Abstract: The fear and hatred of others who are different has economic consequences because such feelings are likely to translate into discrimination in labor, credit, housing, and other markets. The implications range from earnings inequality to intergenerational mobility. Using German data from 1996 and 2006, we analyze the determinants of racist and xenophobic feelings towards foreigners in general, and against specific groups such as Italians, Turks, and Asylum Seekers. We also analyze racist and anti-Semitic feelings towards German citizens who differ in ethnicity (Aussiedler from Eastern Europe) or in religion (German Jews). Individuals’ perceived (or actual) economic well-being is negatively related to the strength of these feelings. Education, and having contact with foreigners mitigate racist, anti-Semitic and xenophobic feelings. People who live in states which had provided above-median support of the Nazi party in the 1928 elections have stronger anti-Semitic feelings today. The results are not gender-driven. They are not an artifact of economic conditions triggering feelings about job priority for German males, and they are not fully driven by fears about foreigners taking away jobs. The results of the paper are consistent with the model of Glaeser (Q J Econ 120(1):45–86, 2005) on hate, and with that of Akerlof and Kranton (Q J Econ 105(3):715–753, 2000; J Econ Perspect 19(1):9–32, 2005) on identity in the utility function.
Abstract: Im Herbst 2008 warnte die Anti Defamation League wiederholt vor einem neuen Aufkeimen
des Antisemitismus im Zuge der globalen Wirtschafts- und Finanzkrise und belegte ihre
Sorge durch eine Vielzahl von Artikeln in US-amerikanischen, südamerikanischen und
europäischen Printmedien und Internetforen, in denen in der Auseinandersetzung mit der
Krise mehr oder weniger offene antisemitische Ressentiments artikuliert wurden. Diese
reichten von traditionellen antisemitischen Stereotypen wie dem „raffgierigen Juden“ bis hin
zu Weltverschwörungstheorien, die auch durch eine spezifische Verknüpfung von
Antisemitismus, Antiamerikanismus und Israelfeindschaft gekennzeichnet sind.
Vor diesem Hintergrund starteten wir am Institut für Konfliktforschung, in Kooperation mit
dem Institut für Zeitgeschichte, im August 2009 eine Studie zu antisemitischen
Diskurselementen in den Debatten um die Krise in österreichischen Printmedien. Wie wird
die Krise generell dargestellt und unter welchen Bedingungen und thematischen Kontexten
tauchen antisemitische Versatzstücke in der Argumentation auf? Dies ist die
forschungsleitende Kernfrage, der wir uns in dem Projekt widmeten.
Da Antisemitismus weder als einheitliches noch als statisches Phänomen verstanden wird,
sind die Kontinuitäten und Diskontinuitäten der antisemitischen Stereotypenbildung und
deren Situierung in gesellschaftlichen, ökonomischen, politischen und historischen Kontexten
von zentralem Belang. Denn selbst wenn sich antisemitische Stereotype in ihrem Inhalt und
ihrer Struktur innerhalb des letzten Jahrhunderts nicht grundsätzlich verändert haben mögen,
ist es für eine Analyse der Funktion und Struktur des Antisemitismus notwendig,
Veränderungen in den Bedingungen zu berücksichtigen, unter denen Antisemitismus auftritt.
Nur eine solche Vorgehensweise erlaubt substantielle Konklusionen über das Verhältnis von
Antisemitismus und Politik/Gesellschaft/Ökonomie. So sind die gesellschaftspolitischen
Veränderungen der letzen drei Jahrzehnte, die sich auch in einem neoliberalen Diskurs
niederschlagen, ebenso von Bedeutung wie etwa die Transformationen des Nationalen im
Zuge der teilweisen Transnationalisierung von Politik und Verwaltung in der EU, welche
Auswirkungen auf den nationalistischen Diskurs zeitigen, der seinerseits häufig mit
Antisemitismus einhergeht.
Das Projekt verbindet eine gesellschaftstheoretische und historische Überblicksstudie über
Antisemitismus im spezifischen Zusammenhang ökonomischer Krisen, seine Artikulationsund Manifestationsformen sowie die Motivationen, die dahinter stehen, mit einer
diskursanalytischen Untersuchung eines ausgewählten Medienkorpus zur gegenwärtigen Finanz- und Wirtschaftskrise. In den verschieden gelagerten Textsorten (Berichte,
Kommentare, Reportagen, LeserInnenbriefe, etc.) werden manifeste und latente
antisemitische Diskursstränge herausgestrichen und ihre Wirkungsmacht hinsichtlich der
gesamten Diskursstrategie analysiert. Da vor allem im Internet zum Teil unverhohlen
antisemitisch argumentiert wird, wurden über den Korpus an Printmedien hinaus auch
Forumsdiskussionen in Augenschein genommen und, eine davon genauer analysiert. Im
Zentrum dieses Projekts steht jedoch der Diskurs in den österreichischen Printmedien Kurier,
Die Presse, Der Standard, Neue Kronen Zeitung, profil, Format und News.
Ausgangsüberlegung für diese Herangehensweise ist, dass der in diesen Printmedien
„veröffentlichte Diskurs” eine Datensorte darstellt, die weite Teile in allen
Bevölkerungsschichten erreicht und dominante Deutungsmuster repräsentiert.
Abstract: Статья посвящена трансформации, которую претерпел обычай «ѓахнасат кала» в современной российской еврейской общине. Заповедь «ѓахнасат кала» была впервые упомянута в талмудической литературе как
предписание увеселять жениха и невесту, однако позже, в XVII–XVIII вв., в Ашкеназе получила новое содержание: община должна была собирать на приданое бедным невестам, с тем чтобы они могли выйти замуж, – тем самым нищие девушки удерживались от социальной маргинализации или крещения. В современной российской еврейской общине (и, как выяснилось впоследствии, среди русскоязычных ультрарелигиозных евреев Израиля) это название стало употребляться по отношению к совершенно новой практике – сбору денег на организацию свадебной церемонии для жениха и невесты, уже выбравших друг друга, а нередко живших в гражданском браке и пришедших к иудаизму. В отличие от традиционной ситуации, когда стоимость свадебных расходов покрывается взносами гостей, в данном случае спонсорами свадьбы становятся пользователи интернета, сочувствующие данной паре, а бенефициарами – члены общины с высоким статусом. Таким образом, организация дорогой свадебной церемонии становится
для будущих супругов своего рода подтверждением их статуса в общине. Подробно анализируется один такой случай, произошедший в общине Московской хоральной синагоги в 2019 г. Делаются выводы о структуре общины, о ее экономике и роли краудфандинга в современной российской еврейской ортодоксии.
Abstract: As soon as the seriousness of the COVID-19 pandemic became evident, concern began to be expressed in the Jewish community about how its effects might damage aspects of Jewish life. Our July 2020 survey of Jews across the UK was designed to investigate some of these effects and bring some data into policy discussion about the future of the community.
Part of that discussion involves community income, and specifically whether Jews will feel able to donate to charities in the ways they have previously, or if they will continue to pay membership fees to synagogues or make voluntary contributions to cover the Jewish studies programmes, security and other supplementary activities in Jewish schools.
This paper looks at these issues first by examining respondents’ giving behaviours in 2019, and comparing them to their actual or expected behaviours during the first few months of the pandemic. It finds that, as of July 2020, its effects were found to be rather limited – while charitable giving, synagogue membership fees and voluntary contributions to schools were all expected to take a hit, a strong majority indicated no change in their giving behaviour at this time. Moreover, there are some indications that a shift has taken place in people’s tendency towards giving to Jewish charities over general ones. Whether this is part of a longer-term trend or simply a response to the pandemic is unclear.
The study then investigates those who said they were planning to make a ‘negative switch’ in their giving behaviour, to explore the extent to which that change was due to economic factors caused by the pandemic, or two alternative possibilities: their economic situation prior to it, or the strength/weakness of their Jewish identity.
It finds that changes in behaviour are heavily influenced by the economic impact of the pandemic, particularly with respect to synagogue membership fees, but that Jewish identity also plays a part, most acutely in relation to making voluntary contributions to schools.
Abstract: Once one of the most numerous and prosperous minorities in Yugoslavia, the number of Jews declined from over 80,000 to 15,000 in the years aer WW2. is number further decreased due to migration to Israel in the first post-war years, and further impoverishment took place because of confiscation and restitution of the majority of private and communal Jewish property, and enforced renouncing of Yugoslav citizenship. e first multi-party elections in Yugoslavia brought to power nationalist elements in all republics, which was followed by civil war, and the breaking of socialist Yugoslavia. Jews of Yugoslavia found themselves on different warring sides. Fragmentation on all confronted sides made the Jewish community even more vulnerable. A huge majority of former Warsaw Pact members aer the Berlin wall fell passed laws for restitution of property taken by the state in post WW2 period. Jews of Yugoslavia, in several new states, had promises from state offi cials that their property would be restituted and errors made half a century ago would be rectified. e only case where such a promise came true was Serbia. In 2011 Serbia passed General Restitution Law concerning individuals, therefore also Jews. In 2006 Serbia passed Law on property of the religious communities that also included Jewish community and that helped restitution of the Jewish communal property. e state of Serbia is the only state in the region that passed the Jewish Lex Specialis that concerns on Jewish property with no successor but also unclaimed Jewish property in February 2016. Croatia passed a General Restitution Law in 1996, and amended it in 2002, but it only affects property nationalized aer May 1945. at Law is limited to direct successors who are Croatian citizens or citizens of countries which have bilateral agreements with Croatia. Due to very high taxes, in some cases reaching 25% of property value, a lot of Jewish requests remained unsolved. Bosnia and Herzegovina is one of the rare European countries that did not pass such a law. Moreover, the BIH constitution declares three constituent nations: Serbs, Croats and Bosnians, while others as minorities cannot be nominated for state positions, according to chapters IV and V of the BIH constitution (Sejdić and Finci v. Bosnia and Herzegovina). is paper aims to give insight into the economic power of Jews just before the breakdown of Yugoslavia, and the current economic situation of Jewish communities in Serbia, Croatia and BIH, with a special emphasis on their economic, legal and social position in the last two decades. is restitution issue is very important for it shows how much goodwill states have for helping their local Jewish communities. e research material is obtained from local Jewish communities, periodicals, reports, interviews, conferences, scientific journals and statistical data of all three states and various Jewish organization. Facing the past, admitting and rectifying remain open issues in those countries, and they are excellent indicators of the progress achieved in the last 25 years.
Abstract: This article is concerned with what happens to precarious community buildings in times of austerity. It responds to a landscape of capitalist realism, in which instrumental, economic forms of value are mobilised to justify the closure of ordinary buildings whose survival is not identified as a political priority. The study focuses on two London cases of a library and an elderly day centre under threat of closure, and traces how grammars of austerity rendered these buildings substitutable. Considering how abstract sociological conceptions of value/s can struggle to break into the embedded common sense of austerity, the authors explore how ethnographic practices of collaboration and attentiveness can help amplify alternative expressions of the meanings of these buildings for their communities. Enacting a form of ethnographic witnessing, which learns from Wittgenstein, the authors highlight the creative, vernacular registers and gestures of library users and day centre members, and show how these were anchored in the buildings themselves. In this way, the article supplements noisier, more hyperbolic accounts of the violence of austerity by amplifying quotidian responses, which express how ordinary buildings and the forms of life they sustain, matter.
Abstract: Ce travail s'inscrit au croisement des sciences economiques et des sciences sociales. Il part d'un constat economique, celui de l'extraordinaire croissance, dans les annees 70 a 80, d'un marche, qui vingt ans auparavant n'etait qu'embryonnaire : le marche des produits cacher. Il presente les enjeux d'une telle vigueur : enjeux religieux, symboliques et identitaires d'une part, enjeux economiques et de pouvoir d'autre part. L'etude des pratiques alimentaires juives en modernite, en tant que "fait social total", permet de saisir l'organisation materielle d'une consommation symbolique. L'alimentation, parce que symboliquement centrale en tant que pratique sociale, est un angle d'approche ideal pour une sociologie religieuse du judaisme. Les observations conduite dans le domaine de la cacheront informent sur les juifs de france en dehors de ce seul domaine, mais aussi sur la place de l'alimentation dans toute societe humaine. Cette these s'articule sur deux axes : d'une part croire-pratiques-identites et d'autre part economie-institutions-pouvoir. Les consommateurs, effectifs ou potentiels, dans leur pratiques et leurs representations, etablissent un certain rapport aux textes prescriptifs, face a cela, les acteurs economiques et institutionnels, agissent selon des normes de la tradition, mais aussi selon des logiques propres, logiques de survie financiere et de pouvoir. Ces imbrications se mettent en place pour produire une configuration particuliere nommee economie du croire. Ce concept rend compte de la facon dont deux rationalites, l'une religieuse, l'autre economique, se font face, tantot s'affrontant, tantot se renforcant l'une l'autre. Si l'ethique juive prone un equilibre ideal entre les interets economiques et la necessite d'une solidarite collective, assuree par la centralite accordee au don, qu'en est-il dans les faits ? n'y a-t-il pas une tentation du veau d'or, c'est a dire une inversion entre les fins et les moyens, entre l'ethique et la technique, entre l'objet et le sens ?
