations have engaged in such antisemitism both in the U.S. and in Europe. While antisemitism from individuals associated with left-leaning political organizations is generally less violent than right-wing antisemitism, its penetration into the political mainstream is cause for concern and has in some cases alienated Jews and other supporters of Israel. Concerns are both political and physical. As described in this report, Jews and Jewish institutions have been targeted and have suffered violent attacks, associated with anti-Zionism, often in the wake of fighting between Israel and the Palestinians, most recently in 2021.
The challenges facing Jewish communities in Europe can be a bellwether for what is to come for the U.S. Jewish community, as evidenced for example by the recent rise in violent antisemitism in the U.S., which has plagued European Jewish communities for many years, and the increase in anti-Zionism in U.S. progressive spaces, something that has existed in Europe for some time. To better understand this phenomenon in Europe, ADL asked partners in the UK, France, Germany and Spain to describe some of the expressions of left-wing political antisemitism and anti-Israel bias in their countries. The individual contributors are responsible for the content of those chapters and their positions may differ with standard ADL practice and/or policy.
Our British partner, the Community Security Trust, is the British Jewish community’s security agency, which monitors, reports on, and educates about antisemitism among other vital tasks for the safety and security of the Jewish community.
Our French partner, the politics and culture magazine “K., The Jews, Europe, the 21st Century,” reports on contemporary challenges and opportunities for Jewish life in France and elsewhere in Europe.
Our German partner, Amadeu Antonio Foundation, is one of Germany's foremost independent non-governmental organizations working to strengthen democratic civil society and eliminate extremism, antisemitism, racism and other forms of bigotry and hate.
Our Spanish partner, ACOM, is a non-denominational and independent organization that strengthens the relationship between Spain and Israel, and whose work is inspired by the defense of human rights, democratic societies, civil liberties and the rule of law.
Those European contributions comprise the first sections of this report. Based on those essays, in the subsequent chapter, ADL analyzed common themes and notable differences among the four countries.
The final section adds ADL’s perspective on left-wing antisemitism in the political and advocacy spheres in the U.S. and provides suggested actions that can be taken to address antisemitism. To be sure, while not all antisemitism that has manifested in some elements of the political left in the U.S. is imported from Europe, lessons can be learned from this transatlantic phenomenon to protect against the mainstreaming of such antisemitism in U.S. politics.
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: Celem tekstu jest próba uchwycenia integralnych, choć czasami antytetycznych i skrywanych więzi, które w europejskim (chrześcijańskim/zsekularyzowanym) imaginarium łączyły żydów i muzułmanów, Żydów i Arabów. Idea tekstu wyrasta z przekonania, że procesu konstytuowania się jakiejkolwiek tożsamości lub wspólnotowości nie da się satysfakcjonująco opisać bez wyjścia poza standardową analizę, która koncentruje się na tym, jak tożsamość ustanawia się poprzez odniesienie do tego, co wobec niej inne. Tezą autorki jest to, że w przypadku europejskich (chrześcijańskich/zsekularyzowanych) wspólnot i tożsamości kluczowym elementem odnoszenia się do „inności” jest konceptualne i polityczne żonglowanie różnymi kategoriami „innych”, a więc m.in. figurami „żyda” i „muzułmanina”, „Żyda” i „Araba”. Autorka rekonstruuje zmienne konfiguracje, w jakich na przestrzeni europejskiej historii pojawiały się te figury. Pokazuje, że ewoluowały one od etapu, na którym różnorodne wyobrażenia na temat żydów i muzułmanów, Żydów i Arabów zawierały często przekonanie o ich rozmaicie rozumianym pokrewieństwie i bliskości, do etapu, w którym następuje radykalne symboliczne i polityczne zerwanie między tym, co żydowskie i tym, co muzułmańskie/arabskie. Zawarta w tekście analiza przedstawiona jest jako baza do zrozumienia mechanizmów antysemityzmu i islamofobii, a także łączących je korelacji.
Abstract: This article sets out to discuss the emergence of (anti) ‘new antisemitism’ as a transnational field of governance, and particularly as a field of racial governance. Romeyn’s interest is not so much in the ‘facts’ of antisemitism or ‘new’ antisemitism, but in the ways in which it functions as a ‘power-knowledge’ field in which a cast of actors—global governance actors, such as the United Nations, UNESCO, the Organisation for Security and Co-Operation in Europe, the European Commission, non-governmental organizations, experts and scholars, and politicians—set out to define, invent measuring tools and technologies, analyse, formulate policy statements and programmes, and develop ‘interventions’ to address and redress (‘fight’) the ‘problem’. Embedded in the new antisemitism as a field of governance are the assumptions that, ideologically, it is imbricated in the universalist anti-racism of the liberal left, and that, culturally, it emanates to a significant extent from within ethnocultural or ethno-religious attitudes peculiar to populations originating from Northern Africa, the Maghreb or, more specifically, from majority Islamic countries. With respect to the latter groups, global governance actors concerned with the fight against the ‘new antisemitism’ instate a ‘regime’ that performatively enacts boundaries of belonging. This regime erects an interior frontier around culture/religion that effectively externalizes and racializes antisemitism.
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.
