Abstract: This article conducts a multi-scalar analysis of the dynamics between secularism and religion in contemporary Sweden and highlights a growing divide between them, in the wake of neoliberal reconfigurations of the welfare state and a stronger religious pluralism in public space. In the first part of the analysis, we examine the public debate around conversion attempts and state funding for religious organizations. We show that a stronger culturalization and politicization of religion has resulted in a growing secular/religion divide, shaping religion as the Other and as the opposite of secularity, which, in return, becomes equated with values of equality and freedom. In the second part of the analysis, we highlight how such a secular/religion divide constructs religion as the main problem of religious queer people. Drawing on an analysis of the lived experiences of trans and queer people from Muslim, Jewish and Christian traditions, we challenge this divide. Ultimately, the article proposes that there is a need for more spaces that are both queer inclusive and religiously affirmative, rather than stronger state regulation and limitation of religious spaces, and we present some routes ahead for further research in response to the challenges and vulnerabilities detected.
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: 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: 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: This open access book explores the resilience of Jewish civil society organizing in Ukraine during the tumultuous early months of the 2022 Russian full-scale invasion. Developed in collaboration with Paideia - the European Institute for Jewish Studies in Sweden, the research chronicles a project that involved Ukrainian Jewish communities during wartime through Paideia’s alumni network. Drawing on rich empirical data, the authors examine the multifaceted work of Jewish organizations and organizing efforts, from sustaining rituals to engaging in humanitarian work. The book examines single case studies and broader cross-organizational analyses, shedding light on the capacity of Jewish groups to repurpose activities, pivot from serving specific communities to addressing broader societal needs, and mobilize resources under extreme conditions. This resilience, the authors argue, is shaped by a complex interplay of factors: pre-existing organizational structures, transnational networks, and the fusion of symbolic and material institutional elements rooted in the Ukrainian-Jewish experience. By situating these efforts within a wider context, the book uses different streams of organization studies to provide an in-depth analysis of resilient civil society organizing during wartime. Aimed at organization scholars, civil society researchers, activists, and those interested in Jewish culture and Ukrainian history, this book offers critical insights into the possibility of civil society resilience in the face of war.
Abstract: This paper deepens our understanding of the construction of ethno-racial diversity and difference in organizations, and the consequences of those discursive struggles on the lives of workers. Categories of difference are usually seen as building blocks of diversity management, however critical and postcolonial researchers have long pointed out the need to develop more flexible and context-sensitive epistemologies in studying racial inequality, beyond binary conceptions of blackness and whiteness. The Jewish context offers a unique opportunity to explore those discursive dynamics, due to the elusive nature of “Jewish difference”, taboos over the use of racial classifications, and possible conflicts between an anti-racist stance and a Zionist affiliation. Exploring the diversity discourse within UK Jewish nonprofit organizations reveals three main diversity frames: in the first, “Jews are white”, the construction the Jewish organization as a white space is explored, as well as DEI efforts to bridge the Jewish-black gap; the second, “Jews are non-white”, explores this re-emerging discourse in the context of DEI, and investigates its acceptance as an act of reclaiming a historically marginalized identity, and as an appropriation of racial difference; the third, “Jews are ethnically diverse” explores the manifestations of Ashkenazi-Sephardi relations in diaspora organizations, and the sidelining of race. Throughout those diversity discourses, the repercussions on the lives of workplace are critically examined.
Abstract: Diaspora organizations can be seen as spaces where national identities are negotiated, expanded, and contested, and as transnational sites where organizational members hold overlapping and multiple frames of belonging and loyalty. This framing suggests the potential to extend diversity debates beyond the us/them binary logic of the nation-state. This qualitative study explores representations of Israel-Palestine in Jewish organizations in the UK, that broadly identify with a liberal Zionist orientation. It examines how nationhood and attachment to “homeland” are constructed, negotiated, and managed in everyday organizational life, with particular attention to moments of ambiguity and dissent. It shows how, as employees navigate diasporic ambivalence, diversity and inclusion discourses work to shape and often limit political-ideological differences. It contributes to diversity and organization studies by conceptualizing nationhood and homeland attachment as DEI questions and by advancing a diaspora organizational lens on how nationalism and belonging are negotiated in workplaces. It also highlights the ambivalent role of communities in DEI work, showing how community engagement can operate both as a source of ethical grounding and as a gatekeeping mechanism that constrains organizational capacity to accommodate difference.
Abstract: A new national study has revealed that, while Portugal maintains high levels of religious tolerance and broadly positive perceptions of the Jewish community, a profound lack of knowledge, persistent stereotypes, and growing international polarisation may create conditions conducive to the future rise of antisemitism if not addressed through education and public awareness.
The study, “Social Distance and Tolerance in Portugal: the place of the Jewish Community – conceptual literacy, antisemitism, religious tolerance and comparison with other social groups in Portugal”, was conducted by Pitagórica at the request of the Jewish Community of Lisbon (Comunidade Israelita de Lisboa, CIL). It surveyed a representative sample of 1,200 residents in mainland Portugal and the Autonomous Regions, aged 18 and over.
The research shows that Portuguese society remains broadly open and tolerant:
68% of respondents feel comfortable living with people of different cultures or religions.
92% support cultural and religious diversity, provided fundamental national values are respected.
94% defend freedom of religious practice for all faiths in compliance with Portuguese law.
The Jewish community is among the most positively perceived groups in the study. Nearly half of respondents consider its contribution to Portugal to be positive, and only 4% identify Jews as one of the most discriminated communities in the country.
However, the study highlights a striking paradox: strong acceptance coexists with very limited knowledge. Only 3% of respondents say they know the Jewish community well, while 75% admit to knowing little or nothing about it.
The findings point to significant gaps in conceptual and historical literacy:
19% have never heard of the term antisemitism, and only 40% correctly define it.
40% are unfamiliar with the term Zionism.
55% believe Holocaust education in schools is insufficient.
The study also identifies the persistence of stereotypes, with around 40% agreeing with statements suggesting that Jews have “too much economic power” or “excessive influence in politics and international media”.
While 59% of respondents say it is important to distinguish between Jews in Portugal and the State of Israel, almost half (49%) believe that events in Israel negatively affect the image of Jews more broadly. At the same time, 80% reject the idea that Jews outside Israel should be held responsible for the actions of the Israeli government.
The digital sphere emerges as a key area of concern:
52% believe the Jewish community is targeted by online hate speech.
37% report perceptions of vandalism against property.
30% mention physical attacks.
The study also finds that 52% of respondents consider online hate speech against the Jewish community likely to increase, while 34% anticipate further vandalism and 31% foresee potential physical attacks in the future. The main drivers identified are hate speech on social media (46%) and religious extremism (35%).
A further significant finding is that 67% of respondents are unaware that Lisbon’s synagogue currently requires permanent police protection.
Awareness of institutional frameworks is extremely limited:
90% are unaware of the European Strategy to Combat Antisemitism and Foster Jewish Life.
99% do not know the national coordinator of the strategy.
75% are unaware of which government ministry is responsible for the file.
According to the authors, the data suggest that Portugal does not exhibit signs of structural rejection of the Jewish community. On the contrary, attitudes are generally positive and levels of declared tolerance remain high.
However, this positive baseline is accompanied by three interlinked vulnerabilities: widespread ignorance about Jewish life in Portugal, the influence of international conflicts on perceptions of Jews, and the persistence of stereotypes in digital spaces.
As a result, perception tends to be shaped less by direct social contact and more by abstract associations and online narratives.
According to David Joffe Botelho, President of the Board of Directors of the Jewish
Community of Lisbon, “the objective of this independent study was to produce a robust and
comparable diagnosis of the place of the Jewish community in Portuguese society,
identifying protective factors, vulnerabilities and trends relevant to the development of
education, communication and prejudice prevention strategies,” since, adds the leader,
“Portuguese political leaders have not given due attention to this issue, and the urgent
adoption of a national strategy, aligned with the European strategy, is necessary to combat
antisemitism and promote Jewish life.”
Additionally, he also states, “our goal was to have a comparative portrait with other social
and religious realities, so the study, beyond the specific dimension related to antisemitism,
can be used by those in government to design and implement public policies based on
concrete and measurable data and not on mere perceptions.”
The study concludes that the principal challenge in Portugal is not widespread rejection of the Jewish community, but rather the combination of low levels of knowledge, limited direct contact, and exposure to polarised global narratives.
In a context where 72% of respondents believe tensions between social and cultural groups have increased in recent years, the report warns that these conditions, if left unaddressed, may gradually create an environment more susceptible to antisemitic attitudes.
It therefore calls for strengthened educational initiatives, improved Holocaust and religious literacy in schools, and closer alignment with European strategies aimed at combating antisemitism and promoting Jewish life.
Source : European Jewish congress
Abstract: En France, depuis le début des années 2000, au sein du judaïsme orthodoxe et moderne orthodoxe, de plus en plus de femmes mettent en place différentes stratégies d’« empouvoirement » pour accéder aux textes religieux, les étudier, les interpréter, les enseigner et exercer des fonctions religieuses. Tout en interrogeant leurs différentes mobilisations, l’autrice montre que ces femmes participent à la recomposition du religieux, et ce, en renégociant les frontières entre le public et le privé, et en contribuant à la production de discours religieux et féministes.
Abstract: In his article, the author responds to Jörg Hermann Yiftach Fehige's criticism, expressed in the article “Jewish Theology as a Science in the Context of Post-Shoah Germany” in the fall 2026 issue of “Theology and Science”. He explains why theologies, as a subject, are an integral part of the arts and humanities within the Central European university system, and why Jewish theology was added as a university subject as late as 2013, 190 years after this had been demanded by Rabbis Abraham Geiger (1836) and Ludwig Philippson (1837) as a prerequisite for the successful emancipation of Jews in a “Christian State” (Friedrich Schlegel). He also speaks out against allegations reported in Fehige's contribution that he is an abuser, cheater, and plagiarist. Keywords: Paul Feyerabend, Abraham Geiger, German Science and Humanities Council, Jewish emancipation, Jewish identity, Jewish theology, liberal democracy, relationship between state and religions, Reform Judaism, Wissenschaft des Judentums, World Union for Progressive Judaism.
Abstract: Comment les minorités peuvent-elles s’intégrer aux nations européennes ? Comment renouer avec le projet émancipateur de l’Europe moderne, qui apparaît plus que jamais en crise ? Pour répondre à ces interrogations, Bruno Karsenti adopte le prisme de la question juive : question qui se pose à propos de cette minorité que sont les juifs, question qu’ils se posent à eux-mêmes au fil de leur intégration. Il retrace l’essor et le déclin des centres que les juifs ont constitués tout au long de leur histoire moderne, entre assimilation et émancipation, discrimination et persécution. Cette trajectoire heurtée part de l’expulsion des juifs d’Espagne en 1492, s’instaure comme question juive dans l’Allemagne du xixe siècle, manque de disparaître avec l’anéantissement du monde juif à l’Est et se transforme avec la persistance d’un centre juif en France.
Nourri par des travaux d’histoire et de sociologie, ce livre de philosophie politique éclaire le rapport complexe des juifs de la diaspora à leur identité, aux nations dont ils sont devenus les citoyens et, depuis 1948, à l’État d’Israël. En restituant ce cadre, Bruno Karsenti met au jour les paradoxes qui traversent tous les processus d’intégration, depuis la Shoah, les décolonisations et le 7-Octobre. Ce diagnostic s’accompagne d’un engagement : comprendre l’antisémitisme et le racisme, interroger le sionisme et le modèle républicain, c’est rouvrir le champ d’une critique politique fidèle à l’idéal d’émancipation – et donc à la promesse européenne.
Abstract: A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Spanish Right on Jews and Israel (1978–2014) offers a groundbreaking analysis of how Spain’s main right-wing parties – from the post-Franco era to the mid-2010s – have transformed their political discourse on Jews and Israel.
Drawing on critical discourse analysis and extensive primary sources, it traces the evolution from suspicion and ambivalence to overt philosemitism and symbolic alliance. By unpacking historical narratives, ideologies, and political discourses, the book illuminates how the Spanish right strategically recast Israel’s image to serve changing political identities and foreign policy goals. Readers will benefit from a nuanced understanding of how narrative, politics, and ideology interact to shape modern alliances. The book’s critical perspective reveals not only the Spanish case, but also broader mechanisms by which political actors across Europe redefine their national and international relationships through discourse.
Aimed at scholars and students of political science, history, discourse studies, and Jewish studies, as well as policymakers and readers interested in European politics, this volume offers unique insights into the intersection of memory, identity, and foreign policy.
Abstract: The chapter uses an autoethnographic method to analyse the displacement experiences of its authors, who come from different ethnic backgrounds, mother tongues, geographies and histories in Turkey. The fact that the paths of the authors, as living representations of Turkey’s ethnic, linguistic and cultural diversity, crossed in exile in Germany is also the history of the silencing of ethnic, religious and political minorities. The authors uncover the interconnectedness of those individual stories that are inherent in the larger historical narrative of the country. Thus, they offer us an analysis of the experiences of exile in Germany, through three intertwined autoethnographies of Jewish, Kurdish and anarchist academic exiles.
Abstract: La création de l’État d’Israël, en 1948, reconfigure profondément les migrations juives internationales, et la France devient, surtout après 1967, l’un des foyers réguliers de l’alya, terme désignant l’immigration juive vers Israël. Depuis les années 2000, les départs s’intensifient et se diversifient, désormais motivés moins par l’idéologie sioniste que par un sentiment d’insécurité croissante en France. Malgré le paradoxe d’une installation dans un pays en guerre, les migrants placent en Israël une confiance forte, parfois idéalisée, dans sa capacité à assurer leur protection. Cette migration en provenance de France apparaît alors comme un mouvement ambivalent, pris entre urgence ressentie et avenir incertain, et marqué par une structuration communautaire exposée aux enjeux sécuritaires en France comme aux influences du sionisme religieux en Israël.
Abstract: Dans les familles juives composées de personnes issues de l'ex-URSS mariées avec des conjoints français on observe des tensions mémorielles spécifiques qui s'expriment souvent par des formes de silence ou d'occultation. Ces familles incarnent en effet des espaces où s'entrelacent et parfois s'opposent des mémoires nationales et individuelles divergentes, façonnées par des contextes historiques et politiques distincts, notamment en lien avec l'expérience de la guerre et de l'antisémitisme.
En URSS, la mémoire officielle exaltait l'héroïsme collectif, glorifiant les soldats soviétiques, tout en passant sous silence les expériences spécifiques, telles que la Shoah par balles ou les persécutions staliniennes. Ces épisodes, marqués par des arrestations, des exécutions et des formes de silence imposé (Nora, 1984), créent des lacunes mémorielles profondément ressenties dans les familles. En France, les conjoints français valorisent des récits axés sur la Shoah, influencés par une mémoire nationale ayant longtemps occulté la collaboration, comme l'a montré Rousso (1987). Les enfants, récepteurs de ces récits fragmentés, développent une post-mémoire hybride (Hirsch, 1994), marquée par des tensions entre héroïsme et victimisation. Les parents, confrontés à des récits douloureux, pratiquent souvent une forme d'auto-censure inconsciente pour protéger leurs enfants des traumatismes familiaux. Ce phénomène engendre ce que Kaufmann (2004) appelle une "réinvention identitaire", où les individus reconstruisent leur identité à partir de fragments narratifs lacunaires. L'oubli, qu'il soit volontaire ou inconscient, joue un rôle central en tant qu'outil dynamique permettant de naviguer entre les silences imposés, les récits collectifs contradictoires et les besoins identitaires du présent. Basée sur ma thèse de doctorat (2024), cette étude montre comment les familles juives transnationales reconfigurent constamment leurs récits mémoriels en intégrant les héritages soviétiques, français et juifs.
Abstract: In this article, we argue that an exclusive focus on the generalized aspect of prejudice limits understanding of the structure and genesis of prejudice towards particular outgroups. In order to conceptualize the specific nature of particular prejudices, we propose the differentiated threat approach. This framework postulates that different outgroups challenge diverse realistic and symbolic interests, and that these outgroup specific threats affect various socioeconomic strata and cultural groups differentially. The differentiated threat approach is applied to analyse majority-group Belgians’ attitudes towards immigrants, Muslims, Jews, and homosexuals. The results show that a common denominator of prejudice can be distinguished, but that the prejudices towards the various outgroups contain substantively relevant unique components that are influenced by socio-demographic and attitudinal predictors in diverging ways. Gender traditionalism is found to reinforce Homonegativity and temper Islamophobia at the same time. Feelings of relative deprivation are more strongly related to Islamophobia than to other forms of prejudice, and are unrelated to homonegativity. Religious involvement plays a more decisive role in the formation of anti-Semitism and Homonegativity than it does in the other forms of prejudice. Anti-immigration attitudes show a class gradient that is absent in attitudes towards other outgroups. Our results evidence that the concrete realization of attitudes towards a specific outgroup cannot be understood without paying attention to structural and contextual factors, such as social positions, the nature of intergroup relations, power balances, and elite discourses.
Abstract: The recent Israeli onslaught on Gaza has sparked bitter arguments on United Kingdom (UK) university campuses. These conflicts have intertwined with wider disputes over politics, cultural identity, freedom of speech, and also empathy. Both sides routinely accuse their opponents of a lack of empathy with the victims of violence with whom they themselves identify. This chapter sets these arguments, in relation to empathy with suffering in particular, in historical context, extending back to the 1930s. The memory of the Holocaust, and the rise since the 1990s, in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, of a form of empathy-focused Holocaust education, has fed into the politicization and weaponization of empathy in the context of the Middle East conflict. The chapter closes with four practical suggestions, which might help to unblock these unproductive, acrimonious, and emotionally charged disputes on British campuses.
Abstract: In an extremely critical public sphere surrounding Jewish–Muslim relations in Germany, the multi-award-winning miniseries The Zweiflers has uniquely navigated this intense scrutiny, depicting a nuanced subplot of Jewish–Muslim coexistence. Inspired by HBO’s The Sopranos, the series centres on the Zweifler family, exploring their complex intergenerational dynamics, transnational diasporic ties and alleged connections to Frankfurt’’s underworld. While initially lauded for its portrayal of a modern German-Jewish identity, this article takes a closer look at the significant theme of Jewish–Muslim cooperation in post-war Germany. Drawing on ethnographic research conducted in Frankfurt’s Bahnhofsviertel (train station district), where the series was filmed, The Zweiflers is critically analysed and compared with insights from that long-term fieldwork. This analysis is further contextualized by engaging with the crucial works of diasporic artists and post-migrant filmmakers, alongside scholarship on urban multiculture and anti-essentialist concepts in sociology and cultural studies. The Jewish–Muslim relationships depicted in the series are not merely fictional; they reflect real, historically evolved partnerships characterized by a collective will to overcome contradictions. This nuanced depiction counters static assumptions about community relations often found in the polarized debates surrounding the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, offering a vital contribution to understanding contemporary German society.
Abstract: Following Russia's 2022 invasion, Ukrainian ethnic and religious communities within the state and diaspora fragmented and reconstituted along linguistic lines. Whereas the Russian language once connected ex-Soviet émigrés, the war transformed language ideologies—particularly in the communities of Ukrainian refugees. This article shows how Ukrainian Jews, many of whom remain Russian-speaking among themselves, have come to draw a line between svoi (one of our own) and others among the larger Russian-speaking population—that is, those who are not Ukrainian or who do not support Ukraine in the war. This ethnographic research focuses on Ukrainian-Jewish refugees in Berlin and beyond, and seeks to shed light on the evolutions, tensions, and contradictions in their practice of the Russian and Ukrainian languages. Viewed against the backdrop of other studies of Russian-speaking diasporas, it illustrates the ideologies that have come to compose the new, developing sense of Ukrainian-Jewish belonging.
Abstract: The events of October 7, 2023, and their aftermath have intensified social and political tensions across Europe, profoundly impacting both Jewish and Muslim communities. This article explores the phenomenon of dual silencing, where members of these communities face exclusion, misrepresentation, and suppression in public discourse. Jewish voices, often conflated with Israeli state politics, encounter rising antisemitism, while Muslim perspectives are increasingly marginalized amid heightened Islamophobic/anti-Muslim rhetoric. Through an analysis of personal accounts, public testimonies, media narratives, political responses, and societal attitudes, this study examines how both communities experience symbolical erasure and selective amplification depending on shifting political agendas. Using the Czech context as a case study, this article argues that the post-October 7 discourse has deepened existing societal fault lines and significantly influenced how Jewish and Muslim identities are negotiated in the public sphere. The study concludes by considering the implications of this dual silencing for intercommunal relations, and the future of pluralism in Europe.
