Abstract: On 12 June 2014, three Israeli teenagers were abducted in the West Bank, against a backdrop of heightened tension between the Israeli state and Palestinian forces, including a renewal of settlement building in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The abduction was followed by days of escalating violence, including a massive Israeli policing operation in the West Bank, the murder of a Palestinian teenager after the bodies of the kidnapped Israelis were found, and increasing numbers of rockets fired from Gaza into Israel. A series of Israeli air strikes on targets in Gaza on the night of 30 June'1 July marked the start of sustained Israel’s military engagement, and Operation Protective Edge was launched on 8 July, comprising initially of airstrikes on targets associated with rocket fire (with around 200 people killed in the strikes), followed by ground engagement a week later. De-escalation began on 3 August, with Israel withdrawing ground troops from Gaza, and an open-ended ceasefire concluded this round of the conflict on 26 August. In total, over 2100 Palestinians were killed (with estimates of civilians ranging between 50% and 76% of the losses), along with 66 Israeli combatants, 5 Israeli civilians and 1 Thai national. There were demonstrations against Israel’s prosecution of the conflict across the world, including several in the UK, as well as other manifestations of protest, such as public calls for and acts of boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel. There were some reports of antisemitic content in some of these demonstrations, against a broader context in which antisemitic incidents spiked dramatically. Over 130 antisemitic were recorded by the Community Security Trust (CST) in July, making it the highest monthly total since January 2009 (a previous period of war in Gaza and Israel’s Operation Cast Lead). This short report examines the 2014 protests, exploring the extent and degree of antisemitism in the anti'Israel protests, as well as the reporting of this antisemitism and its impact on the Jewish community. It focuses in particular on the 50 days of Operation Protective Edge. The research questions which this report attempts to address are: • What were the predominant discourses in the UK protests relating to Operation Protective Edge? • Were antisemitic discourses present? If so, how prevalent were they? • Are UK protests relating to Operation Protective Edge comparable in scale and in discourse to protests relating to other conflicts? • How do these issues relate to mainstream and Jewish media reporting on the conflict and on the demonstrations? • How do these issues and their media representation affect Jewish feelings about antisemitism?
Abstract: n this article, we argue that Labour’s antisemitism crisis has been misunderstood. We suggest that a more accurate and sophisticated understanding of antisemitism offers a way forward. There are three elements to this claim. First, by drawing on existing data on attitudes towards Jews, we criticise the widespread focus on individual ‘antisemites’, rather than on the broader problem of antisemitism. In turn, we conceive of antisemitism not as a virus or poison, as in so many formulations, but rather, as a reservoir of readily available images and ideas that subsist in our political culture. Second, following on from this understanding, we offer five ways forward. Finally, we set this analysis in the context of a historical parting of the ways between anti‐racism and opposition to antisemitism. An anti‐racism defined solely by conceptions of whiteness and power, we argue, has proven unable to fully acknowledge and account for anti‐Jewish racism.
Abstract: There is a persistent claim that new migrants to Europe, and specifically migrants from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA migrants), carry antisemitism with them. This assertion is made to different degrees in different countries and can take different forms. Nevertheless, in Europe, the association of rising antisemitism with migrants from the Middle East and North Africa is widespread and needs to be evaluated.
MENA migrants have been symbolically central to the migration debate since 2011. These years have been framed by the Arab spring and its aftermath and by Europe’s crisis of refugee protection. This research project has focused specifically on MENA migrants, in response to the intensity of this debate, and in accordance with the brief from Foundation EVZ. The central concern of the research project has been to investigate whether the arrival of MENA migrants since 2011 has had an impact on antisemitic attitudes and behaviour in Western Europe. This report deals with the case of the United Kingdom. The report also considers whether government and civil society agencies have identified a problem of antisemitism among MENA migrants. The findings are based on an extensive survey of existing quantitative and qualitative evidence. Additionally, new qualitative research has been undertaken to investigate the experiences and opinions of a range of actors.
This national report contributes to a larger research project conducted in 2016/2017 across five European countries – Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. A final report, Antisemitism and Immigration in Western Europe Today: is there a connection? Findings and recommendations from a five-nation study, draws out common trends, makes comparisons and provides recommendations for civil society organizations and for governments.
Abstract: This article discusses the historical and geographical contexts of diasporic religious buildings in East London, revealing – contrary both to conventional narratives of immigrant integration, mobility, and succession and to identitarian understandings of belonging – that in such spaces and in the concrete devotional practices enacted in them, markers and boundaries of identity (ritual, spatial, and political) are contested, renegotiated, erased, and rewritten. It draws on a series of case-studies: Fieldgate Street Synagogue in its interrelationship with the East London Mosque; St Antony's Catholic Church in Forest Gate where Hindus and Christians worship together; and the intertwined histories of Methodism and Anglicanism in Bow Road. Exploration of the intersections between ethnicity, religiosity, and class illuminates the ambiguity and instability of identity-formation and expression within East London's diasporic faith spaces.
