Abstract: Crisis situations foster the proliferation of various conspiracy beliefs, especially in the current high-choice media environment. Drawing on a national survey (n = 1,000), we show that in Romania, in the context of the current Hamas–Israel conflict, antisemitic attitudes, sourcing news from social media rather than from mainstream media and frequent church attendance correlate with stronger beliefs in conspiracy narratives. Antisemitism is the most powerful predictor, but only in the form of conviction that Israel controls the media, politics, money and power. Additionally, gender and age are also significant correlates, with younger women more prone to such beliefs.
Topics: Israel: Attitudes to Israel, Israel: Criticism, Israel: Jewish and Israeli Advocacy, Hasbarah and Lobbying, Israel: Jewish Attachment, Israel: Non-Jewish Support, Solidarity and Advocacy, Main Topic: Other, Palestinian Solidarity and Activism, Post-Colonial, National Identity
Abstract: Issued in November 1917 to pledge Britain’s support for the “establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people,” the Balfour Declaration has had dramatic historical repercussions, paving the way for the founding of Israel in 1948, the Palestinian Nakba, and the persistence of bloodshed. Tracing the complex dynamic of postcolonial guilt, self-exculpation, and amnesia that characterized various British responses to the Declaration over the years, the article examines how this dynamic shaped the numerous events held across the United Kingdom in November 2017 to mark the Declaration’s centenary. These commemorative events – allowing different communities to articulate the relationship between Britain’s historical accountability, Israel’s sovereignty, and Palestinians’ grievances – are read in light of two interrelated “post-postimperial” developments preoccupying Britain in 2017: a new conservative backlash against the seeping British willingness to acknowledge Britain’s colonial crimes, and the Brexit crisis, with its complex resonances of imperial legacies.
Abstract: This explorative study examines contemporary forms of antisemitism and the perceptions of Jewish identity among young, highly educated Greeks. Using a structured questionnaire, the study investigated (1) how participants define Jewishness, (2) their endorsement of classical and aggressive antisemitic stereotypes, (3) perceptions of Israel and Israel-related antisemitism, and (4) the subjective perception of antisemitism in education and society. Results indicate that while overtly aggressive antisemitic attitudes are largely rejected, ancestry-based and ethno-religious definitions of Jewishness remain prevalent. Classical stereotypes, particularly regarding economic power, intellectual ability, and intra-group solidarity, persist selectively. Israel is recognized as a legitimate state, yet participants hold generally negative views of its democratic character. Antisemitism in Greek society and education is perceived as marginal, suggesting that subtle, normalized forms of prejudice may escape recognition. These findings highlight the need for targeted educational interventions that address both overt and subtle forms of antisemitism.
Abstract: In the current study, a detailed analysis of legal restrictions on ritualistic animal slaughter, or shechita, in various comparative settings is undertaken. The chapter deals with the historical and present debate on this phenomenon, very controversial both in Europe and beyond Europe since the 1990s. Analyses establish that civil society campaigns for the ban on shechita, supported by medical and veterinary authorities and activists on social media, have been effective in some, but not all, countries. The chapter will have two main aims. First, to document the historical bias against ritual animal slaughter, starting inmedieval times and culminating in 19th and 20th century European anti-Semitism, and to show the reemergence of this bias in recent decades. This reemergence, it will be shown, combines classic anti-Semitism with more recent Islamophobia (from the Right), and animal rights and anti-religious progressivism (from the Left). Second, to suggest that constitutional doctrines grounded in anti-discrimination principles are more effective than the doctrine of proportionality in protecting the religious and cultural rights of the Jewish minority in the context of shechita. This is because they are better equipped to expose hidden biases and prejudices against Jews than their proportionality-based counterparts.
Abstract: In November 2024, violence following a football match in Amsterdam was framed as evidence of migrant men’s failed integration into Dutch society. The frame achieved discursive dominance, anchoring public debate, and was adopted by the government before empirical substantiation. We examine the affective-discursive processes behind the frame’s salience amid conjunctural conditions and heightened collective anxieties. We conceptualize anxiety-fear arrangements as configurations of affective relations between socio-material elements. Frames, as meaning-making devices, organize meanings and orient emotions, shaping relations within arrangements. Through a multimodal discourse analysis of political statements, parliamentary transcripts and media items, we trace how the failed integration frame organized meanings, channeling collective anxieties onto tangible objects of fear: migranticized bodies, objects and places. The frame became salient through precedence, emotional intensity, cultural resonance and moral certainty. Empirically, we illustrate how bodies are ‘migranticized’ through framing. Conceptually, the anxiety-fear arrangement provides an operative template to understand meaning-making in conjunctures.
Abstract: In memory of Dr. Paul Levine, my friend and mentor during the last years of his life, this chapter honors his commitment to research, write, and teach about the Holocaust and the entangled histories of Sweden and the Holocaust. In this chapter, I demonstrate how traces of the Holocaust in Sweden—including former refugee camps, cemeteries, schools, and hospitals, etc.—help educate students and the public about the events of the Holocaust, its historical significance in Sweden, and its relevance today. I argue that “authentic sites” of Nazi persecution—often regarded as the most pedagogically authoritative locations—are not only the places where the destruction and persecution were perpetrated (a conception that vests authenticity with the perpetrators). Rather, I contend that “authenticity” in relation to Nazi persecution (and the pedagogical authority carried with it) is conferred by the victims and survivors. Authentic sites of Nazi persecution can thus be understood not only as sites of destruction but also as sites of survival and death in the aftermath of the destruction. As such, many authentic sites of Nazi persecution exist in Sweden. This chapter draws on examples from my own and other scholars’ research on places in Sweden where traces of the Holocaust may be found, as well as on grassroots efforts conducted by educators and activists, for three purposes. First, to explore theoretical and practical approaches to uncovering the significance of place. Second, to examine the potential of local history for teaching about broader, national and transnational histories of the Holocaust and Sweden’s complex connection with the Holocaust and its aftermath. Finally, to investigate what can be—or is already being—done to enhance past and current efforts to educate the public about these important issues.
Abstract: A comprehensive review of how Jewish life and anti-Jewish prejudice are portrayed in school materials.
Jewish communities have been integral to Europe’s social fabric for centuries, preserving rich religious and cultural traditions while facing recurring periods of exclusion, persecution, and resilience. School textbooks are important vantage points to understand how this history and heritage is represented, (de)constructed and embedded into a shared historical and cultural memory. They are also important practical tools used daily by students, teachers, and parents. This in-depth study looks into how anti-Jewish prejudice and Jewish culture, history and life are portrayed in secondary education materials in eight European countries. It identifies curricular entry points for teaching about Jewish experiences and antisemitism, analyses how these topics are integrated into textbooks, and explores the narratives and representations that emerge. The findings highlight both recurring stereotypes and promising practices. By showcasing these contrasts, the study provides targeted recommendations to guide the creation of more inclusive educational materials. It aims to ensure that representations of Jews, Judaism, and antisemitism convey the diversity, richness, and complexity of Jewish life while helping students critically engage with prejudice in historical and contemporary contexts
Abstract: This chapter examines the manifestations of antisemitism within three international online large groups convened by the Greek Institute of Relational and Group Psychotherapy following the October 7, 2023, attacks in Israel. Drawing on the social unconscious (Hopper, Fromm), relational psychoanalysis, and group-as-whole dynamics, the analysis traces how 80–120 mental health professionals enacted unconscious antisemitic patterns across three phases: initial idealization of the Greek cofacilitators as “neutral” containers, subsequent demonization marked by paranoid suspicion and conspiratorial attribution, and finally, fragmented empathy, where Jewish grief became conditional upon political disclaimers. The chapter introduces “conditional solidarity” as a contemporary antisemitic mechanism whereby Israeli professionals’ trauma is delegitimized unless accompanied by self-condemnation. Integrating the Talmudic Bar Kamtza narrative and the Greek Danaids myth, the analysis illuminates how institutional failures to process collective mourning perpetuate cycles of envy, aggression, and unmetabolized loss. The concept of “institutional illiteracy” describes professional communities’ inability to hold the complexity of Jewish identity, resulting in persecutory-paranoid dynamics rather than reflective containment. This psychodynamic approach reveals antisemitism’s persistence within ostensibly progressive therapeutic spaces.
Abstract: Antisemitism has had a long and complex history in Russian intellectual life and has revived in the post-Communist era. In their concept of the identity of the Jewish people, many academics and other thinkers in Russia continue to cast Jews in a negative or ambivalent role. An inherent rivalry exists between "Russia" and "the Jews" because Russians have often viewed themselves-whether through the lens of atheistic communism or that of the most conservative elements of the Orthodox Church-as a chosen people whose destiny is to lead the way to world salvation.
In this book, Vadim Rossman presents the foundations and present influence of intellectual antisemitism in Russia. He examines the antisemitic roots of some major trends in Russian intellectual thought that emerged in earlier decades of the twentieth century and are still significant in the post-Communist era: neo-Eurasianism, Eurasian historiography, National Bolshevism, neo-Slavophilism, National Orthodoxy, and various forms of racism. Such extreme right-wing ideology continues to appeal to a certain segment of the Russian population and seems unlikely to disappear soon. Rossman confronts and challenges a range of disturbing, sometimes contradictory, but often quite sophisticated antisemitic ideas posed by Russian sociologists, historians, philosophers, theologians, political analysts, anthropologists, and literary critics.
Abstract: My group-analytic work in small and large groups focuses on analyzing group communication through the group. As group analysts, we create space for talking about emotions and fantasies and encourage group participants to endure the coexistence of great diversity, perceive inner resonance phenomena, and enter into dialogue about them. To work on social rifts, we have to face the challenge of dealing openly with hatred, hostility, and conspiracy myths – including antisemitic stereotypes. Scenes from a small group in Berlin in 2024 show the balancing act of group-analytic work, in which politically motivated remarks are viewed neither on the level of rational arguments nor as purely individual phenomena. To this day, the group presented here continues to engage in circular movements with its own fear, with abrupt indifference in social interaction, with the effect of prejudice and rumor in society, and with moments of silent retreat. Group analysis can promote trust in one’s own abilities and relationships and is, at the same time, an effective means of dealing with destructive aggression such as antisemitism in the long term. I see this as an important attempt to counter the social crisis of trust with an increase in sensitivity and the ability to speak.
Abstract: Holocaust Remembrance Between the National and the Transnational provides a key study of the remembrance of the Jewish Catastrophe and the Nazi-era past in the world arena. It uses a range of primary documentation from the restitution conferences, speeches and presentations made at the Stockholm International Forum of 2000 (SIF 2000), a global event and an attempt to mark a defining moment in the inter-cultural construction of the political and institutional memory of the Holocaust in the USA, Europe and Israel. Containing oral history interviews with delegates to the conference and contemporary press reports, this book explores the inter-relationships between global and national Holocaust remembrances.
The causes, consequences and 'cosmopolitan' intellectual context for understanding the SIF 2000 are discussed in great detail. Larissa Allwork examines this seminal moment in efforts to globally promote the important, if ever controversial, topics of Holocaust remembrance, worldwide Genocide prevention and the commemoration of the Nazi past. Providing a balanced assessment of the Stockholm Project, this book is an important study for those interested in the remembrance of the Holocaust and the Third Reich, as well as the recent global direction in memory studies.
Author(s): Halioua, Bruno; Bantman, Patrick; Rimmer, Rachel; Ghozlan, Eric; Vaislic, Muriel; Halioua, Dan; Amson, Fabienne; Taieb, Charles; Prasquier, Richard; Gutthman, Jean-François; Ejnes, Robert; Dassa, Stéphanie; Astruc, Alexis; Cohen, Marc; Sarfati, Samuel; Fohlen-Weill, Marc; Namia-Cohen, Odile; Deutscher, Aline; Taieb, Jonathan
Abstract: Objective: The terrorist attacks of 7 October 2023 in southern Israel had a significant impact on the mental health of Holocaust Survivors (HS), who are considered to be particularly vulnerable to traumatic events. The aim of the study was to assess the severity of perceived stress and the psychological impact of the 7 October attacks on HS.
Methods: The study was conducted from 30 October to 15 December 2023 among HS who were contacted through HS support organisations (OSE, Aloumim). They completed a questionnaire consisting of four sections: socio-demographic data and experiences during the Holocaust, assessment of psychological stress using the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10), feelings of isolation, health consequences, and reactions to the 7 October attacks.
Results: 171 HS completed the questionnaire with 61 males (35.7%) with a mean age of 86.6+/−4.4 years (min 79–max 97). 59.6%, lived outside Israel, mainly in France. The mean score on the PSS-10 was 17.7 +/−6.0 on a scale of 5 to 40. The average PSS 10 score is not significantly higher in cases of age ≤90 years (18.0 ± 6.0 vs 15.7 ± 6.4, NS), or for those living in Israel (17.2 ± 5.3 vs 18.1 ± 6.6, NS). About a quarter reported feelings of isolation or loneliness following the attacks. The impact of the 7 October attacks was particularly significant among those living outside Israel. Approximately two-thirds felt that the events had rekindled memories of their Holocaust experiences, and nearly one-third observed a decline in their health since the attacks. Among survivors living outside Israel, 86.6% expressed concern about the future safety and identity of their children and grandchildren as Jews.
Conclusion: Identifying Holocaust survivors (HS) who are experiencing psychological distress is crucial to providing them with appropriate therapy.
HIGHLIGHTS
75.3% of Holocaust Suvivors experienced moderate to severe distress in the two months following the 7 October terrorist attacks, as measured by the PSS-10 questionnaire
Non-Israeli HS tend to think more frequently about the Holocaust period (87% vs 62.7%, p ≤ .05) and more often make a spontaneous link between the images broadcasted of the October 7 massacre and what happened during the Holocaust (83.7% vs 66.7%, p ≤ .05).
Compared to non-Israeli HS, those living in France and Canada are more anxious about the future of their children and grandchildren as Jews (86.6% vs 58.8%, p ≤ .05).
Abstract: October 7, 2023 is regarded as the deadliest massacre of Jews since the Shoah and marks a historical turning point. Since then, the repercussions of this terrorist attack and the subsequent Hamas-Israel war have been intensely debated. Antisemitic and violence-glorifying incidents in certain Muslim-migrant milieus have triggered emotionally charged debates on so-called “Muslim antisemitism.” However, little is known so far about the broader impact of October 7 and the war on the Muslim population in Germany. This study is based on a secondary analysis of the dataset Muslim Faith in Germany, collected between July 2023 and April 2024, and allows for a quasi-experimental before-and-after comparison in line with the Unexpected Event During Survey Design (N = 712 before, N = 1119 after October 7). The findings indicate that antisemitism among Muslims in Germany has changed significantly but only marginally since October 7, 2023, with consistently high approval rates between 30% and 35% for pronounced traditional antisemitism and between 23% and 19% for pronounced Israel-related antisemitism. Striking is the notable increase in radicalization potential: antisemitism—particularly in its Israel-related form—is significantly more strongly associated after October 7 with willingness to participate in unauthorized demonstrations, readiness for self-sacrifice, sympathies for Islamist actors, and acceptance of violence and terrorism as a means to enforce Muslim interests. Regression analyses show that especially lacking political integration, high fundamentalism, and threat perception are significantly associated with antisemitism after October 7. Implications for research and practice are discussed, regarding the strengthening of political trust, the dismantling of fundamentalism, and the reduction of collective threat perceptions.
Abstract: Seit dem 7. Oktober 2023 hat sich die Zahl antisemitischer Vorfälle in Deutschland vervielfacht; an Hochschulen fiel der Anstieg besonders stark aus. Der Beitrag präsentiert die Ergebnisse der dritten Welle einer Schnellbefragungsreihe der AG Hochschulforschung der Universität Konstanz, die deutschlandweite Studierenden- und Bevölkerungsstichproben in Bezug auf israelbezogenen Antisemitismus, Zustimmung zur Boykottbewegung BDS (Boycott, Divestment,
and Sanctions) sowie Einstellungen zum Genozid-Vorwurf gegen Israel und zum Existenzrecht des jüdischen Staates vergleicht. Der israelbezogene Antisemitismus ist unter Studierenden seit 2023 gestiegen, vor allem im Bereich der teilweisen Zustimmung zu antisemitischen Aussagen, liegt aber weiterhin unter dem Vergleichswert der Bevölkerungsstichprobe. Studierende berichten jedoch deutlich häufiger als die Bevölkerung, Antisemitismus selbst beobachtet zu haben – allerdings wird dies selten explizit der Institution Hochschule zugeschrieben, sondern eher informellen Räumen (soziale Medien, Demonstrationen, Peergroups). Dies stützt eine Deutung der Hochschule als
Katalysator, der bestehende Ressentiments sichtbarer und sozial wirksamer macht, statt sie grundlegend neu zu erzeugen. Die Zustimmung zu Boykottforderungen gegenüber Israel hat sich unter Studierenden seit 2023 erhöht, sehr deutlich ebenso die Zustimmung zum Vorwurf, Israel begehe einen Genozid (auf zwei Drittel der Studierenden). Ein experimentelles Info-Treatment zeigt, dass die Bereitstellung der völkerrechtlichen Genozid-Definition diese Einschätzung nicht verändert, was auf eine moralisch-politisch bereits gefestigte statt wissensbasierte Urteilsbildung hindeutet. Ein Discrete-Choice-Experiment zum Existenzrecht Israels zeigt, dass mit steigendem AntisemitismusScore die Präferenz für delegitimierende gegenüber das Existenzrecht anerkennende Positionen unter Studierenden zunimmt, wobei eine historisch aus der NS-Verfolgung begründete Legitimation besonders stark an Zustimmung verliert. Ergänzend werden Befunde zum wahrgenommenen Diskursklima ("Silencing" von Israelkritik, Polarisierung) sowie Implikationen für die antisemitismuskritische Bildungsarbeit an Hochschulen diskutiert.
Abstract: Transnistria, meaning “beyond the Dniester”, was an artificial geographic term created during the Second World War, referring to a region in the Ukraine that was situated between the Dniester River on the west and the Bug River on the east, also extending southward to the Black Sea. During October and November 1941, thousands of terrorized Jews, mostly without food and water, were deported on foot or by wagon to Transnistria. Depending on whose numbers one uses, between 120,000 and 180,000 Jews were deported to Transnistria from Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina. Of this group, only 50,000 would survive the war.
For years, the fate of the Jews in Transnistria was not emphasized in Holocaust remembrance, education, or commemoration. The reasons for this were manifold. They included problems of documentation; attitudes of Eastern European governments until the transition of the 1990s; priorities of major Holocaust memorial organizations until that transition; activities, primarily internally focused, of the survivor organizations from Bukovina, Bessarabia, and Transnistria; and, finally, the dynamics among Jewish survivors from Romania as they reassembled their lives in the first postwar decades. All this contributed to Transnistria becoming “the forgotten Holocaust”.
As the last Jewish survivors of the Transnistrian ghettos and camps reached their eighth and ninth decades at the beginning of the 21st century, various political, social, educational, and demographic factors coalesced, changing pre-existing dynamics regarding the memory of Transnistria. In this chapter, I focus on these factors, showing how and why this “forgotten Holocaust” is slowly being remembered again.
Abstract: Public engagement with the Holocaust in Romania has developed slowly and unevenly, shaped by decades of political constraint and institutional silence. Until 1989, restricted archival access and an antifascist ideological framework marginalized the specificity of Jewish persecution, subsuming it under a generalized narrative of “victims of fascism”. A substantive public acknowledgment of Romania’s responsibility emerged only in 2004, with the adoption of the Final Report of the International Commission on the Holocaust in Romania. This belated recognition profoundly influenced the spatial articulation of memory in Bucharest.
The chapter examines the fragmented mnemonic landscape of the city through a theoretical distinction between imprints and places. Imprints are material interventions – monuments, plaques, museums – that inscribe historical facts into public space. While essential for visibility and moral acknowledgment, they operate largely as static markers. Places, by contrast, are urban sites whose latent memory is reactivated through collective engagement. Rather than merely preserving the past, they generate memory through interaction, interpretation, and embodied experience.
Through case studies – including Giurgiului Cemetery, the Bucharest Holocaust Memorial (2009), and the Memorial to the Martyrs of the Bucharest Pogrom (2016) – the chapter traces the transition from enclosed, community-bound remembrance to civic visibility. It then analyzes the pedagogical project PLACES (2021), developed with architecture students, which reconstructed the prewar addresses of the 125 pogrom victims and reinscribed them into the contemporary city through mapping, archival research, and digital interfaces.
By shifting attention from sites of death to spaces of everyday life, PLACES exemplifies a performative model of remembrance grounded in secondary witnessing. The study argues that, in the absence of living testimony, urban space itself becomes a medium of memory – capable not only of conserving history but of ethically reactivating it within the present.
Abstract: Government and political parties must adopt an amended definition of antisemitism, aimed at promoting a zero-tolerance approach while allowing free speech on Israel and Palestine to continue. The persistent use of 'Zionist' as a term of abuse is a particular concern: use of the word in an accusatory context should be considered inflammatory and potentially antisemitic by law enforcement and political party officials.
While the UK remains one of the least antisemitic countries in Europe, it is alarming that recent surveys show that as many as one in 20 adults in the UK could be characterised as "clearly antisemitic".
There is a worrying disparity in police-recorded antisemitic crime across the country, with virtually no cases recorded in some police force areas where thousands of Jewish people live. It calls on the National Police Chiefs' Council to investigate this apparent under reporting, and to provide support to police forces with less experience of investigating potentially antisemitic incidents.
Shami (now Baroness) Chakrabarti's report into antisemitism in the Labour Party is ultimately compromised by its failure to deliver a comprehensive set of recommendations, to provide a definition of antisemitism, or to suggest effective ways of dealing with antisemitic incidents. In addition, her decision to join the Labour Party in April and accept a peerage as a nominee of the Labour Leader, along with her recent appointment to Jeremy Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet, has thrown into question the independence of the Labour Party's inquiry.
Despite his proud record on fighting racism, the Committee is not persuaded that Mr Corbyn fully appreciates the distinct nature of contemporary antisemitism, and the fact that it is perfectly possible for an 'anti-racist campaigner' to express antisemitic views. His lack of consistent leadership on this issue has created what some have referred to as a 'safe space' for those with vile attitudes towards Jewish people, exacerbated by the Party's demonstrable incompetence at dealing with members accused of antisemitism.
Abstract: This paper examines the adaptation and proliferation of antisemitic narratives on Telegram during the Russian-Ukrainian war, tracing their evolution from historical myths to digital propaganda. Through a qualitative analysis of Telegram channels in Russian and Ukrainian, we explore how classical antisemitic tropes such as conspiracy theories about Jewish global control, Holocaust denial, and accusations of dual loyalty are repurposed to shift blame for the war onto Jews. Our findings reveal a multilayered process of blame-shifting operating across historical, social, national, and global levels, positioning Jews as instigators of conflict to deflect civic and political responsibility from Russians and Ukrainians. We argue that this antisemitic rhetoric serves as a tool of social manipulation and political deflection, embedded in diverse nationalist and conspiratorial digital environments. By embedding these narratives within Telegram’s unregulated and virally oriented ecosystem, content creators amplify prejudice, erode social cohesion, and perpetuate cycles of mistrust and scapegoating. This study highlights the enduring power of antisemitic myths in contemporary digital conflict narratives and calls for further research into the structural mechanisms enabling their spread.
Abstract: Antisemitism, understood as a particular manifestation of racism directed against a collectivity defined by religion, ethnicity, or a combination of both, constitutes a form of social exclusion. Such exclusion operates through formal and informal mechanisms that separate members of the targeted group from full participation in various spheres of social life. It may manifest as an outright prohibition from entering specific social circles or events, or as a conditional and restricted form of participation-one permitted only under special, typically unfavorable, terms. In both situations, inclusion is perceived as improper or undesirable, and when it occurs, it is often subject to heightened scrutiny or control. As with other forms of racism, antisemitism may persist within a society irrespective of the presence or absence of legislation explicitly supporting it. Moreover, antisemitism can remain operative even in contexts where laws formally prohibit ethnic or religious discrimination. This is possible because exclusion and discrimination may assume subtle or covert forms, legitimized through the selective or manipulative use of legal provisions that allow for differential treatment on ostensibly neutral grounds. The capacity of antisemitism to hide behind seemingly unrelated attitudes or arguments -masking negative sentiment toward Jews as a collectivity- raises fundamental questions about how the term “antisemitism” should be defined and what indicators are necessary for its identification and systematic analysis. This paper discusses the controversy surrounding competing definitions of antisemitism as it emerged before and after the recent Israel-Palestinian conflict, where legitimate political critique of the State of Israel is at times intertwined with antisemitic discourse disguised as purely political disapproval of Israeli policies or leadership.
