Abstract: Despite efforts by clubs, fans, and officials to combat discrimination and hate speech, antisemitism in German football and fan cultures still persists today. Antisemitism is expressed by supporters, players, coaches, club and league officials, security personal, and others. In most cases, no Jews need to be present to stimulate antisemitic behaviour. This chapter argues that contemporary antisemitism in and around German football is manifest in five different forms, which are explained with illustrative examples: far-right antisemitism; classical antisemitism; secondary antisemitism; antisemitism against Jewish Makkabi clubs; and antisemitic ressentiment-communication. This chapter also questions who does what against antisemitism in German football. By looking at each actor individually – football’s governing bodies; professional clubs; social pedagogical fan projects; stadium security and police; third sector organisations; and fans – it is evident that neither a common nor a long-term strategy exists, although a broad range of activities and actions take place, often initiated by, or implemented after, the pressure of fan groups.
Abstract: Since the unification of the two German states in 1990, antisemitic attitudes have been repeatedly polled in cross-sectional or longitudinal national surveys (e.g., the long-term GFE surveys). So far, comparative studies analyzing the development of antisemitism in East and West Germany over a longer time period are scarce. The study covers a time span of 30 years to investigate two forms of antisemitism (classical and secondary), especially with respect to inner-German differences. Applying model-based age-period-cohort analyses (APC) with a total of 19 available representative surveys (maximal period: 1991–2021), theory-driven hypotheses are tested. The statistical approach and respective findings are discussed with emphasis on several challenges accompanying the utilized heterogenous data and different survey modes. Findings reveal that life-cycle effects play a decisive role in the attitudinal development and distribution of antisemitic attitudes. Moreover, approval of antisemitism is to some extent cohort related in both East and West Germany, while disentangling period effects empirically poses challenges due to data limitations. Furthermore, the observed APC structures differ for classical and secondary antisemitism. The chapter concludes with a critical discussion of the results, limitations, and some further thoughts on the open science philosophy in applied social science research.
Abstract: In Germany, pro-Palestine protests in the form of camps and institute occupations have occurred and continue to take place at universities. Antisemitic incidents have been reported at many of these protests. Following the initial data collection in December 2023, this report provides a new, focused, up-to-date assessment of the opinion climate in the context of the Middle East conflict and antisemitic attitudes at German universities. Exactly one year after the first report, the results of two recent surveys by the Higher Education Research Unit (AG Hochschulforschung) are summarized here. First, based on a large online survey conducted in December 2024 with over 1,800 students, we report on these students’ assessments of the conflict and antisemitic tendencies among them. This follows
on directly from the previous study mentioned earlier (Hinz et al., 2024), enabling us to describe possible changes compared to last year. In some places, we also examine the assessments and attitudes of students compared to a sample from the general population. Second, we present the results of a simultaneous survey of university rectorates on antisemitic incidents and the universities' reactions to these incidents. At the invitation of the German Rectors’ Conference (HRK), a total of 94 university management teams took part in this separate online survey.
The results indicate that universities have been strongly affected by antisemitic incidents and that antisemitic resentment remains at a constant level. A high level of vigilance is still required, particularly
with regards to Israel-related antisemitism
Abstract: What drives antisemitic hostility in the 21st century? Competing theoretical frameworks provide different answers: the generalist framework views antisemitism as a manifestation of general outgroup hostility common to various
forms of prejudice, while the particularist framework posits that antisemitism today is distinctively linked to antizionist sentiment—enmity toward Zionism, Israel, and its supporters. This study evaluates these frameworks through a comparative, longitudinal case study of antisemitic hostility in Germany, Sweden, and Russia (1990–2020), using a mixed-methods approach to integrate incident counts, victimization surveys, media analysis, and expert interviews. Findings suggest that the particularist framework better explains observed patterns of variation in antisemitic hostility, with flare-ups in the Middle East conflict generating or catalyzing antisemitic hostility in other societies depending on the strength of local antizionist sentiment. The results support new directions
in prejudice research that differentiate between generalized and group-specific forms of hostility, where the latter are highly context-dependent.
Abstract: This special issue, based around the European Encounters project research carried out before October 2023, explores ambivalence and boundary work in Jewish and Muslim encounters across urban European contexts. Drawing on case studies in Frankfurt, London and Paris, it examines intercultural negotiations and identity constructions among minoritised groups. Contributors analyse diverse sites of encounter, from musical collaborations to more formal interfaith initiatives and everyday commercial spaces. Across these settings, the articles highlight complex layers of commonality and difference shaping boundary dynamics between Muslims and Jews. Analytically, this issue deploys central cultural studies concepts like symbolic boundaries, conviviality and superdiversity to elucidate lived realities. Empirically, grounded examination of understudied intercultural encounters advances cultural studies scholarship. The juxtaposition of the cities enables a relational understanding of how national repertoires of discourse shape boundary negotiations differently across contexts. Furthermore, analysis complicates assumptions of conflict, foregrounding marginalised perspectives on identity and power. Key findings demonstrate the ambivalence underpinning most Muslim-Jewish interactions. Structural inequalities, avoidance and indifference more frequently characterise encounters than outright hostility. Yet significations of difference still dominate, as groups navigate uneasy proximities. This special issue challenges essentialist portrayals of immutable intergroup divisions. Its nuanced analysis underscores the need to understand quotidian encounters relationally, as a multi-level interdependency, grounded in their socio-historical contexts across and within groups. This yields multifaceted insights into minority experiences of othering and belonging in Europe’s superdiverse cities.
Abstract: Introduction: Amid escalating global antisemitism, particularly following the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, this study addresses critical gaps in understanding the psychosocial impact of antisemitism on Jewish communities worldwide.
Methods: Focusing on the Jewish community in Germany, we conducted a cross-sectional survey of 420 Jewish individuals (mean age = 40.71 years, SD = 15.90; 57% female). Participants completed measures assessing four distinct forms of perceived and experienced antisemitism: everyday discrimination, microaggressions (subtle antisemitism and collective experiences such as encountering antisemitic comments on social media), vigilance against antisemitism, and perceived prevalence of antisemitism. Psychosocial outcomes—including depression, anxiety, subjective well-being, and social participation—were also measured. Data were analyzed using correlation analyses and multiple linear regressions, and Latent Profile Analysis (LPA) identified distinct groups based on shared perceptions and experiences of antisemitism and levels of Jewish identification.
Results: Results indicate that experiences of antisemitism, particularly everyday discriminatory acts, were significantly associated with poorer mental health outcomes and reduced social participation. The LPA revealed three distinct groups, with the high-identity, high-antisemitism group (53% of the sample) reporting significantly higher anxiety levels than those with average identification and more rare experience with antisemitism.
Discussion: These findings underscore the pervasive nature of antisemitism and its detrimental effects on the well-being of Jewish individuals. The study highlights the need for targeted interventions to promote resilience within Jewish communities and calls for broader societal efforts to combat antisemitism.
Topics: Attitudes to Israel, Attitudes to Jews, Holocaust, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Israeli-Arab Conflict, Israel Criticism, Main Topic: Culture and Heritage, Memory, Literature, Film, Television
Abstract: Examines an important relational shift in British and German cultural depictions of Palestine and Israel since 1987
Develops relationality as a critical tool to challenge mainstream ideas about Israeli and Palestinian narratives as separate and not connected to European histories of the Holocaust and colonialism
Argues that Israel and Palestine are used as geopolitical and imaginary spaces to discuss social and political concerns in the United Kingdom and in Germany
Examines works by authors and directors from outside of Israel and Palestine, including those with no direct link to the conflict, thus extending our understanding of Palestine and Israel as signifiers in the contemporary period
Offers a comparative analysis of British and German literature, TV drama, and film which focuses on country-specific case studies to identify common trends in imagining and reimaging Israel and Palestine since the first Palestinian Intifada
Discusses works published since 1987 which depict encounters between (Israeli) Jews and Palestinians since 1947 which depict encounters between (Israeli) Jews and Palestinians and their narratives since 1947
Isabelle Hesse identifies an important relational turn in British and German literature, TV drama, and film published and produced since the First Palestinian Intifada (1987-1993). This turn manifests itself on two levels: one, in representing Israeli and Palestinian histories and narratives as connected rather than separate, and two, by emphasising the links between the current situation in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories and the roles that the United Kingdom and Germany have played historically, and continue to play, in the region. This relational turn constitutes a significant shift in representations of Israel and Palestine in British and German culture as these depictions move beyond an engagement with the Holocaust and Jewish suffering at the expense of Palestinian suffering and indicate a willingness to represent and acknowledge British and German involvement in Israeli and Palestinian politics.
Abstract: The article engages with institutionalized German anti-anti-Semitism in recent debates about the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict. To elucidate Germany's raison d’état, current silencing of political dissent and drawing on Stuart Hall's notion of “conjuncture,” the first step is to sketch the dynamics of memory politics after the Holocaust: the silence of the postwar period, the student movement's struggle against bystanders and perpetrators, subsequent debates of representation, memorialization, trauma and finally the provincialization and nascent globalized memory (Conjunctures and the Politics of Memory). Articulating the aporias of current German (memory) politics between history and event, historical antecedents and singularity, particularity and universalism, in a second step the tensions between German raison d'état, anti-anti-Semitism and postcolonial perspectives are addressed that delimit the frameworks of negotiating anti-Semitism in the public sphere (Conjunctures and Aporias). In this sense, the remarks contribute to the critical debate on anti-anti-Semitism.
Abstract: Jüdische Flüchtlinge aus der Gemeinschaft Unabhängiger Staaten (GUS) stellen eine stetig wachsende Minorität dar, über deren pflegerische Bedürfnisse in der Fachliteratur wenig bekannt ist. Weitaus besser untersucht sind die pflegerischen Bedürfnisse von Angehörigen des jüdischen Glaubens außerhalb der GUS, insbesondere von Personen aus den USA, Israel und Kanada. Im Rahmen eines von der Robert Bosch Stiftung geförderten Pilotprojekts zu den Versorgungsbedürfnissen jüdischer Flüchtlinge aus der GUS entstand die nachstehende internationale Literaturstudie. Ziel war es, bereits vorliegende Erfahrungen mit der Zielgruppe zu erheben. Dazu wurden unter den Stichworten «Juden», «jüdisch», «Migranten», «jew», «jewish» «migrants» und «nursing» insgesamt 67 Artikel verschiedener Datenbanken analysiert. Die Literaturstudie generierte folgende international bedeutsame Themen: – die psychosoziale Situation von und daraus resultierende Versorgungsaspekte bei zwei Generationen von Holocaust-Überlebenden, ihren Kindern sowie jüdischen MigrantInnen aus der GUS – die unterschiedlichen religiösen Orientierungen, die in die groben Kategorien orthodox, konservativ und Reformjudentum unterteilt werden, von denen jede spezifische Einstellungen beinhaltet, welche die Pflege beeinflussen – pflegerisch relevante ethisch-moralische Aspekte im Judentum – Besonderheiten bei der Pflege gerontologischer PatientInnen und – soziokulturelle Aspekte palliativer Pflege. Als eines der wichtigsten Ergebnisse zeigte sich, dass jüdische Flüchtlinge aus der GUS insbesondere das Merkmal der Verfolgungserfahrung mit Holocaust-Opfern und ihren Nachkommen teilen, woraus sich spezifische Implikationen für die pflegerische Betreuung ergeben.
Abstract: NEW YORK, NEW YORK: January 23, 2025—The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims Conference) today released the first-ever, eight-country Index on Holocaust Knowledge and Awareness, exposing a global trend in fading knowledge of basic facts about the Holocaust. The countries surveyed include the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Austria, Germany, Poland, Hungary and Romania.
The majority of respondents in each country, except Romania, believe something like the Holocaust (another mass genocide against Jewish people) could happen again today. Concern is highest in the United States, where more than three-quarters (76%) of all adults surveyed believe something like the Holocaust could happen again today, followed by the U.K. at 69%, France at 63%, Austria at 62%, Germany at 61%, Poland at 54%, Hungary at 52%, and Romania at 44%.
Shockingly, some adults surveyed say that they had not heard or weren’t sure if they had heard of the Holocaust (Shoah) prior to taking the survey. This is amplified among young adults ages 18-29 who are the most recent reflection of local education systems; when surveyed, they indicated that they had not heard or weren’t sure if they had heard of the Holocaust (Shoah): France (46%), Romania (15%), Austria (14%) and Germany (12%). Additionally, while Auschwitz-Birkenau is the most well-known camp, nearly half (48%) of Americans surveyed are unable to name a single camp or ghetto established by the Nazis during World War II.
On a more positive note, there is overwhelming support for Holocaust education. Across all countries surveyed, nine-in-10 or more adults believe it is important to continue teaching about the Holocaust, in part, so it does not happen again.
Abstract: The fall of the Berlin Wall and the disappearance of the communist regimes in Europe represented a radical change for Judaism on the continent. The most striking change occurred, naturally, in Central and Eastern Europe, that is, in those countries that were behind the Iron Curtain, such as Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia or the German Democratic Republic. There, while the political decomposition of the Soviet bloc was gaining traction, thousands of people rediscovered their Jewish origins – forbidden, concealed, or silenced under communism, giving rise to a process of Jewish revivalism. In this context, numerous Jewish philanthropic organizations came to the region to support these developments with the mission of renewing local Jewish communities. The process involved a multitude of actors – Jewish agencies, organizations and foundations based in the United States, Europe and Israel – and entailed the mobilization of professionals, specialists and financial resources. This thesis explores the concrete dynamics of this cross-border mobilization of Jewish philanthropic bodies in favor of the Jewish communities of East Central Europe after the fall of communism in 1989. It studies in-depth the historical origins and evolution of transnational Jewish solidarity in modern times, enquires about the Jewish agencies and organizations that started to operate in Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall, especially, but not only, their sources of financing and the circulation of economic resources. Finally, it gives an account of the narrative corpus that emerged about European Jews before and during this process, identifying those actors who created and mobilized these narratives.
Abstract: There is a rich body of research concerning Jews who lived in Germany before 1933. Publications on the Holocaust are equally numerous, a significant proportion of this output tackling historical (and contemporary) antisemitism in Germany from a non-Jewish perspective. Much less is known about the post-1945 Jewish population of the former East and West (now reunited) Germany: in terms of Jewish socio-demography, life-worlds, cultural heritage, praxes and about Jewish perspectives on antisemitism. The aim of this article is threefold. Content-wise, it sets out to summarise the existing social scientific research on the post-1945ers, and to identify gaps therein in terms of empirical research, both quantitative and qualitative. Structurally, it seeks to determine the scope and frame of research concerning the post-1945 Jewish population of Germany, demonstrating thus that the study of contemporary Jews is replete with lacunae. Practically, the article outlines the consequences of patchy knowledge, and the hampered knowledge transfer within academia and to the public – consequences which have become painfully clear in the wake of October 7, 2023.
Abstract: This paper, intended as a contribution to transnational memory studies, analyzes museums devoted to people who helped Jews during the Holocaust that recently opened in Bulgaria, France, Germany, Lithuania, and Poland. The author’s particular interest lies in the “traveling motifs” of the “Righteous” narratives. This category encompasses symbols such as a list of names of the help-providers, a fruit tree/orchard, or a wall with photographs of Holocaust victims, which recur in many of the examined exhibitions and are a clear reference to Yad Vashem and other well-established Holocaust memorials. At first sight, they seem to point to a “cosmopolitanization” of Holocaust remembrance and to the emergence of a common reservoir of historical notions and images. However, on closer inspection one discovers that the use of these symbols varies and that they refer to differing ways of understanding and telling history.
Abstract: Currently, Jewish and Muslim communities can be found as ethno-cultural minorities both in Berlin, the capital of Germany, and in the surrounding state of Brandenburg. While they sometimes differ greatly in religious and cultural life, both communities also share similar experiences - such as the (former) existence as immigrants, the image of the “cultural other” and the confrontation with group-related misanthropy (anti-Semitism and Islamophobia). Moreover, there are Jewish-Muslim encounters, there are forms of encounter between Muslims and Jews in the region, in different milieus and intercultural and interreligious projects that appear as a kind of “experimental laboratory”. Though, what are the differences, what are the similarities between the two groups? Finally, this article also relates to how October 7th 2023, Hamas’ brutal massacres of Israeli civilians and the subsequent war in the Gaza Strip influence relationships between Muslims and Jews in Berlin and Brandenburg today.
Abstract: Drawing on ethnographic and interview-based research in six cities (Berlin and Frankfurt in Germany, London and Manchester in the UK and Paris and Strasbourg in France), this article explores intercultural, interethnic and interreligious encounter as exemplified by Jewish-Muslim interaction. We look at three sites across the cities: “staged” encounters which take place in formal interfaith and municipal settings, and “unstaged” encounters in public and commercial spaces, both often relying on the role of key “entrepreneurs of encounter”, who tend to occupy liminal or marginal spaces in relation to their ascribed identities. We show that the texture and the possibilities (and sometimes impossibility) of encounters are structured intersectionally (crucially by class and by generation), and shaped by patterns of insecurity and securitisation and by different available discursive repertoires and cognitive frames (produced at supra-national, national, local and micro-local levels – e.g. Israel/Palestine politics, laïcité or communitarianism, city narratives and neighbourhood identities respectively). Although insecurity, securitisation, policy panic and geopolitical pressures can block meaningful encounter, emerging transdiasporic cultural formations point towards some fragile resources for hope.
