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 memories of the child refugees who fled Central Europe on the so-called Kindertransport between December 1938 and September 1939 are the most widely documented of any refugee and migrant group to come the United Kingdom. However, the dominant narrative has been one of migration to and settling in England, despite the fact that the child refugees settled in places across the British Isles, including Northern Ireland, Wales, and Scotland—the last of which, for example, received an estimated eight hundred Kindertransportees. This essay will investigate how former Kindertransportees negotiate their different identities in their memory narratives. The majority of the Kindertransportees were Jewish, although approximately 20 percent came from families that did not identify as Jewish but were persecuted as Jews. Therefore, there is a complicated interplay of religious identities, those derived from the country the child refugees were leaving behind and those of the country and the nations of settlement. This article will compare those narratives that construct non-English identity as Other, those that adopt separate national identities in the Diaspora with earlier definitions of Englishness versus Britishness, and others that adopt a center/margin hierarchy common in British culture.
Abstract: Jüdische Flüchtlinge aus der Gemeinschaft Unabhängiger Staaten (GUS) stellen eine stetig wachsende Minorität dar, über deren pflegerische Bedürfnisse in der Fachliteratur wenig bekannt ist. Weitaus besser untersucht sind die pflegerischen Bedürfnisse von Angehörigen des jüdischen Glaubens außerhalb der GUS, insbesondere von Personen aus den USA, Israel und Kanada. Im Rahmen eines von der Robert Bosch Stiftung geförderten Pilotprojekts zu den Versorgungsbedürfnissen jüdischer Flüchtlinge aus der GUS entstand die nachstehende internationale Literaturstudie. Ziel war es, bereits vorliegende Erfahrungen mit der Zielgruppe zu erheben. Dazu wurden unter den Stichworten «Juden», «jüdisch», «Migranten», «jew», «jewish» «migrants» und «nursing» insgesamt 67 Artikel verschiedener Datenbanken analysiert. Die Literaturstudie generierte folgende international bedeutsame Themen: – die psychosoziale Situation von und daraus resultierende Versorgungsaspekte bei zwei Generationen von Holocaust-Überlebenden, ihren Kindern sowie jüdischen MigrantInnen aus der GUS – die unterschiedlichen religiösen Orientierungen, die in die groben Kategorien orthodox, konservativ und Reformjudentum unterteilt werden, von denen jede spezifische Einstellungen beinhaltet, welche die Pflege beeinflussen – pflegerisch relevante ethisch-moralische Aspekte im Judentum – Besonderheiten bei der Pflege gerontologischer PatientInnen und – soziokulturelle Aspekte palliativer Pflege. Als eines der wichtigsten Ergebnisse zeigte sich, dass jüdische Flüchtlinge aus der GUS insbesondere das Merkmal der Verfolgungserfahrung mit Holocaust-Opfern und ihren Nachkommen teilen, woraus sich spezifische Implikationen für die pflegerische Betreuung ergeben.
Abstract: The initiatives that took place to support Israeli families temporarily in the UK
started within three days after 7th October.
• Key organisations in the Jewish Community came together to help: JAFI, UJIA,
PaJeS, CST.
• They were supported by other organisations in various ways, e.g. JVN, and by
many individuals.
• There was a huge gap between the large number of expressions of interest in
school places and eventual places taken up.
• Each Local Education Authority Admissions process was different from each other,
and LEAs waived usual procedures to be accommodating and speed up the
admissions processes.
• Almost all temporary Israeli families were able to visit their UK school prior to
accepting a place and starting school.
• By November, more than 100 children had been placed in schools, mostly in the
primary sector.
• Whilst each school dealt uniquely with the situation of having temporary families in
their schools, there were many commonalities, e.g. acquiring school uniform,
communication, pairing with other Hebrew speakers.
• Relating to the school system in the UK has been a steep learning curve for these
families.
• PaJeS has been significantly involved in providing support, especially in
admissions advice, Hebrew, wellbeing, funding and resources.
• A concern at the beginning, which was that the regular school population would be
disadvantage by schools accepting these additional families, has not materialised.
• By the beginning of December 2023, although some families are still arriving, the
number of Israelis temporarily in UK schools has already begun to decrease.
• Some families who are leaving, want an option to return and want schools to “save”
their places for them, which challenges the schools.
Abstract: In this report:
We look into Jewish migration from 15 European countries - representing 94% of Jews living in Europe - comparing data from recent years to previous periods over the last century, and focusing on the signal that the current levels of Jewish migration from Europe send about the political realities perceived and experienced by European Jews.
Some of the key findings in this report:
Peak periods of Jewish migration in the past century – from Germany in the 1930s, North Africa in the 1960s and the Former Soviet Union in the 1990s, saw 50%-75% of national Jewish populations migrate in no more than a decade;
No European Jewish population has shown signs of migration at anywhere near that level for several decades, although recent patterns from Russia and Ukraine point to that possibility over the coming years;
France, Belgium, Italy and Spain saw strong surges in Jewish emigration in the first half of the 2010s, which declined subsequently, but not as far as pre-surge levels;
However, the higher levels of migration measured in these counties during the last decade have not reached the critical values indicating any serious Jewish ‘exodus’ from them;
For Russian and Ukrainian Jews, 2022 was a watershed year: if migration from these countries continues for seven years at the levels seen in 2022 and early 2023, 80%-90% of the 2021 Jewish population of Ukraine and 50%-60% of the 2021 Jewish population of Russia will have emigrated;
Jewish emigration from the UK, Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands, Austria and Denmark has mainly been stable or declining since the mid-1980s;
In Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands, there has been some decline in Jewish migration over the observed period, with migration eventually settling at a new, lower level.
Abstract: Antisemitische Feindbilder sind bei arabischen Flüchtlingen weit verbreitet. Dies belegt eine Studie, welche vom American Jewish Committee (AJC) in Auftrag gegeben wurde.
„Bisher beruhte diese wichtige Diskussion, etwa zum Thema Antisemitismus, lediglich auf der Ebene von Vermutungen. Nun haben wir ein wissenschaftlich-fundiertes Bild: Judenfeindliche Ressentiments, antisemitische Verschwörungstheorien und eine kategorische Ablehnung Israels sind bei vielen Flüchtlingen aus dem arabischen Raum weit verbreitet. Dies ist angesichts der tiefen Verwurzelung des Judenhasses in arabischen Ländern zwar nicht verwunderlich, dennoch hat uns die Klarheit einiger Aussagen überrascht. Das Problem ist komplexer als von manch einem angenommen“, sagte Deidre Berger, Direktorin des AJC Berlin Ramer Institute.
Die Studie wurde von dem Historiker und Antisemitismusforscher Dr. Günther Jikeli (Indiana University/Universität Potsdam) in Berlin durchgeführt. Hierfür wurden 68 Geflüchtete (18-52 Jahre) aus Syrien und dem Irak in Gruppeninterviews befragt. Eine aktuell laufende Folgestudie vom Forscher mit 85 Befragten bestätigt die Ergebnisse.
„Wir haben die Studie in Auftrag gegeben, um Antworten über Einstellungen zu Juden, Israel und demokratischen Werten unter Flüchtlingen aus dem arabischen Raum zu bekommen. Die Erkenntnisse sind von großer Bedeutung für die Frage, wie die Integration von Geflüchteten gelingen kann“, so Berger weiter. „Die Ergebnisse der Studie sind erschütternd, aber nicht alle Flüchtlinge sind gleich und unser Verständnis muss viel differenzierter werden. Gerade diejenigen, die in Syrien oder dem Irak als religiöse oder ethnische Minderheiten verfolgt wurden, positionieren sich häufiger gegen Antisemitismus und für Israel."
