Abstract: Religious spaces in the London borough of Barnet provide a lens through which to understand Muslim–Jewish encounters. This case study, pre-dating the 2023 escalation in the Israel–Gaza conflict, examines community relations in the context of the hegemonic discourses that play into racialisations, power dynamics and cultural connectedness through minority religious and ethnic identities in superdiverse urban centres. It focuses on a mosque’s application for planning permission in an area with a sizable Jewish population. Contestations and cooperation developed between the mosque and local Jewish communities, with some offering support while others mobilised, eventually successfully, to prevent planning permission being granted. Power differentials around race, class, religious affiliation and access to political power structures emerge in these instances, in which the impacts of racialisations, societal anxiety and communal hierarchy are sometimes overt and sometimes subtle. These complex and multifaceted events can be productively viewed through the narratives that circulate through local relations, social hierarchies, national discourses and culturally charged communal entanglements. This article draws on mixed methods of interviewing, press and social media analysis, and ethnographic observations to explore religious spaces as a lens to local encounters, in a manner that seeks to avoid direct involvement in an already complex incident.
Abstract: From an intercultural perspective, this article explores majority/minority and between minorities interactions, and revisits Allport’s contact theory, in a socially and ethnically diverse urban area hosting a large proportion of Jews and Muslims. The data comes from a telephone survey of a sample of inhabitants of the 19th arrondissement of Paris. Open and closed questions explore the symbolic social and political boundaries respondents construct between ‘us’ and ‘them’, and their patterns of sociability. Survey experiments with vignettes deal with more sensitive issues (reactions to circulating cartoons at school and police reactions to verbal assault, according to the ethnicity of the victim). The immediate social and ethnic surrounding of each respondent is reconstructed on the basis of census and ethnographic data. The results go against several common beliefs. Religion is not the only dimension of respondents’ identity; it intersects with social class, gender and generation. The relations between Jews and Muslims are not so much conflictual as ambivalent. Being minorities and feeling discriminated against as such brings them together. They both are more religious than the majority population, more traditional on sexual issues and more family-oriented, and most of them consider that Jews and Muslims have a common cultural heritage and should be united against discrimination. Nevertheless, there are friction points (Israeli-Palestinian conflict/the colonial past of France). Politically and socially Muslims are closer to the non-European immigrants, while Jews are closer to the French and the European-born ‘white’ population. Antisemitism is a clear taboo; anti-Jewish cartoons are seen as far more reprehensible than any other. But a majority of the sample, and Muslims a little more than average, see Jews as a ‘group apart’, and believe in the old stereotype about Jews having more influence, being more likely, for instance, to be helped by the police if needed.
Abstract: On October 7, 2023, a Hamas-led terrorist attack in Israel killed 1,200 Israelis and kidnapped about 250 others. The almost immediate spread of news and images of the attack produced heavy emotional reactions in public opinion in many countries. The article analyzes data from a representative survey on the attitudes toward Jews and Muslims of Italian undergraduates conducted between late September and late October 2023, encompassing both those dramatic events and the war that followed. Four main findings emerge. First, Italian students tend to organize attitudes towards Jews around three main dimensions, those toward Muslims around one. Second, attitudes towards the two groups vary according to cultural values of reference, commitment to study, and political orientation. Third, negative attitudes towards Muslims are more prevalent than those toward Jews, but this difference narrows between center-left and left-leaning students and, in some cases, reverses. Finally, the analysis shows that one of the dimensions organizing unfavourable attitudes towards Jews experienced very substantial growth on the days immediately following October 7, that is, the date of the Hamas terrorist attack inside Israeli territory.
Abstract: Currently, Jewish and Muslim communities can be found as ethno-cultural minorities both in Berlin, the capital of Germany, and in the surrounding state of Brandenburg. While they sometimes differ greatly in religious and cultural life, both communities also share similar experiences - such as the (former) existence as immigrants, the image of the “cultural other” and the confrontation with group-related misanthropy (anti-Semitism and Islamophobia). Moreover, there are Jewish-Muslim encounters, there are forms of encounter between Muslims and Jews in the region, in different milieus and intercultural and interreligious projects that appear as a kind of “experimental laboratory”. Though, what are the differences, what are the similarities between the two groups? Finally, this article also relates to how October 7th 2023, Hamas’ brutal massacres of Israeli civilians and the subsequent war in the Gaza Strip influence relationships between Muslims and Jews in Berlin and Brandenburg today.
Abstract: According to the Jewish Chronicle, on December 1, 2021, a group of Jewish bus passengers on their way to celebrate Chanukkah in London were attacked by a mob, spit upon, verbally abused, and subjected to Nazi salutes.1 Similarly, the monitoring group Tell MAMA reported that in the week after the Daily Telegraph published a column written by the then prime minister Boris Johnson, in which he compared Muslim women to “letterboxes” and “bank robbers,” Islamophobic incidents in the United Kingdom rose by 375 percent. In December 2019, a fourteen- year- old Muslim girl was violently attacked on her way home from school. The same month, a rabbi waiting in the Stamford Hill overground station was beaten by two men who shouted, “fucking Jew, dirty Jew” and “kill the Jews”; a month earlier a Jewish father and his two young sons were the targets of antisemitic abuse on the London Underground. While these forms of generalized Islamophobia and antisemitism have unfortunately become commonplace in the United Kingdom , there exists a largely unexamined form of antisemitic/Islamophobic violence perpetuated against LGBT Muslims and Jews— double minorities. In this chapter, I examine discourses present in the British print media that may contribute to a framing of LGBT Muslims and Jews in ways that can lead to the demonization of members of both communities. Robert Phillips My focus here is in the collective representation of double minorities by the British press. In choosing this focus, I should point out that those minorities who are the targets of harassment are targeted largely due to the saliency of their difference. As noted above, women wearing head or body coverings of any degree and men and boys wearing what are perceived to be “Muslim” or “Jewish” clothing or hairstyle (head coverings/payot) are often targeted. This includes Sikh men and boys wearing turbans, in that some may incorrectly identify them as Muslims. Because of outward appearance, many of the victims of these crimes may also be perceived to be observant in their faith and perhaps even threatening to national security and identity. This chapter is concerned with members of these communities who also identify as LGBT, positioning them as double minorities. As with members of other diasporic communities around the globe, LGBT Muslims and Jews have assumed unique types of identity forged through a combination of factors brought about by, among other things, processes of transnational migration. As both Muslims and Jews form some of the smallest ethnic communities in Britain, they are far outnumbered by more dominant Anglo groups and share a type of liminal subjectivity. Gay Muslim and Jewish men are both an ethnic and a sexual minority, further complicating this relationship. This dual-minority status has had a distinctive effect on how nonminority British view these individuals. For instance, Yip focuses on kin relations when examining the narratives of non-heterosexual British Muslims and suggests that within these communities , there is a perception of homosexuality as a “Western” disease that did not exist in the family’s community of origin. They also point out the fraught negotiations between parents and children, complicated further by sociocultural and religious factors, when it comes time to marry and the subsequent strategies employed by the children. In terms of how the nation views Muslims in Britain, Jaspal and Cinnirella position such subjects as a hybridized threat— British Muslims are positioned solidly as “other” while simultaneously being framed as a threat to the survival of the “in- group.”
Abstract: Campaigning organisation Avaaz commissioned ICM Unlimited to conduct a nationally representative poll to look into attitudes of the British public towards Jews and Muslims.
Some of the key findings include:
Overall, just under half of British adults say that they have a positive view of Jews (47%), while 7% say that they have a negative view. When it comes to Muslims, the British public’s attitudes are more unfavourable. A quarter say that they have a negative view of Muslims (26%), while a third say that they have a positive view (32%).
2017 Conservative voters are more likely than those who voted Labour to have a negative view of Muslims. Just under four in ten of those who voted Conservative in 2017 say that they have a negative view of Muslims (37%), more than double the proportion of those who voted Labour who have a negative view (16%).
A greater proportion of people agree than disagree for four of the five statements about Muslims/Islam that Avaaz tested. That is, more people agree than disagree that: Islam threatens the British way of life (45% agree vs. 31% disagree), Islamophobia in Britain is a response to the everyday behaviour of Muslims (36% vs. 34%), parts of the UK are under Sharia law (33% vs. 28%), and that there should be a reduction in the number of Muslims entering Britain (41% vs. 25%). The only statement with which more people disagree than agree is: ‘Islamic terrorism reflects the views of the Muslim community in Britain’ (26% agree vs. 49% disagree).
Six in ten 2017 Conservative voters agree that ‘Islam threatens the British way of life’ (62%), compared to 35% of 2017 Labour voters.
When it comes to attitudes towards Jews, just over one in seven of people agree that ‘Jews have disproportionate influence in politics’ (15%). Among 2017 Labour voters, this figure rises to one in five (20%), compared to one in seven 2017 Conservative voters (14%).
Abstract: Racism and racial prejudice, considered a relic of obsolete and outdated social systems, is emerging in the depths of ultra-modern Western societies with different characteristics from the past but with a surprising and worrying virulence. These waves of prejudice and racism testify to the many fears that fill the horizons of advanced societies, undermining not only their internal reliability, but also just their democratic settings. This paper presents a critical review of Islamophobia as a racial prejudice, showing that two main definitions are at work: Islamophobia as xeno-racism or linked to the so-called clash of civilizations. Then, it presents the outcomes coming from a Computer Assisted Telephone Interview (CATI) survey led among a representative sample of the Italian population (n = 1,523) on Antisemitic and Islamophobic attitudes. The cogency and structure of anti-Muslim public discourse and connected mass attitudes, revealed by our investigation, confirm the emergency of these two relevant dimensions of Islamophobia, which claim for a more accurate definition of Islamophobia. Moreover, the distribution of anti-Semitic and Islamophobic attitudes illustrate an interesting overlapping of Islamophobia and Antisemitism which claims that racism is multi-targeted and that there is not so much options between Antisemitism and Islamophobia. Finally, we use three main variables—anomie, ethnocentrism, and authoritarianism—as predictors of Islamophobia and Antisemitism. We tested the strength of these three predictors with the aid of path technique based on multiple regression analysis, which helps to determine the direct and indirect impacts of certain independent variables on dependent variables in a hypothetical causal system.
Abstract: Celem tekstu jest próba uchwycenia integralnych, choć czasami antytetycznych i skrywanych więzi, które w europejskim (chrześcijańskim/zsekularyzowanym) imaginarium łączyły żydów i muzułmanów, Żydów i Arabów. Idea tekstu wyrasta z przekonania, że procesu konstytuowania się jakiejkolwiek tożsamości lub wspólnotowości nie da się satysfakcjonująco opisać bez wyjścia poza standardową analizę, która koncentruje się na tym, jak tożsamość ustanawia się poprzez odniesienie do tego, co wobec niej inne. Tezą autorki jest to, że w przypadku europejskich (chrześcijańskich/zsekularyzowanych) wspólnot i tożsamości kluczowym elementem odnoszenia się do „inności” jest konceptualne i polityczne żonglowanie różnymi kategoriami „innych”, a więc m.in. figurami „żyda” i „muzułmanina”, „Żyda” i „Araba”. Autorka rekonstruuje zmienne konfiguracje, w jakich na przestrzeni europejskiej historii pojawiały się te figury. Pokazuje, że ewoluowały one od etapu, na którym różnorodne wyobrażenia na temat żydów i muzułmanów, Żydów i Arabów zawierały często przekonanie o ich rozmaicie rozumianym pokrewieństwie i bliskości, do etapu, w którym następuje radykalne symboliczne i polityczne zerwanie między tym, co żydowskie i tym, co muzułmańskie/arabskie. Zawarta w tekście analiza przedstawiona jest jako baza do zrozumienia mechanizmów antysemityzmu i islamofobii, a także łączących je korelacji.
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.
Abstract: Muslim–Jewish relations have a long and complex history. However, notions that all Jews and Muslims are eternal enemies are proven wrong both historically and by today’s survey data. A comprehensive review of the available survey data from the last two decades provides a glimpse into the views of Muslims and Jews of each other in countries where both communities are a minority. It is based on surveys from Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Spain, Sweden, the U.K., and the U.S., including more than 91,000 respondents, comprising almost 27,000 Muslims and, in additional surveys, more than 52,000 Jewish respondents. Many Muslims and Jews acknowledge that the other community suffers from discrimination, albeit to varying degrees. Jews often see Islam and Muslim extremists as a threat to Jews, but most Jews, more than society in general, seem to distinguish between Muslim extremists and Muslims in general. Antisemitic attitudes are significantly higher among Muslims than among the general population in all surveys, even though the majority of Muslims in most European countries and in the United States do not exhibit antisemitic attitudes. The differences in anti-Jewish attitudes between Muslims and non-Muslims do not disappear when controlling for sociodemographic factors.
Abstract: This book focuses on the development of bilateral Jewish-Muslim relations in London and Amsterdam since the late-1980s. It offers a comparative analysis that considers both similarities and differences, drawing on historical, social scientific, and religious studies perspectives. The authors address how Jewish-Muslim relations are related to the historical and contemporary context in which they are embedded, the social identity strategies Jews and Muslims and their institutions employ, and their perceived mutual positions in terms of identity and power. The first section reflects on the history and current profile of Jewish and Muslim communities in London and Amsterdam and the development of relations between Jews andMuslims in both cities. The second section engages with sources of conflict and cooperation. Four specific areas that cause tension are explored: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; antisemitism and Islamophobia; attacks by extremists; and the commemoration of wars and genocides. In addition to ‘trigger events’, what stands out is the influence of historical factors, public opinion, the ‘mainstream’ Christian churches and the media, along with the role of government. The volume will be of interest to scholars from fields including religious studies, interfaith studies, Jewish studies, Islamic studies, urban studies, European studies, and social sciences as well as members of the communities concerned, other religious communities, journalists, politicians, and teachers who are interested in Jewish-Muslim relations.
Abstract: For more than a decade, there has been a discussion about the scope and character of a “Muslim antisemitism” in Europe, spurred on by anti-Jewish harassment and terrorist attacks by Muslims in some European countries.* However, there are only a few major studies on the attitudes of Muslims towards Jews in Europe, while larger studies on the attitude of Jews towards Muslims have so far been missing completely. Based on the data from the 2017 survey, “Attitudes towards Jews and Muslims in Norway. Population Survey and Minority Study” (CHM), it is now possible to investigate how Jews and Muslims in Norway perceive each other, whether they see opportunities for cooperation as minorities and have common experiences of discrimination, what their positioning in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict looks like, and whether it influences their mutual perception. While the focus is on the relationship between Muslims and Jews, in some cases the results for the general Norwegian population are included as a tertium comparationis, since Jews and Muslims form part of Norwegian society.
Abstract: Around 2011 Israeli (Jewish) immigration to Germany became a recurring subject in public discourse. Reflecting ideological investments, the migration was reported with curiosity. Israeli migrants turned into Jews in German imagination, contradicting their self-definition of being primarily Israelis. As Jews they were welcome, but within limits. If the ‘guests’ expressed too much agency and challenged the status quo of German/Jewish and more so Jewish/Muslim and Israeli/Palestinian relations, things could become complicated. While Palestinian issues are met with increasing support across the social, media, and political spheres, Palestinians are not that welcome as (Muslim) migrants. They are suspected of importing a ‘new antisemitism.’ This paper seeks to unravel the conflicting attitudes towards the interlinked categories Israelis/Jews and Muslims/Palestinians, by focussing on the issue of the politics of hospitality. These reveal how agentic presences of those categorised as others destabilise the assumed ethnic, and ethno-religious boundaries of the German, nominally Christian, majority.
Abstract: Religious minorities have always been at the centre of the German nation-state’s self-understanding, as it came to define itself vis a vis, and often against, them. Historically, this can be seen specifically in the Jewish experience, and today reverberates in the experience of Muslims grappling with a position of alterity in German society. We will move beyond the scholarship on these two religious minority groups to that of these two religious minority groups—that is the intellectual milieu of German Jews and German Muslims. Both have confronted the insider-outsider status of religious minorities in Germany, while themselves occupying—and thinking from—this position of alterity. As Jewish intellectuals a century prior, Muslim intellectuals are confronting the (im)possibility of fully belonging to the society at hand. In so doing, they are, at times inadvertently, coming into conversation with Jewish intellectuals past on ideas surrounding the practice of religion, pluralism, minority-state relations, and social ethics.
Abstract: As pandemic restrictions intensified in Western Europe, so too did a wave of COVID-related
antisemitism and Islamophobia, proliferating on social media. Considering antisemitism and
Islamophobia as joint and intersecting phenomena, this report investigates the ways in which,
eighteen months after the start of the pandemic, anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim narratives continue to be created, spread and accessed on social media. Through interviews with thirteen Jewish
and Muslim community leaders, subject-area experts and representatives of inter-governmental
organisations, this report presents not only the key trends both on and offline, but they ways in
which they have impacted the targeted communities, and the ability of Jews and Muslims in
Western Europe to live and practice their religion threat-free. This research makes ten key recommendations for social media companies, governments and civil societies, in order to urgently
address the spiralling radicalisation which is evidenced throughout this report.
Abstract: Jews and Muslims in France never formed singular communities and never solely or primarily interacted with each other as a function of ethnoreligious identity categories. Rather, their on-the-ground interactions often took place as a function of a variety of other identifications, solidarities, and experiences. Yet, media discourse commonly constructs Jews and Muslims as homogeneous, disparate, and separate communities and their relations as oppositional and troubled. This article examines how Jews and Muslims are relationally defined and constructed in media discourse, focusing on the national dailies Le Monde and Le Figaro. My analysis reveals the discursive patterns that emerge in articles on Jews and Muslims and how these representations implicitly construct ‘Jews’ and ‘Muslims’ and their ‘relations’. In doing so, I make two main arguments about newspaper reporting on Jewish–Muslim relations in France: (1) With some exceptions, Jews and Muslims are constructed as two separate, homogeneous communities and their relations presented as tense and problematic; (2) Jews tend to be presented as fully integrated and their representation is in general positive, while Muslims are more often presented as not fully integrated – or even as at odds with French society and its values – and their representation is, at best, ambiguous and, at worst, negative.
