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Decoding Antisemitism: A Guide to Identifying Antisemitism Online
Author(s): Becker, Matthias J; Troschke, Hagen; Bolton, Matthew; Chapelan, Alexis
Date: 2024
Topics: Antisemitism, Antisemitism: Attitude Surveys, Antisemitism: Christian, Antisemitism: Definitions, Antisemitism: Discourse, Antisemitism: Education against, Antisemitism: Far right, Antisemitism: Left-Wing, Antisemitism: Monitoring, Antisemitism: Muslim, Antisemitism: New Antisemitism, Antisemitism: Online, Internet, Jewish Perceptions of Antisemitism, Attitudes to Jews, Anti-Zionism, Israel Criticism, Main Topic: Antisemitism, Methodology, Social Media
Abstract: This open access book is the first comprehensive guide to identifying antisemitism online today, in both its explicit and implicit (or coded) forms. Developed through years of on-the-ground analysis of over 100,000 authentic comments posted by social media users in the UK, France, Germany and beyond, the book introduces and explains the central historical, conceptual and linguistic-semiotic elements of 46 antisemitic concepts, stereotypes and speech acts. The guide was assembled by researchers working on the Decoding Antisemitism project at the Centre for Research on Antisemitism at Technische Universität Berlin, building on existing basic definitions of antisemitism, and drawing on expertise in various fields. Using authentic examples taken from social media over the past four years, it sets out a pioneering step-by-step approach to identifying and categorising antisemitic content, providing guidance on how to recognise a statement as antisemitic or not. This book will be an invaluable tool through which researchers, students, practitioners and social media moderators can learn to recognise contemporary antisemitism online – and the structural aspects of hate speech more generally – in all its breadth and diversity.
Memory Space: A Case Study of a Holocaust Digital Mapping Project of Łomża, Poland
Author(s): Schulman, Kyra
Date: 2024
Topics: Memory, Jewish Neighbourhoods, Jewish Space, Jewish Heritage, Oral History and Biography, Holocaust, Holocaust Commemoration, Holocaust Memorials, Holocaust Survivors, Holocaust Survivors: Children of, Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial
Abstract: In his book Multidirectional Memory, Michael Rothberg argues that collective memory, specifically as it manifests itself in public urban spaces, is not a “zero sum struggle over scarce resources” but rather “multidirectional: as subject to ongoing negotiation, cross-referencing, and borrowing; as productive and not private.” Rothberg responds to what he terms a “competitive memory” model whereby space and the memories imbued in it are inherently limited. Rothberg disagrees, arguing that physical spaces and material objects can embody multiple memories and reference multiple temporalities. But what happens when we leave the physical world and move to the digital? Do ideas of space and ownership remain the same? Does a place still have a memory on a virtual topography? Can digital space provide a new frontier for more democratic memorialization efforts? This article attempts to answer these questions by reconsidering the nature of urban memory on virtual streets using a case study of a digital Holocaust memorial map I created of Łomża, a city in Eastern Poland. By studying the points of contention that arose when I began collaborating with Łomża public historians and an American Jewish family of a Łomża Holocaust survivor, this article interrogates the limits of digital versus material memory, the effects of temporal versus spatial detachment from historical events and how digital memorials can both relieve and exacerbate tensions in the twenty-first century.
Antisemitism in the Time of Coronavirus
Date: 2020
Topics: Antisemitism, Antisemitism: Online, Coronavirus/Covid, Internet, Main Topic: Antisemitism, Social Media, Racism
Abstract: Amidst the Covid-19 pandemic, antisemitic scapegoating has surfaced, giving ammunition to antisemites and extremists looking for someone to blame. Online, memes have been circulating espousing antisemitism, whilst offline, several public figures and others in the public eye have alluded to Jews being the cause of the pandemic. Blame and scapegoating of Jews is not new, and it didn’t take long for antisemitism to mutate. Concerning coronavirus, Jews have not been the primary target for hatred. Anti-Chinese messages are being shared online, with references to the “Chinese flu”, the “Wuhan virus” and the “kung flu”. This collective blame leading to denigration
of, and attacks on, people of Chinese descendent, is reminiscent the collective blame in antisemitic conspiracy theories. This briefing highlights several examples of scapegoating of Jews for earlier global pandemics and addresses Covid related antisemitism in the United Kingdom and globally.
Jewish internationalism and the international politics of opposing antisemitism 1960-2005
Author(s): Wiedemann, Emilie
Date: 2024
Topics: Antisemitism: Definitions, Antisemitism, Anti-Zionism, Main Topic: Antisemitism, NGOs, Israel-Diaspora Relations
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.
Antisemitism Worldwide Report for 2023
Date: 2024
Topics: Antisemitism, Antisemitism: Monitoring, October 7 2023 attacks + aftermath, Main Topic: Antisemitism
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.
The Fragility of Freedom: Online Holocaust Denial and Distortion
Editor(s): Rose, Hannah
Date: 2024
Topics: October 7 2023 attacks + aftermath, Antisemitism, Antisemitism: Far right, Holocaust Denial, AI, Discourse and Discourse Analysis, Antisemitism: Discourse, Social Media, Internet, Main Topic: Antisemitism
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.
Health, Religiosity and Hatred: A Study of the Impacts of COVID-19 on World Jewry
Author(s): Sundberg, Kelly W.; Mitchell, Lauren M.; Levinson, Dan
Date: 2023
Topics: Antisemitism, Health, Coronavirus/Covid, Main Topic: Antisemitism
Abstract: This exploratory study examines the likely causes of the alarming global rise of antisemitism during the COVID-19 pandemic. Beginning with an appraisal of today’s world Jewry, this exploratory study highlights the main social, health, and religious impacts COVID-19 has had on Jews worldwide and goes on to highlight how various Jewish communities managed and adjusted to COVID-19 public health restrictions. From this contextual backdrop, an assessment of how and why antisemitism has surged during the pandemic is presented, along with a review of what efforts are being taken to curtail this rise in hatred toward Jews. A central aim of this study is to underline the point that until meaningful, broad, and international steps are taken to curb online hate, the historic antisemitic tropes and myths suggesting Jews are the cause of disease will undoubtedly evolve and surge (especially across social media) during future pandemics and times of global crisis and unrest.
Intermarriage of Jews and non-Jews: the global situation and its meaning
Author(s): Staetsky, Daniel
Date: 2023
Topics: Demography, Fertility, Intermarriage, Main Topic: Demography and Migration, Death and Mourning
Abstract: Intermarriage is a key concern of Jewish leaders and policymakers worldwide, with many claiming that it leads to assimilation - and thus acts as a threat to the existence of Jewish communities across the globe. This report dives into global Jewish intermarriage rates, analysing the driving factors behind it, and compares the prevalence of intermarriage in countries covering more than 95% of the Jewish population today, while determining how significant a threat intermarriage is to the sustainability of Jewish communities across the globe by locating intermarriage as a in the context of Jewish fertility rates and traditionalism.

Some of the key findings in this report:

The global prevalence of intermarriage is 26%, but there’s a huge distinction between the situation in Israel (5%) and the Diaspora (42%)
Jewish populations with the lowest levels of intermarriage are those with the highest levels of traditionalism.
In Europe and the USA, intermarriage is most prevalent among Jews identifying as secular or ‘Just Jewish’: nearly 70% of secular Jews in the USA and almost 50% in Europe are married to non-Jews.
The impact of factors such as the availability of suitable Jewish partners is inferior to that of traditionalism when comparing intermarriage rates in different countries.
There is no singular European pattern of intermarriage found across all countries. The highest (Poland) and lowest (Belgium) poles of intermarriage found in the Diaspora communities investigated are in Europe.
American Jews, sometimes perceived as a community with high levels of intermarriage, actually occupy a place around the middle of the spectrum.
The rising prevalence of intermarriage over time can be seen in the USA but is offset somewhat by the growing Haredi and Orthodox populations. Europe presents a more stable situation over time.
Intermarriage is less significant than fertility when considering Jewish population trends today.
Global Levels, Trends, and Correlates of Antisemitic Attitudes Through the Prism of Modernization Theory: Insights from the Pew Research Center and World Values Surveys
Author(s): Staetsky, L. Daniel
Date: 2019
Topics: Antisemitism, Antisemitism: Attitude Surveys, Main Topic: Antisemitism, Surveys
(Anti) ‘new antisemitism’ as a transnational field of racial governance
Author(s): Romeyn, Esther
Date: 2020
Topics: Antisemitism, Antisemitism: New Antisemitism, Islamophobia, Main Topic: Antisemitism, NGOs, European Union
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.
Accounting for Contemporary Antisemitism: A Four-Dimensional Framework and a New Dataset
Author(s): Enstad, Johannes Due
Date: 2023
Topics: Antisemitism, Antisemitism: Monitoring, Surveys, Statistics, Main Topic: Antisemitism, Antisemitism: Attitude Surveys
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.
Decoding implicit hate speech: The example of antisemitism
Author(s): Becker, Matthias J; Troschke, Hagen
Editor(s): Paasch-Colberg, Sünje; Emmer, Martin; Strippel, Christian; Trebbe, Joachim
Date: 2023
Topics: Antisemitism: Discourse, Internet, Main Topic: Antisemitism, Social Media
Abstract: This article deals with the problem and the different levels of implicity in the context of antisemitic hate speech. By means of authentic examples stemming from social media debates, we show how alluded antisemitic concepts can
be inferred on the basis of conservative interpretation. We point out the role of different source “Decoding Antisemitism” conducted at the Center for Research on Antisemitism (ZfA) at TU Berlin. By doing so, it explains the procedure of qualitative content analysis as a fruitful approach to understand the actual repertoire of antisemitic
hate speech online.
Antisemitism 2.0 and the Cyberculture of Hate: Hostility towards Jews as a cultural constant and collective emotional value in the digital age (short version)
Author(s): Schwarz-Friesel, Monika
Date: 2018
Topics: Main Topic: Antisemitism, Antisemitism, Antisemitism: Monitoring, Antisemitism: Discourse, Internet
Abstract: How does antisemitism manifest itself in the 21st century? How, where and by whom is anti-Jewish content expressed and disseminated? Which stereotypes are therein encoded, which arguments put forward? What role do emotions and irrational affect logic play in present-day attitudinal and verbalized antisemitism? To what extent has the Internet accelerated the spread and intensification of antisemitism? How can modern manifestations of hatred against Jews be recorded, classified and explained in academic terms? The long-term study, conducted within the framework of empirical research into antisemitism focusing on the articulation, perpetuation, dissemination and manifestation of hatred against Jews in the Internet, has addressed these issues and conducted quantitively
extensive and detailed content-related research.
Why Do People Discriminate against Jews?
Author(s): Fox, Jonathan; Topor, Lev
Date: 2021
Topics: Antisemitism, Antisemitism: Discourse, Anti-Zionism, Discrimination, Main Topic: Antisemitism
Abstract: Why Do People Discriminate against Jews? provides a data-rich analysis of the causes of discrimination against Jews across the globe. Using the tools of comparative political science, Jonathan Fox and Lev Topor examine the causes of both government-based and societal discrimination against Jews in 76 countries. As they stress, anti-Semitism is an attitude, but discrimination is an action. In examining anti-Jewish discrimination, they combine ideas and theories from classic studies of anti-Semitism with social science theories on the causes of discrimination. On the one hand, conspiracy theories, a major topic in the anti-Semitism literature, are relatively unexplored in the social science literature as a potential instigator of discrimination. On the other, social science theories developed to explain how governments justify discrimination against Muslims are rarely formally applied to the processes that lead to discrimination against Jews. Fox and Topor conclude by identifying three potential causes of discrimination: religious causes, anti-Zionism, and belief in conspiracy theories about Jewish power and world domination. They conclude that while all three influence discrimination against Jews, belief in conspiracy theories is the strongest determinant. The most rigorous and geographically wide-ranging analysis of discrimination against Jews to date, this book reshapes our understanding of the persecution of religious minorities in general and the Jewish people in particular.

Contents:
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Patterns of Discrimination
Chapter 3: Religious Anti-Semitism
Chapter 4: Anti-Zionism and Anti-Israel Behavior and Sentiment
Chapter 5: Conspiracy Theories
Chapter 6: The British Example
Chapter 7: Conclusions
Appendix
Bibliography
Contemporary Struggles over Defining Antisemitism
Author(s): Hirsh, David
Editor(s): Campbell, Jonathan G.; Klaff, Lesley D.
Date: 2019
Topics: Main Topic: Antisemitism, Anti-Zionism, Antisemitism: Left-Wing, Politics
Abstract: This paper focuses on struggles over how antisemitism is defined. Struggles over definition are themselves part of the wider struggle between those who say that hostility to Israel is important in understanding contemporary antisemitism and those who say that these two phenomena are quite separate. A key question, therefore, is what kinds of hostility to Israel may be understood as, or may lead to, or may be caused by, antisemitism?

In this paper I analyse three case studies of struggles over how antisemitism is defined. First, I trace a genealogy of the EUMC (European Union Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia, now the Agency For Fundamental Rights, FRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism. I show how this definition emerged out of a process of splitting between the global antiracist movement on the one hand and Jewish-led opposition to antisemitism on the other. At the Durban ‘World Conference against Racism’ in September 2001, there was a largely successful attempt to construct Zionism as the key form of racism on the planet; this would encourage people to relate to the overwhelming majority of Jews, who refuse to disavow Zionism, as if they were racists. In response, some Jewish NGOs found that they could get a hearing for their concerns within the structures of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and the European Union. If Durban is thought of as a non-white global forum and if the OSCE and the European Union are thought of as networks of white states, then the antagonism between non-white antiracism and white anxiety about antisemitism becomes visible and concerning. The clash between anti-Zionism on the one hand and the claim that antizionism is related to antisemitism on the other plays out within the realm of discourse and then it is also mirrored institutionally in these global struggles over the definition of antisemitism.

Second, I go on to look at a case study of alleged antisemitism within the University and College Union (UCU) which was related to the partial success within the union of the campaign to boycott Israel. The explicit disavowal of the EUMC definition during the 2011 UCU Congress can be understood as the climax of a process of struggle within the union over the recognition of a relationship between hostility to Israel and antisemitism.

The third case study is an analysis of two formal processes which were asked to adjudicate whether hostility to Israel had become antisemitic: the UCU v Fraser case at the Employment Tribunal in 2012 and the Shami Chakrabarti Inquiry into Antisemitism and Other Racisms in the Labour Party in 2016. The EUMC definition of antisemitism offers a framework for understanding the potential of certain kinds of hostility to Israel to be antisemitic. The further argument was made within the UCU, as well as to the Employment Tribunal and to the Chakrabarti Inquiry, that cultures of hostility to Israel and of support for boycotts tend to bring with them, into institutions which harbour them, cultures of antisemitism. The structures of the Union, as well as the two inquiries, wholeheartedly rejected both the claims: first, that a politics of hostility to Israel manifests itself in antisemitism in these cases; and second, that a cultural or institutional antisemitism, analogous to institutional racism, could be identified in the UCU or the Labour Party.

This paper asks whether these wholehearted rejections of claims about antisemitism are themselves implicated in the functioning of contemporary antisemitism. Denial of racism is a necessary element of those kinds of racism which do not see themselves as racist. Perhaps the hostility to the EUMC definition and to arguments about cultural or institutional antisemitism is a necessary component of the anti-Zionist discourses and cultures themselves which arguably relate in complex ways to antisemitism.
BDS-Debatte: Wider die falschen Eindeutigkeiten
Translated Title: BDS debate: Against the false clarity
Author(s): Ullrich, Peter
Date: 2021
Topics: Anti-Zionism, Antisemitism: Left-Wing, Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), Main Topic: Antisemitism
Antisemitismus und Sexismus: Historisch-gesellschaftliche Konstellationen
Translated Title: Antisemitism and Sexism: Historical and Social Constellations
Author(s): Stögner, Karin
Date: 2014
Topics: Antisemitism, Antisemitism: Discourse, Main Topic: Antisemitism, Gender, Jewish Women, Jewish History
Abstract: Worin bestehen die Konstruktionen des „Jüdischen“ und des „Weiblichen“ in Antisemitismus und Sexismus? Und lassen sich darin Gemeinsamkeiten aufzeigen, welche zum Verständnis ihrer Strukturen, Funktionen und Motivationen beitragen? Antisemitismus und Sexismus in historisch-gesellschaftlichen Konstellationen verstehen heißt nicht, sie zu vergleichen oder gar gleichzusetzen, sondern sie gerade in ihrer Eigenart als ideologische Momente eines gesellschaftlichen Ganzen zu begreifen.
Die Analyse zielt auf die strukturellen und funktionalen Affinitäten zweier durchaus unterschiedlicher Ideologeme, die in Praxis und Diskurs widersprüchliche, aber umso wirkungsvollere Verbindungen eingehen. Eingebettet in eine soziologisch-historische Herrschaftsanalyse werden die Wechselwirkungen antisemitischer und sexistischer Zuschreibungen und die Dialektik ihrer subjektiven Motivationen und gesellschaftlichen Bedingungen beleuchtet.
Unprecedented Response and Collaboration: Preliminary Lessons from Jewish and Israeli Responses to the Crisis in Ukraine
Date: 2022
Topics: Main Topic: Other, NGOs, Charity / Tzedakah, Refugees, Conflict, Ukraine-Russia war (since 2014)
Abstract: OLAM is a network of Jewish and Israeli organizations working in the fields of global service, international development, and humanitarian aid. Many of OLAM’s partners, alongside other Jewish and Israeli organizations, are on the ground in Ukraine and in adjacent countries providing support and services to those who have been caught up in the war in that region. These organizations include legacy providers of humanitarian aid such as World Jewish Relief (WJR) and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC); Jewish engagement organizations catapulted into humanitarian action such as Chabad and Hillel in the Former Soviet Union; and Jewish-led grassroots networks providing personalized help.

This report seeks to draw out preliminary lessons from the Jewish and Israeli efforts that have mobilized in response to this humanitarian emergency. Although the crisis remains ongoing and will likely continue to evolve
over the coming months and years, this report seeks to provide initial insights on how Jewish groups have
collaborated during the first three months of this crisis, and how they can collaborate most effectively in its next
phases. It also seeks to capture wisdom gained through responses to this crisis that can inform how the Jewish
community can respond to future crises in other parts of the world.
Haredi Jews around the world: Population trends and estimates
Author(s): Staetsky, L. Daniel
Date: 2022
Topics: Demography, Haredi / Strictly Orthodox Jews, Main Topic: Demography and Migration
Abstract: Capitalising on new resources and advances made in the methods of estimation, this report is the first time that the global Haredi (strictly Orthodox) population size has been estimated and calculated, revealing that about 2,100,000 Haredi Jews live worldwide, out of a total global Jewish population of 15 million. The report projects that the Haredi population could double in size by the year 2040, rising to over a fifth of the total by that time.

Some of the key findings in this report:

• The global Haredi population is estimated at 2,100,000, constituting about 14% of the total Jewish population in the world.
• Together, Israel and the USA account for about 92% of all Haredi Jews. Europe hosts 5% of the global Haredi population, while the rest live mainly in Latin America, South Africa, Canada and Australia.
• Outside of Israel and the USA, the three largest Haredi populations are located in the UK (about 75,000, or 25% of all British Jews), Canada (30,000, 8%) and France (12,000, 3%).
• While the world Jewish population has been growing by approximately 0.7% per year over the past decade, the Haredi population is currently growing by about 3.5%-4.0% annually.
• Today, a large part of the growth of the global Jewish population as a whole is due to the Haredi population: perhaps as much as 70%-80% of the total growth worldwide.
• Haredi rates of growth are very high not simply due to high fertility, but rather to the combined effects of very high fertility and very low mortality.
Modalities of cosmopolitanism and mobility: parental education strategies of global, immigrant and local middle-class Israelis
Author(s): Maxwell, Claire; Yemini, Miri
Date: 2019
Topics: Class, Immigration, Israeli Expatriates, Main Topic: Other, Globalisation, Parenthood, Education
Abstract: In this study, we explore how different forms of family mobility shape parental education strategies of three middle-class groups (moored Israeli professionals, immigrants from Israel to the UK and global middle class Israeli families). By focusing on families from the same nationality, we show how different practices of mobility differentiate between these middle-class fractions. Building on Andreotti’s framework for ‘global mindedness’ we suggest that orientations to cosmopolitanism also differentiate between these groups – from tourism (moored middle class), to empathy (immigrant middle class), to visiting (global middle class). By drawing on this conceptualisation, it is possible to understand why, despite the considerable uncertainty that constant mobility generates for children’s education and futures, global middle-class parents appear to assuredly navigate processes of securing and transmitting advantage.
Islamic Antisemitism: Jews in the Qur’an, Reflections of European Antisemitism, Political Anti-Zionism: Common Codes and Differences
Author(s): Fastenbauer, Raimund
Editor(s): Lange, Armin; Mayerhofer, Kerstin; Porat, Dina; Schiffman, Lawrence H.
Date: 2020
Topics: Antisemitism, Main Topic: Antisemitism, Antisemitism: Muslim, Antisemitism: Left-Wing, Anti-Zionism, Islamophobia, Jewish - Muslim Relations
“Antisemitism 2.0”—The Spreading of Jew-hatred on the World Wide Web
Author(s): Schwarz-Friesel, Monika
Editor(s): Lange, Armin; Mayerhofer, Kerstin; Porat, Dina; Schiffman, Lawrence H.
Date: 2020
Topics: Antisemitism, Antisemitism: Discourse, Internet, Main Topic: Antisemitism, Social Media
O "eruv" na Europa, nos Estados Unidos e no Brasil: novas estratégias de demarcação do espaço judaico
Translated Title: The "eruv" in Europe, the United States and Brazil: new strategies for the demarcation of the Jewish space
Author(s): Topel, Marta Francisca
Date: 2012
Topics: Eruv, Jewish Neighbourhoods, Main Topic: Other
Abstract: No artigo são discutidas as mudanças acontecidas nas comunidades da diaspóra nas últimas décadas no que diz respeito a novas estratégias de apropria-ção do espaço público. Para ilustrar esta questão, são analisadas as controvérsias suscitadas em cidades dos Estados Unidos e da Inglaterra como resultado do estabelecimento de eruvim em alguns de seus bairros. Finalmente, tendo como base empírica os bairros judaicos paulistanos, tentou-se mostrar como eles também estão passando por um processo de judaização, que inclui diferentes modos de apropriação do espaço público pelas correntes ortodoxas da cidade.
From Local Community to Glocal Network: Place, Memory, and Identity Politics among the “Jews of Trikala” and Their Diaspora (Greece)
Author(s): Spyros, Theodoros A.
Date: 2019
Topics: Main Topic: Identity and Community, Jewish Identity, Jewish Community, Diaspora, Memory, Globalisation, Ethnography
Abstract: In this paper I present some initial findings from my multilocal ethnographic and ethnohistorical research on the “Trikalan Jews”, i.e. Jews living in or originating from Trikala, a city in the Thessaly region of central Greece. In particular, my research focuses on two axes: the historical processes of community formation and its social transition after World War II as well as the recent sense of belonging of the potential members of that “community” and the ways they experience and negotiate their collective memory and identity. On a theoretical level, the first hypothesis grounded in the field is that the “community” tends to appropriate/be appropriated by subjects who currently live “elsewhere”. In this sense, it is reproduced as a glocal network in which Jewishness and locality are interconnected, experienced, and performed in multiple, fluid, and often fragmented ways. On a methodological level, my research is based on the fundamental techniques of ethnographic and ethnohistorical research which have been adapted to the conditions and restraints of a multilocal field.
The Jewish World’s Ambiguous Attitude toward European Integration
Author(s): Pinto, Diana
Editor(s): Pardo, Sharon; Zahavi, Hila
Date: 2019
Topics: Holocaust, European Union, Diaspora, Antisemitism, Israel-Diaspora Relations, Main Topic: Other
Judenhass im Internet: Antisemitismus als kulturelle Konstante und kollektives Gefühl
Translated Title: Hatred of Jews on the Internet: Anti-Semitism as a cultural constant and collective feeling
Author(s): Schwarz-Friesel, Monika
Date: 2019
Topics: Antisemitism, Antisemitism: Discourse, Main Topic: Antisemitism, Social Media, Internet
Abstract: Wie denken, fühlen und kommunizieren Antisemiten im digitalen Zeitalter? Welche Rolle spielt das Internet bei der Verbreitung und Radikalisierung von Judenhass? Diese Fragen werden anhand von Beispielen aus dem Web 2.0 und auf der Basis einer umfassenden Studie im Buch anschaulich sowie präzise erläutert.


Weltweit nimmt die öffentliche Verbreitung von Antisemitismen über das Internet drastisch zu. Dabei zeigt sich, dass uralte judenfeindliche Stereotype sich mit aktuellen Konzeptualisierungen verbinden. Die Basis von Judenhass zeigt sich unabhängig von politischen, sozialen, ideologischen und ökonomischen Faktoren als ein kultureller Gefühlswert, der auf der Wahnvorstellung fußt, Juden seien das Übel in der Welt. Anhand zahlreicher Beispiele aus der Internet-Kommunikation erörtert Monika Schwarz-Friesel, dass sich zwar oberflächliche Formen und kommunikative Prozesse im digitalen Zeitalter verändern, der alte kollektive Hass gegenüber Juden jedoch ungebrochen die semantische Grundlage ist.

Dabei zeigt sich, dass Antisemitismus nicht bloß ein Vorurteilssystem ist, sondern ein auf Phantasmen basierendes Weltdeutungssystem, das über Sprachgebrauchsmuster ständig reproduziert wird und im kollektiven Bewusstsein lebendig bleibt. Auch die Erfahrung des Holocaust hat diese Tradition nicht gebrochen. Den aktuellen Antisemitismus und seine derzeit dominanten Manifestationen des Anti-Zionismus und Anti-Israelismus kann man daher nicht ohne seine kulturhistorische Dimension verstehen.
COVID-19 mortality and Jews: A global overview of the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic, March to May 2020
Author(s): Staetsky, L. Daniel; Paltiel, Ari
Date: 2020
Topics: Coronavirus/Covid, Health, Demography, Main Topic: Other, Statistics, Surveys
Abstract: This study, the first to assess mortality among Jews around the world during the COVID-19 crisis, draws on data from a wide variety of sources to understand the extent to which Jews were affected by coronavirus in different parts of the world during the first wave of the pandemic, March to May 2020.

The first section describes the methods of quantification of COVID-19 mortality, and explains why measuring it using the excess mortality method is the most effective way to understand how Jewish communities have been affected. The second section presents data on Jewish mortality during the first wave of the COVID-19 epidemic, drawing particularly on data provided to JPR by Jewish burial societies in communities all over the world. It does so in a comparative perspective, setting the data on Jews alongside the data on non-Jews, to explore both the extent to which Jews have been affected by the COVID-19 epidemic, and how the Jewish experience with COVID-19 compares to the experience of non-Jewish populations.

The immediate impression is that there is not a single ‘Jewish pattern’ that is observable everywhere, and, with respect to the presence of excess mortality, Jewish communities, by and large, followed the populations surrounding them.

The report cautions against speculation about why Jews were disproportionately affected in some places, but rule out two candidate explanations: that Jewish populations with particularly elderly age profiles were hardest hit, or that Jews have been badly affected due to any underlying health issue common among them. They consider the possibility that Jewish lifestyle effects (e.g. above average size families, convening in large groups for Jewish rituals and holidays), may have been an important factor in certain instances, noting that these are unambiguous risk factors in the context of communicable diseases. Whilst they suggest that the spread of the virus among Jews “may have been enhanced by intense social contact,” they argue that without accurate quantification, this explanation for elevated mortality in certain places remains unproven.

The report also includes a strongly worded preface from Hebrew University Professor Sergio DellaPergola, the Chair of the JPR European Jewish Demography Unit, and the world’s leading expert in Jewish demography. In it, he stresses the importance of systematically testing representative samples of the population at the national and local levels, and, in Jewish community contexts, of routinely gathering Jewish population vital statistics. He states: “If there is one lesson for Jewish community research that emerges out of this crisis it is that the routine gathering of vital statistics – the monitoring of deaths, as well as births, marriages, divorces, conversions, immigrants and emigrants – is one of the fundamental responsibilities community bodies must take.”
Hate Fuel: The hidden online world fuelling far right terror
Date: 2020
Topics: Antisemitism, Antisemitism: Far right, Hate crime, Internet, Main Topic: Antisemitism, Social Media, Terrorism
Abstract: This report highlights four social media platforms where thousands of violent antisemitic videos, memes and posts are regularly shared by far right extremists who have migrated away from mainstream sites like Facebook and YouTube. Each of these four platforms – Gab, Telegram, BitChute and 4chan – was either set up or operates as a direct challenge to the main social media companies, citing free speech or privacy as justifications for their role in the promotion or distribution of hateful, inciteful and often violent content. They provide relatively unregulated online spaces for extremists to share content that celebrates and encourages hatred and murder.

Lumières sur la ville: Les fêtes de Hanoucca entre action missionnaire transnationale et appartenance événementielle
Translated Title: Lights on the city: Hanukkah celebrations between transnational missionary action and event ownership
Author(s): Endelstein, Lucine
Date: 2017
Topics: Main Topic: Other, Cities and Suburbs, Festivals and Holidays, Jewish - Non - Jewish Relations, Chabad-Lubavitch, Jewish Space
Abstract: Les fêtes de Hanoucca sont organisées par le mouvement Loubavitch depuis les années 1980 dans les espaces publics des métropoles du monde entier. Elles relèvent d’une action missionnaire qui vise à ramener un maximum de juifs à la pratique du judaïsme. Des enquêtes auprès des publics à Paris et à Londres révèlent que ces festivités organisées par un mouvement ultra-orthodoxe parviennent à rassembler le monde juif dans sa diversité ainsi que des sympathisants non juifs. En brouillant temporairement les frontières entre l’ultra-orthodoxie et le monde urbain et entre les différents courants du judaïsme, ces événements permettent d’analyser le rôle de la religion sous sa forme transnationale et événementielle dans la (re)construction du sentiment d’appartenance au monde juif, et dans la négociation d’une place dans la ville.
Gutachten zur «Arbeitsdefinition Antisemitismus» der IHRA
Translated Title: Expert Opinion On the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's "Working Definition of Antisemitism"
Author(s): Ullrich, Peter
Date: 2019
Topics: Antisemitism, Antisemitism: Monitoring, Antisemitism: Education against, Law, Main Topic: Antisemitism, Politics
Abstract: Mit der im Jahr 2016 von der International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) anerkannten «Arbeitsdefinition Antisemitismus» liegt ein Instrument für die notwendige Erfassung und Bekämpfung von Antisemitismus vor, das weite Verbreitung gefunden hat. In einem Handlungsfeld, das durch hochgradige begriffliche Verunsicherung gekennzeichnet ist, verspricht die Definition als praktische Arbeitsgrundlage begriffliche Orientierung. Tatsächlich stellt die «Arbeitsdefinition» mit ihrer konkreten, ohne Fachterminologie auskommenden Sprache sowie mit anschaulichen Beispielen, die den Begriff Antisemitismus anhand typischer, immer wieder auftretender Phänomene verdeutlichen, inzwischen eine Grundlage für die Arbeit verschiedener Nutzer*innengruppen dar. Zudem erfolgte mit der Aufnahme bis dato nur wenig beleuchteter (israelbezogener) Aspekte von Antisemitismus eine zum Zeitpunkt der Formulierung der Definition (Anfang der 2000er Jahre) notwendige Aktualisierung der Diskussion.

Bei einer näheren Untersuchung offenbaren sich jedoch auch gravierende Mängel. Insbesondere ist die «Arbeitsdefinition» inkonsistent, widersprüchlich und ausgesprochen vage formuliert; mithin erfüllt sie nicht die Anforderungen guten Definierens. Die Kerndefinition des Antisemitismus ist zudem reduktionistisch. Sie hebt einige antisemitische Phänomene und Analyseebenen hervor, spart aber andere, wesentliche, sehr weitgehend aus. Dies gilt insbesondere für ideologische und diskursive Aspekte, beispielsweise den Antisemitismus als verschwörungstheoretisches Weltbild. Ebenso fehlt eine Erwähnung organisationssoziologischer Aspekte der Mobilisierung in Bewegungen und Parteien sowie deren Niederschlag in diskriminierenden institutionellen Regelungen und Praxen. Zudem können manche israelbezogenen Beispiele, die der Kerndefinition hinzugefügt sind, nur mithilfe weiterer Informationen über den Kontext als antisemitisch klassifiziert werden, da das Beschriebene mehrdeutig ist. Es tritt in komplexen, sich überlagernden Konfliktkonstellationen auf, bei denen eine Zuordnung zu einem spezifischen Problemkreis wie Antisemitismus oft nicht einfach möglich ist. Ein Beispiel sind die sogenannten doppelten Standards. Sie sind kein hinreichendes Kriterium, um eine antisemitische Fokussierung auf Israel von einer solchen zu unterscheiden, die mit den Spezifika israelischer Politik und ihrer weltpolitischen Bedeutung zusammenhängen.

In der Folge begünstigt die «Arbeitsdefinition» eine widersprüchliche und fehleranfällige Anwendungs praxis und führt zu Einschätzungen von Vorfällen oder Sachverhalten, die nicht auf klaren Kriterien basieren, sondern eher auf Vorverständnissen derer, die sie anwenden, oder auf unreflektiert übernommenen verbreiteten Deutungen. Die Anwendung der «Arbeitsdefinition» produziert die Fiktion eines kriteriengeleiteten, objektiven Beurteilens. Die Definition stellt prozedurale Legitimität für Entscheidungen zur Verfügung, die faktisch auf der Grundlage anderer, implizit bleibender Kriterien getroffen werden, welche weder in der Definition noch in den Beispielen festgelegt sind.

Die Schwächen der «Arbeitsdefinition» sind das Einfallstor für ihre politische Instrumentalisierung, etwa um gegnerische Positionen im Nahostkonflikt durch den Vorwurf des Antisemitismus moralisch zu diskreditieren. Dies hat relevante grundrechtliche Implikationen. Die zunehmende Implementierung der «Arbeitsdefinition» als quasi-rechtliche Grundlage von Verwaltungshandeln suggeriert Orientierung. Stattdessen ist sie faktisch ein zu Willkür geradezu einladendes Instrument. Dieses kann genutzt werden, um Grundrechte, insbesondere die Meinungsfreiheit, in Bezug auf missliebige israelbezogene Positionen zu beschneiden. Anders als die Bezeichnung «Arbeitsdefinition» suggeriert, findet auch keine Weiterentwicklung der Definition statt, um diese Schwächen zu beheben.

Fazit: Der Versuch, Probleme allgemeiner begrifflicher Klärung und universeller praktischer Einsetzbarkeit mithilfe der «Arbeitsdefinition Antisemitismus» zu lösen, muss insgesamt als gescheitert angesehen werden. Vor allem aufgrund ihrer handwerklichen Schwächen, ihrer defizitären Anwendungspraxis, ihres trotzdem teilweise verbindlichen rechtlichen Status und ihrer politischen Instrumentalisierbarkeit mit problematischen Implikationen für die Meinungsfreiheit kann die Verwendung der «Arbeitsdefinition Antisemitismus» nicht empfohlen werden. Eine mögliche Ausnahme könnten lediglich eng umgrenzte pädagogische Kontexte darstellen.

Wie die Entstehungsgeschichte der «Arbeitsdefinition Antisemitismus» und ihre weite Verbreitung deutlich machen, gibt es – auch angesichts einer weiter bestehenden Bedrohung durch gegenwärtigen Antisemitismus – einen großen Bedarf vonseiten verschiedener Institutionen nach in der Praxis anwendbaren Kriterien zur Identifikation antisemitischer Phänomene. Folglich ist die Entwicklung von klaren und kontextspezifischen Instrumenten für die Praxis dringend zu empfehlen.
Faire communauté et consolider la filiation par le patrimoine musical. Un regard transnational sur le monde judéo-espagnol
Translated Title: Making Community and Consolidating Descent through Musical Heritage. A Transnational View on the Judaeo-Spanish World
Author(s): Roda, Jessica
Date: 2016
Topics: Main Topic: Culture and Heritage, Sephardi Jews, Jewish Music, Globalisation, Jewish Heritage, Migration
Abstract: À Paris, Tel-Aviv, Istanbul ou Los Angeles, on entend et chante les fameux standards judéo-espagnols. Ce partage de connaissances est le résultat d’une patrimonialisation qui a commencé dès les années 1950 dans un espace transnational à la suite de l’éclatement géographique des Judéo-Espagnols de l’Empire ottoman. Cet article expose les différentes étapes de ce processus, tant dans la diachronie que dans la synchronie, à partir d’un terrain multisite mené en France, aux États-Unis et sur le cyberespace. On découvrira que la construction du patrimoine à travers l’expérience de la migration peut être envisagée comme un mouvement de reterritorialisation permettant aux Judéo-Espagnols de faire communauté, de reconsolider la filiation judéo-espagnole dans l’espace familial et ainsi, de constituer un territoire historique fédérateur incarné par le patrimoine. Au-delà de ce cas spécifique, l’article montre comment le patrimoine musical, en raison de son statut d’objet immatériel facilement transportable, peut nous conduire à repenser la patrimonialisation au-delà du territoire et à l’envisager comme un processus de consolidation et de création de liens entre des individus et des groupes d’individus partageant un sentiment d’appartenance.
Antisemitismus 2.0 und die Netzkultur des Hasses: Judenfeindschaft als kulturelle Konstante und kollektiver Gefühlswert im digitalen Zeitalter
Translated Title: Anti-Semitism 2.0 and the net culture of hate: Jewishness as a cultural constant and collective emotional value in the digital age
Author(s): Schwarz-Friesel, Monika
Date: 2018
Topics: Main Topic: Antisemitism, Antisemitism, Antisemitism: Monitoring, Antisemitism: Discourse, Internet
Abstract: In welchen Manifestationen tritt Antisemitismus im digitalen Zeitalter in Erscheinung? Wie, wo und von wem werden judenfeindliche Inhalte artikuliert und verbreitet?Welche Stereotype werden kodiert, welche Argumente benutzt? Welche Rolle spielen Emotionen und irrationale Affektlogik beim aktuellen Einstellungs- und Verbalantisemitismus? Inwiefern hat das Internet die Verbreitung und Intensivierung von Antisemitismen akzeleriert und forciert? Wie lassen sich die modernen Ausprägungen
des Judenhasses wissenschaftlich beschreiben, einordnen und erklären?

Die von der DFG vier Jahre lang geförderte Langzeitstudie zur Artikulation, Tradierung, Verbreitung und Manifestation von Judenhass im World Wide Web1 hat diese Fragen im Rahmen der empirischen Antisemitismusforschung systematisch und datenreich
untersucht.

Weltweit, so scheint es seit Jahren, nimmt die Artikulation und Verbreitung von Antisemitismen, insbesondere über das Web 2.0, stark zu. Diese Entwicklung in der virtuellen Welt korreliert in der realen Welt mit judenfeindlichen Übergriffen und Attacken, Drohungen und Beleidigungen sowie dem „neuen Unbehagen d.h. Furcht und Sorge in den jüdischen Gemeinden Deutschlands und Europas.

Dieser Eindruck, der sich bislang nur durch Einzelfälle dokumentiert sah (und deshalb zum Teil bezweifelt oder als subjektives „Gefühl“ in Frage gestellt wurde), wird nun durch die empirischen Daten der vorliegenden Langzeitstudie wissenschaftlich bestätigt.

Durch die Spezifika der Internetkommunikation (Reziprozität, aktive Netzpartizipation, Schnelligkeit, freie Zugänglichkeit, Multimodalität, Anonymität, globale Verknüpfung) und die steigende Relevanz der Sozialen Medien als meinungsbildende Informationsquelle in der Gesamtgesellschaft hat die schnelle, ungefilterte und nahezu grenzenlose Verbreitung judenfeindlichen Gedankengutes allein rein quantitativ ein Ausmaß erreicht, das es nie zuvor in der Geschichte gab. Die Digitalisierung der Informations-und Kommunikationstechnologie hat „Antisemitismus 2.0“ online schnell, multipel, textsortenspezifisch diffus und multimodal multiplizierbar gemacht. Jeden Tag werden Tausende neue Antisemitismen gepostet und ergänzen die seit Jahren im
Netz gespeicherten und einsehbaren judenfeindlichen Texte, Bilder und Videos. Im 10-Jahres-Vergleich hat sich die Anzahl der antisemitischen Online-Kommentare zwischen 2007 und 2018 z.T. verdreifacht. Es gibt zudem kaum noch einen Diskursbereich
im Netz 2.0, in dem Nutzer_innen nicht Gefahr laufen, auf antisemitische Texte zu stoßen, auch wenn sie nicht aktiv danach suchen.
Limmud International - Contributing to the Global Jewish Conversation
Editor(s): Ravid, Shlomi
Date: 2012
Topics: Main Topic: Education, Jewish Education, Jewish Peoplehood, Limmud, Globalisation
Abstract:

The Limmud mission, which emphasizes learning, diversity and community, has proven to be a compelling set of values. These values are central to international groups. Studies have shown that Limmud participants are highly likely to travel internationally and recognize that they are part of a global community. However, this is not enough. The question that needs to be addressed entails how being a member of an international community can help us strengthen the Jewish people.
Jewish Practices among Contemporary Anusim
Author(s): Halevy, Schulamith C.
Date: 1999
Topics: Main Topic: Culture and Heritage, Jewish Heritage, Religious Observance and Practice, Anusim / Crypto-Jews / Marranos, Family and Household, Sephardi Jews
Abstract: Although occasional lists of contemporary crypto-Jewish practices specific to one region or another have appeared, the phenomenon continues to be treated as isolated to one or two locations. This paper surveys aspects of heritage observed and reported by descendents of anusim worldwide. The material was collected over the last seven years through observation, interviews, conversations and correspondence—traditional and electronic—with over three hundred informants. Places where specific customs were reported with some frequency are mentioned and sources to evaluate the connection to Judaism are also provided. Constellations of observances are illustrated with the description of three crypto-Jewish families.
Fixity and flux: A critique of competing approaches to researching contemporary Jewish identities
Author(s): Samson, Maxim GM; Vanderbeck, Robert M; Wood, Nichola
Date: 2018
Topics: Main Topic: Identity and Community, Jewish Identity, Jewish Education
Abstract: Jewish identities are becoming increasingly pluralised due to internal dynamics within Judaism and wider social processes such as secularisation, globalisation and individualisation. However, empirical research on contemporary Jewish identities often continues to adopt restrictive methodological and conceptual approaches that reify Jewish identity and portray it as a ‘product’ for educational providers and others to pass to younger generations. Moreover, these approaches typically impose identities upon individuals, often as a form of collective affiliation, without addressing their personal significance. In response, this article argues for increased recognition of the multiple and fluid nature of personal identities in order to investigate the diverse ways in which Jews live and perform their Jewishness. Paying greater attention to personal identities facilitates recognition of the intersections between different forms of identity, enabling more complex understandings of the ways in which individuals both define their own identities and contribute to redefining the boundaries of Jewishness.
Socio-Anthropologie des Judaïsmes Contemporains
Editor(s): Bordes-Benayoun, Chantal
Date: 2015
Topics: Sociology, Anthropology, Main Topic: Identity and Community
Abstract: Sils se définissent et sont perçus comme une seule et même communauté, les juifs sont en fait de plus en plus divers dans leurs interprétations de cette appartenance commune. Les frontières de la judéité semblent plus floues aujourdhui dans la mesure où elle enregistre, comme d'autres appartenances, les effets des migrations et métissages culturels contemporains. Si l'histoire tient un rôle majeur pour la compréhension pluriséculaire de la judéité, il appartient à la sociologie et à l'anthropologie sociale de saisir les bouleversements en cours. Cest à cette tâche, entre bilan et perspective, entre élaborations théoriques et enquêtes de terrain, que cet ouvrage rassemblant des spécialistes de ces deux disciplines semploie.
Retrospective and Afterological Considerations of the Contemporary Russian-Speaking Jewish Diaspora: Whence and Whither?
Author(s): Markowitz, Fran
Date: 2009
Topics: Russian-Speaking Jews, Russian Emigration, Diaspora, Globalisation, Main Topic: Identity and Community
Abstract: This article reviews the transformations undergone by Russian speaking Jews over the past half century, and how these have been portrayed in key scholarly texts. It analyzes the representation of Soviet Jews first as a people of silence, then as new immigrants in Israel and North America, and, most recently, as a globalized community or worldwide diaspora. But rather than accepting these identity transformations as a fait accompli, the article problematizes their present meanings and ponders future trends.
Home Lands: Portraits of the New Jewish Diaspora
Author(s): Tye, Larry
Date: 2001
Topics: Jewish Community, Diaspora, Globalisation, Jewish Revival, Main Topic: Identity and Community, Comparative Studies
Abstract: From Publishers Weekly review:

The new Jewish diaspora of a "heterogeneous people who thrive in secular societies" is here to stay, asserts Boston Globe journalist Tye (The Father of Spin). As these diverse Jewish communities have become not merely way stations but enduring homes, they have begun to remake Judaism itself. Tye tells this intriguing story through sketches of people and of life in seven cities. In Dsseldorf, he finds an Orthodox rabbi invoking a more pluralistic Judaism to educate Russian refugees. In Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine, a fervent Lubavitcher Hasidic rabbi has energized a dormant community. In Buenos Aires, a Jewish polity fragmented by economic setbacks and anti-Semitic attacks has begun to revive with new models of worship and organization. In Paris, Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews have forged ties that could serve as a model for their fractious brethren in Israel. Tye's chapter on Dublin, where the Jewish community is dying, may at first seem anomalous, but, he argues, their determination to reestablish their "Gaelic brand of Judaism" elsewhere is a testament to the ability of Jews to survive wherever they may be. His two American chapters focus on Boston, where the Jewish community has fused learning, spirituality and social justice, and Atlanta, where rival denominations work with considerable amity. Yet Tye's optimism might have been better contextualized by a broader survey. Though the author understandably had to winnow his examples from many compelling possibilities, readers may wonder about Jewish communities in such places as Melbourne, Montreal and Johannesburg. While not a breakout book, Tye's presentation of a new diaspora may intrigue a broad Jewish audience.
The Bukharan Jewish Diaspora at the Beginning of the 21st Century
Author(s): Kaganovitch, Albert
Editor(s): Baldauf, Ingeborg; Gammer, Moshe; Loy, Thomas
Date: 2008
Topics: Diaspora, Bukharian Jews, Main Topic: Other
The meaning of Ladino: The semiotics of an online speech community
Author(s): Brink-Danan, Marcy
Date: 2011
Topics: Ladino, Language, Internet, Diaspora, Main Topic: Culture and Heritage
Abstract: This article shows how the semiotics of a language, that is, what a language signifies, is a negotiated process observable by following online debates. Indeed, the adoption of new media seems to instigate, if not intensify and revitalize, these debates. I analyze an electronically mediated discussion group stating its goals as the maintenance, revitalization and standardization of Ladino (Judeo-Spanish). Employing theories from linguistic anthropology, I show how language ideologies map out the boundaries of what I call “Ladinoland” by insisting on particular meanings of Ladino. Group members assign the language these meanings through debates about Ladino’s glottonym, recursive boundary marking between Ladino native and novice users, and erasures of linguistic elements perceived to be non-standard.
The Governance of Cyberspace: Racism on the Internet
Author(s): Capitanchik, David; Whine, Michael
Date: 1996
Topics: Antisemitism, Internet, Law, Racism, Policy, Main Topic: Antisemitism
Abstract: The authors warn that the Internet has provided an attractive format and a relatively regulation-free environment for both the publication of racist material and the organization of the activities of neo-Nazi and other far-right organizations, terrorist and extremist groups. The authors advocate a number of short- and long-term Internet policy recommendations for organizations in the public, private and voluntary sectors which provide access to the Internet.
The International Handbook of Jewish Education (2011): developing a dialogue between Jewish and Catholic educators
Author(s): Miller, Helena
Date: 2013
Topics: Jewish Education, Jewish - Christian Relations, Interfaith Dialogue, Main Topic: Education
Abstract: This article is an attempt to highlight some main themes in the International Handbook of Jewish Education, which may resonate with themes that are pre-occupying Catholic educators, and which may help Catholic educators understand some of the pressing issues and concerns of Jewish educators and Jewish education. Its intention is to begin a process of dialogue between Jewish and Catholic educators internationally.
'No so Komo las de Agora' (Im Not Like Those Modern Girls): Judeo-Spanish Songs Meet the Twenty-First Century
Author(s): Cohen, Judith R.
Date: 2011
Topics: Ladino, Sephardi Jews, Jewish Music, Main Topic: Culture and Heritage
Abstract: The Judeo-Spanish song tradition has experienced many changes in recent years as it enters the 'world music' scene. Change, however, can be seen as a constant feature of the many aspects of Judeo-Spanish song and performance practice. Here, various genres are examined, together with some of the changes they have undergone in repertoire, style and context, and a selection of reactions to changes on the part of Sephardi Jews interviewed over several years. To a large extent, the repertoire has moved from the home to public representation, and is performed more by professional artists with no Sephardi background than by people from Sephardi communities, raising questions of appropriation and representation.
The State of Ladino Today
Author(s): Harris, Tracy K.
Date: 2011
Topics: Ladino, Sephardi Jews, Diaspora, Main Topic: Culture and Heritage
Abstract: This paper examines the current state of Ladino as a spoken everyday language of communication. Research has shown that there are very few competent speakers of the language under the age of sixty throughout the world. Negative language attitudes as well as assimilation into the dominant cultures and choice of the dominant language(s) are contributing factors to this decline. However, this decline in linguistic skills does not reflect the promotional efforts on behalf of Ladino and Sephardic culture which are discussed at length in the paper. The end result is that language loss does not mean the decline of Sephardic ethnicity and culture, which are presently thriving.
“The People Who Almost Forgot”: Judeo-Spanish Web-Based Interactions as a Digital Home-Land
Author(s): Held, Michal
Date: 2010
Topics: Ladino, Sephardi Jews, Language, Internet, Diaspora, Main Topic: Culture and Heritage
Hostility to Israel and Antisemitism: Toward a Sociological Approach
Author(s): Hirsh, David
Date: 2013
Topics: Antisemitism, Antisemitism: Discourse, Sociology, Anti-Zionism, Antisemitism: Left-Wing, Main Topic: Antisemitism, Israel Criticism
Abstract: Sociology is not immune from the ambivalence toward antisemitism that has haunted anti-hegemonic intellectual and political traditions. Yet in this paper, I argue that the resources of sociology can be mobilized to examine the ways in which antisemitism is sometimes manifested in discourses and movements against Israel and Zionism, even those which think of themselves as antiracist.
Le processus d'acculturation des juifs d'Algérie
Translated Title: The process of acculturation of the Jews of Algeria
Author(s): Deldyck, Jean-Jacques
Date: 2000
Topics: North African Jewry, Immigration, Acculturation, Assimilation, Main Topic: Other
Abstract: L'idée de ce travail est née du débat ouvert dans la société française à propos de l'intégration des immigrés et qui a mobilisé la classe politique, les médias et les intellectuels. L'étude porte sur une population originellement allogène à la société française, dont l'intégration s'avère pleinement réalisée. Installés en Terre d'Islam depuis plusieurs siècles, les Juifs d'Algérie connurent dans le monde musulman une acculturation qui leur fit adopter des comportements et des modes de pensées propres aux musulmans. Cette spécificité n'ayant pas empêché, in fine, leur intégration dans la société française.
Terrorist Incidents against Jewish Communities and Israeli Citizens Abroad 1968–2010
Date: 2011
Topics: Terrorism, Antisemitism, Antisemitism: Monitoring, Hate crime, Extremism, Israeli Expatriates, Main Topic: Antisemitism
Abstract: Terrorism against Jewish communities
and Israeli targets abroad represents
the most violent aspect of
contemporary antisemitism, and the
greatest physical danger to Diaspora
Jewish communities. Antisemitic
conspiracy theory, extremist ideology
and irrational hatred combine with the
rational calculations of political violence
to threaten the lives of ordinary Jews
and others all over the world. This
ongoing terrorist threat to Jews
demonstrates in the starkest terms
why Jewish communities require
security at their synagogues, schools
and community buildings, and that an
attack on a Diaspora Jewish community
is also an attack on the state and its
capacity to protect its citizens.
Terrorist Incidents Against Jewish
Communities and Israelis Abroad
catalogues 427 terrorist attacks and
plots, including those which were foiled
by police or aborted by the plotters,
which targeted Jews or Israelis outside
Israel between 1968 and 2010. It
includes attacks and plots by neo-Nazis,
Marxist-Leninists, anarchists, Palestinian
and other Arab nationalists,
revolutionary Iran and its surrogates
and radical Sunni Islamists. The first
edition of this book, which was published
in 2003 by CST and the Institute for
Counter-Terrorism in Herzliya, Israel,
was the first time that this history of
post-1967 anti-Jewish terrorism had
been comprehensively collated. This
edition includes an updated chronology
of attacks, an expanded analysis and
new statistical tables.
The Israeli Diaspora
Author(s): Gold, Steven J.
Date: 2002
Topics: Israeli Expatriates, Immigration, Diaspora, Globalisation, Main Topic: Other
Abstract: Israelis form a unique case in the field of diaspora studies. When the State of Israel was founded in 1948 it was seen as the longed-for end to the wandering and oppression which had characterized the Jewish diaspora over the centuries. For various reasons, however, one percent of the Israeli population chooses to live abroad despite the condemnation of those who see emigration as a threat to the ideological, demographic, and moral viability of Israel itself.

In this fascinating study, based on extensive field work in the major Israeli communities of New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris, and Sydney, Steven J. Gold looks at emigrants' reasons for leaving - existing links abroad, political and economic dissatisfaction at home, the lure of world-class career opportunities and cultural environments in global cities, and in the case of the Sephardim (or Israelis of non-European origin) often a feeling of being treated as second-class citizens. He also examines the tensions, compromises, and satisfactions involved in their relations with Israelis who have not left and with the Jewish and non-Jewish communities in the countries in which they settle. In the final chapter, Gold talks to Israeli men and women who after years as emigrants have made the decision to return. The end result is a major contribution not just to the study of the Israeli diaspora but also to our wider understanding of migration and transnational identity.
Jewish Communal Structures Around the World
Author(s): Elazar, Daniel J.
Date: 1997
Topics: Main Topic: Identity and Community, Jewish Community, Jewish Organisations, Representation, Umbrella Bodies
Abstract: In the postmodern era, all Diaspora Jewish communities are voluntary, and the first task of every Jewish community is to learn to deal with the particular local manifestation of its Jewish population's freedom to choose. Participation in the community actually defines its limits, and each is organized as a series of concentric circles around a central core of Judaism/Jewishness that draws Jews toward it in varying degrees. In Journal of Jewish Communal Service, v.74 no.2, Winter 1997.