Topics: Main Topic: Antisemitism, October 7 2023 attacks + aftermath, Gender, Feminism, Antisemitism, Antisemitism: Israel-Related, Antisemitism: Left-Wing, Antisemitism: Theory, Theory: Critical Theory, Sexism and Misogyny, Intersectionality
Abstract: Antisemitism and Sexism: Ideological Constellations Before and After 7 October analyses the manifold ways in which antisemitism and sexism appear not as isolated ideologies but as intersecting ones, exploring their historical, social, political, economic, and psychological constellations. Drawing on Critical Theory, the book offers a comparative historical analysis of these entanglements from nineteenth-century Europe—particularly Germany and Austria—through National Socialism and its preconditions, to the historical and contemporary formations of Islamism. The sexist antisemitism of 7 October and its aftermath are examined as a contemporary eruption of these enduring ideological patterns, while Critical Theory itself is sharpened in light of these events.
Structured around distinct analytical dimensions, the book opens with a theoretically dense examination of the damaged relationship between human beings and nature under modern labour society, identified by Critical Theory as a key source of both antisemitism and sexism. Subsequent chapters analyse the contradictory constructions of Judaism and femininity, the relation between body and mind, and socially regulated forms of sexuality. Conspiracy myths linking weakness and omnipotence, the psychosocial roots of authoritarian dispositions, and the embedding of these ideologies in specific formations of capitalist modernity and repressive communities are examined in turn. The book also offers a critical examination of intersectional feminist antisemitism in the aftermath of 7 October and advances a proposal to reformulate intersectionality as an ideology-critical framework for a feminist critique of antisemitism.
Abstract: In diversity studies, categories of difference are seen as building blocks. Critical organisational scholars emphasise the need to move from fixed conceptualisations of identity towards a more flexible, intersectional, multi-layered, and context-sensitive understanding of social difference and organisational inequality. This critique also involves shifting from a social psychology lens to a sociologically-oriented and historically-informed perspective. The elusive and multi-dimensional nature of Jewish identity offers a unique opportunity to explore those complexities around organisations and social difference. Jewish difference seems to disrupt diversity scholarship and practice, problematising ideas of whiteness and otherness, dominance and marginality, diaspora and homeland. Bridging the gap between EDI and Jewishness—and between management and organisation studies and Jewish studies—is of theoretical, practical, and political importance. The research study presented in this thesis examines the construction of diversity and difference in Jewish nonprofit organisations in the UK. It is positioned at the intersection of three main contexts: British society, the Jewish world, and the nonprofit sector. Adopting a sector-based approach, two data sources were collected and analysed: 45 interviews with employees, senior managers, and volunteers; and 102 online statements by 34 organisations within the sector. The empirical discussion traces the construction of three main social differences: Jewishness, race and ethnicity, and political-ideological difference. Conceptualising the Jewish nonprofit as an identity-based and a diaspora organisation, the findings shed light on the boundary work around the Jewish space and the Jewish community, the relations between Jewishness and whiteness at work, and the role of Israel-Palestine in shaping diversity debates in the diaspora. The study contributes to understanding the contextual and relational nature of diversity; disputes and paradoxes around identity in organisations; and diversity-inclusion gaps. It suggests the idea of the political case for diversity, elaborates debates around whiteness at work, and contributes to nonprofit literature around the construction and role of communities.
Topics: Antisemitism: Online, Antisemitism: Opposition to and Activism Against Antisemitism, Main Topic: Antisemitism, Gender, Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), Newspapers, Magazines and Periodicals, Social Media, Antisemitism: Jewish Perceptions and Experiences, Sexism and Misogyny, Intersectionality
Abstract: Despite the benefits of the intersectional approach to antisemitism studies, it seems to have been given little attention so far. This chapter compares the online reactions to two UK news stories, both centred around the common theme of cultural boycott of Israel in support of the BDS movement, both with a well-known female figure at the centre of media coverage, only one of which identifies as Jewish. In the case of British television presenter Rachel Riley, a person is attacked for being female as well as Jewish, with misogyny compounding the antisemitic commentary. In the case of the Irish writer Sally Rooney, misogynistic discourse is used to strengthen the message countering antisemitism. The contrastive analysis of the two datasets, with references to similar analyses of media stories centred around well-known men, illuminates the relationships between the two forms of hate, revealing that—even where the antisemitic attitudes overlap— misogynistic insults and disempowering or undermining language are being weaponised on both sides of the debate, with additional characterisation of Riley as a “grifter” and Rooney as “naive”.
More research comparing discourses around Jewish and non-Jewish women is needed to ascertain whether this pattern is consistent; meanwhile, the many analogies in the abuse suffered by both groups can perhaps serve a useful purpose: shared struggles can foster understanding needed to then notice the particularised prejudice. By including more than one hate ideology in the research design, intersectionality offers exciting new approaches to studies of antisemitism and, more broadly, of
hate speech or discrimination.
Abstract: In this article, I examine how contemporary Finnish Jewish women understand their roles and identities as women in a small Orthodox Jewish community, on the one hand, and as members of a tiny minority in largely secular and predominantly Lutheran/Christian Finland, on the other. How do Finnish Jewish women negotiate their identities in relation to their community, strongly organised along gender lines, and in relation to Finnish society and especially its equality ideals and norms? I divide my article into four sections. First, I give a short overview of the theory of intersectionality, concentrating on its possibilities and limitations for the study of religion and gender in general, and for the study of Judaism, specifically. Second, I focus on my informants’ views of the gendered practices of their Orthodox Jewish community, which, by many standards, is a very specific form of Orthodoxy, which could be called ‘Finnish Orthodoxy’. Third, I analyse my informants’ views on how they perceive being Jewish women in contemporary Finland. The intersection of the last two broad themes will highlight the realities of Finnish Jewish women in contemporary Finland. Fourth, I discuss possibilities and limitations of intersectional theorising in the light of my data.
