Topics: Antisemitism, Antisemitism: Muslim, Antisemitism: Far right, Anti-Zionism, Holocaust Denial, Holocaust Memorials, Holocaust Education, Holocaust Commemoration, Holocaust, Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial, Jewish - Muslim Relations
Abstract: Antisemitism can be expressed in the form of verbal and physical attacks, threats, harassment, discrimination and unequal treatment, property damage and graffiti or other forms of speech or text, including on the internet. Antisemitic incidents and hate crime violate fundamental rights, especially the right to human dignity, the right to equality of treatment and the freedom of thought, conscience and religion.
The present report provides an overview of data on antisemitism as recorded by international organisations and by official and unofficial sources in the 28 European Union (EU) Member States, based on their own definitions and categorisations. ‘Official data’ are understood here as those collected by law enforcement agencies, other authorities that are part of criminal justice systems and relevant state ministries at the national level. ‘Unofficial data’ refers to data collected by civil society organisations.
This is the 15th edition of FRA’s report on the situation of data collection on antisemitism in the EU (including reports published by FRA’s predecessor, the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia).
Abstract: In June 2015, the Anne Frank House organised an international conference in Amsterdam in order to compare the situations in four different European countries. Relevant representatives of government authorities, football associations, football clubs, anti-discrimination organisations and supporters from Engeland, Germany, Poland and the Netherlands were invited to join the event.In each of these countries, football-related antisemitism is a well-known phenomenon, yet the incidents vary with regard to background, context and scope. The primary objective of the Anne Frank House was to come to a mutual cross-fertilisation of know-how and experiences with regard to this topic.
This report is based on this two-day conference, and discusses the most significant and illuminating aspects of the expert lectures and additional seminars. The most significant and insightful results from the two-day conference in Amsterdam will form a starting point for future developments in the fight against football-related antisemitism in the aforementioned countries.
Abstract: With contributions from a dozen American and European scholars, this volume presents an overview of Jewish writing in post–World War II Europe. Striking a balance between close readings of individual texts and general surveys of larger movements and underlying themes, the essays portray Jewish authors across Europe as writers and intellectuals of multiple affiliations and hybrid identities. Aimed at a general readership and guided by the idea of constructing bridges across national cultures, this book maps for English-speaking readers the productivity and diversity of Jewish writers and writing that has marked a revitalization of Jewish culture in France, Germany, Austria, Italy, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Hungary, Poland, and Russia.
Introduction Thomas Nolden and Vivian Liska
1. Secret Affinities: Contemporary Jewish Writing in Austria Vivian Liska
2. Writing against Reconciliation: Contemporary Jewish Writing in Germany Stephan Braese
3. Remembering or Inventing the Past: Second-Generation Jewish Writers in the Netherlands Elrud Ibsch
4. Bonds with a Vanished Past: Contemporary Jewish Writing in Scandinavia Eva Ekselius
5. Imagined Communities: Contemporary Jewish Writing in Great Britain Bryan Cheyette
6. A la recherche du Judaïsme perdu: Contemporary Jewish Writing in France Thomas Nolden
7. Ital'Yah Letteraria: Contemporary Jewish Writing in Italy Christoph Miething
8. Writing along Borders: Contemporary Jewish Writing in Hungary Péter Varga with Thomas Nolden
9. Making Up for Lost Time: Contemporary Jewish Writing in Poland Monika Adamczyk-Garbowska
10. De-Centered Writing: Aspects of Contemporary Jewish Writing in Russia Rainer Grübel and Vladimir Novikov
Abstract: This report presents the main findings of FRA’s second survey on Jewish people’s experiences and perceptions of hate crime, discrimination and antisemitism. It analyses data from the responses of 16,395 selfidentified Jewish people (aged 16 or over) in 12 EU Member States – Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. These Member States are home to over 96 % of the EU’s estimated Jewish population. In addition to the 12 EU Member States mentioned above, FRA also carried out the survey in Latvia. Due to the low response level to the online dissemination campaign in Latvia, changes in recruitment methodology and data collection were applied. While the survey was able to reach more respondents in this way, the changes in the respondent recruitment and data collection methods limit the scope for comparisons between Latvia and the other survey countries.
Abstract: This book is the first comprehensive study of postwar antisemitism in the Netherlands. It focuses on the way stereotypes are passed on from one decade to the next, as reflected in public debates, the mass media, protests and commemorations, and everyday interactions. The Holocaust, Israel and 'the Jew' explores the ways in which old stories and phrases relating to 'the stereotypical Jew' are recycled and modified for new uses, linking the antisemitism of the early postwar years to its enduring manifestations in today's world.
The Dutch case is interesting because of the apparent contrast between the Netherlands' famous tradition of tolerance and the large numbers of Jews who were deported and murdered in the Second World War. The book sheds light on the dark side of this so-called 'Dutch paradox,' in manifestations of aversion and guilt after 1945. In this context, the abusive taunt 'They forgot to gas you' can be seen as the first radical expression of postwar antisemitism as well as an indication of how the Holocaust came to be turned against the Jews. The identification of 'the Jew' with the gas chamber spread from the streets to football stadiums, and from verbal abuse to pamphlet and protest. The slogan 'Hamas, Hamas all the Jews to the gas' indicates that Israel became a second marker of postwar antisemitism.
The chapters cover themes including soccer-related antisemitism, Jewish responses, philosemitism, antisemitism in Dutch-Moroccan and Dutch- Turkish communities, contentious acts of remembrance, the neo-Nazi tradition, and the legacy of Theo van Gogh. The book concludes with a lengthy epilogue on 'the Jew' in the politics of the radical right, the attacks in Paris in 2015, and the refugee crisis. The stereotype of 'the Jew' appears to be transferable to other minorities.
Contents:
Preface
1 Why Jews are more guilty than others : An introductory essay, 1945-2016
Evelien Gans
Part I Post-Liberation Antisemitism
2 ‘The Jew’ as Dubious Victim
Evelien Gans
3 The Meek Jew – and Beyond
Evelien Gans
4 Alte Kameraden: Right-wing Antisemitism and Holocaust Denial
Remco Ensel, Evelien Gans and Willem Wagenaar
5 Jewish Responses to Post-Liberation Antisemitism
Evelien Gans
Part II Israel and ‘the Jew’
6 Philosemitism? Ambivalences regarding Israel
Evelien Gans
7 Transnational Left-wing Protest and the ‘Powerful Zionist’
Remco Ensel
8 Israel: Source of Divergence
Evelien Gans
9 ‘The Activist Jew’ Responds to Changing Dutch Perceptions of Israel
Katie Digan
10 Turkish Anti-Zionism in the Netherlands: From Leftist to Islamist Activism
Annemarike Stremmelaar
Part III The Holocaust-ed Jew in Native Dutch Domains
since the 1980s
11 ‘The Jew’ in Football: To Kick Around or to Embrace
Evelien Gans
12 Pornographic Antisemitism, Shoah Fatigue and Freedom of Speech
Evelien Gans
13 Historikerstreit: The Stereotypical Jew in Recent Dutch Holocaust Studies
Remco Ensel and Evelien Gans
Part IV Generations. Migrant Identities and Antisemitism in the Twenty-first Century
14 ‘The Jew’ vs. ‘the Young Male Moroccan’: Stereotypical Confrontations in the City
Remco Ensel
15 Conspiracism: Islamic Redemptive Antisemitism and the Murder of Theo van Gogh
Remco Ensel
16 Reading Anne Frank: Confronting Antisemitism in Turkish Communities
Annemarike Stremmelaar
17 Holocaust Commemorations in Postcolonial Dutch Society
Remco Ensel
18 Epilogue: Instrumentalising and Blaming ‘the Jew’, 2011-2016
Evelien Gans
Topics: Antisemitism, Fundraising and Philanthropy, Israel Attachment, Jewish Continuity, Religious Denominations, Security, Surveys, Jewish Leadership, Jewish Organisations, Main Topic: Identity and Community, Jewish Identity
Abstract: The Fourth Survey of European Jewish Community Leaders and Professionals, 2018 presents the results of an online survey offered in 10 languages and administered to 893 respondents in 29 countries. Conducted every three years using the same format, the survey seeks to identify trends and their evolution in time.
The survey asked Jewish lay leaders and community professionals questions regarding future community priorities, identifying the main threats to Jewish life, views on the safety and security situation in their cities, including emergency preparedness, and opinions on an array of internal community issues. Examples include conversions, membership criteria policies on intermarriage, and their vision of Europe and Israel.
The respondents were comprised of presidents and chairpersons of nationwide “umbrella organizations” or Federations; presidents and executive directors of private Jewish foundations, charities, and other privately funded initiatives; presidents and main representatives of Jewish communities that are organized at a city level; executive directors and programme coordinators, as well as current and former board members of Jewish organizations; among others.
The JDC International Centre for Community Development established the survey as a means to identify the priorities, sensibilities and concerns of Europe’s top Jewish leaders and professionals working in Jewish institutions, taking into account the changes that European Jewry has gone through since 1989, and the current political challenges and uncertainties in the continent. In a landscape with few mechanisms that can truly gauge these phenomena, the European Jewish Community Leaders Survey is an essential tool for analysis and applied research in the field of community development.
The Survey team was directed by Dr. Barry Kosmin (Trinity College), who has conducted several large national social surveys and opinion polls in Europe, Africa and the U.S., including the CJF 1990 US National Jewish Population Survey.
Abstract: In the context of the Dutch immigration debate, tributes to the Holocaust and the memory of Europe’s dead Jews increasingly serve to dismantle multiculturalism as a failed paradigm and to drive a wedge between a revitalized, redeemed, color-blind, post-racial Europe and disenfranchized immigrant, minority and Muslim populations. Embedded in these invocations of the Holocaust and its moral imperatives is a ‘spectropolitics’ of tolerance, in which tolerance, staged as an essential touchstone of Dutch identity, supplies a differential norm that measures the civilizational and racial disjuncture between Europeans, minorities, and Muslims, and validates the new dual paradigm of Dutch citizenship and immigration policy: securitization and disciplinary integration. The centrality of the Holocaust as paradigmatic of Dutch and European racial history meanwhile sidelines the colonial past as constitutive of European identity; displaces an alternative understanding of race as (bio- and necro-political) instruments of colonial rule; and disavows the continued application of these instruments of racial rule in Dutch and European post-colonial societies.
Abstract: Das zentrale Anliegen dieses Forschungsprojektes war es, zu ermitteln, ob sich die Immigration aus der Region Nahost und Nordafrika seit 2011 auf antisemitische Einstellungen und Verhaltensweisen in Westeuropa auswirkt. Dieser kurze Bericht stellt eine Zusammenführung fünf einzelner nationaler Berichte (zu Belgien, Frankreich, Deutschland, den Niederlanden und dem Vereinigten Königreich) dar und präsentiert die Ergebnisse und Empfehlungen, die sich aus dem Projekt als Ganzes ergeben.
Der Bericht:
• untersucht die aktuelle Zuwanderung aus Ländern der MENA-Region nach Westeuropa
• bietet einen Überblick über das Ausmaß und die Quellen des Antisemitismus im heutigen Westeuropa
• bietet eine Einschätzung der Einstellungen von MENA-Migranten sowie der Ängste, die sie teilweise hervorrufen
• untersucht die Berechtigung von Behauptungen, dass die wachsende Zahl an MENA-Migranten in Westeuropa den Antisemitismus fördert
• enthält Handlungsempfehlungen für Regierungen und zivilgesellschaftliche Organisationen und hebt Bereiche hervor, in denen weitere Untersuchungen erforderlich sind, um unser Wissen und Verständnis zu erweitern.
Abstract: Relations between Jews and Muslims in Amsterdam grew tense after the conflicts between Gaza and Israel in 2014, the violent attacks on Jewish targets in Brussels (2014), Paris (2015) and Copenhagen (2015) and local incidents of online, verbal and sometimes physical discrimination. Nevertheless, these factors also inspired Jews and Muslims to launch cooperation projects and strengthen the bonds already existing between them. Cooperation in turbulent times is not always easy. The data collected for this research show how Jews and Muslims in cooperation projects use to strategies to solve some of the problems confronting them. The three most widely used strategies that were found are ‘searching for similarities’, ‘decategorizing’ and ‘avoidance’. These strategies do not emerge in a vacuum, however, but at a certain moment in time, in specific fields. Therefore, this article, will describe the usage of the three strategies and explain the interaction between strategies and their contexts.
Abstract: Het Centrum Informatie en Documentatie Israel (CIDI) maakt zich zorgen over het toenemende antisemitisme op internet en in de landelijke en lokale politiek. Op internet en via sociale media worden holocaustontkenning en complottheorieën over internationale Joodse samenzweringen breed verspreid. Dit soort beelden kunnen zich omzetten in haat en daadwerkelijke verbale of fysieke agressie tegen Joden.
Zorgwekkend zijn ook politieke uitingen met een antisemitische lading. CIDI-directeur Hanna Luden: ‘De grenzen van waar legitieme kritiek op Israel overgaat in antisemitisme worden opgezocht en steeds vaker overschreden’. Dieptepunt is een afbeelding op Facebook van de politieke partij DENK waarin de machtige Joodse lobby in het schaduwduister opereert; dit in verwijzing naar de beruchte antisemitische Protocollen van de Wijzen van Sion. Uitspraken over de ‘lange arm van Israël en de Joden’ en een WhatsAppgroep waar ‘Marokkaanse joden’ van de PvdA uitgemaakt zijn voor ‘verraders van onze gemeenschap’ zijn onaanvaardbaar, aldus Hanna Luden.
CIDI heeft in 2017 voor het eerst antisemitische uitingen op internet en in het politieke domein apart geregistreerd. Het gaat om 7 incidenten in het politieke domein en 24 op internet die bij CIDI zijn gemeld en die vervolgens zijn onderzocht en getoetst aan de definitie van antisemitisme die CIDI hanteert (zie de monitor). De werkelijke omvang van het aantal antisemitische uitingen via internet en sociale media is veel groter. Het door de overheid ingestelde Meldpunt Internet Discriminatie (MiND) registreerde in 2017 236 meldingen van antisemitisme. Dit is 17% van het totaal aantal meldingen over discriminatie. Dat is een hoog percentage, gegeven dat de Joodse minderheid slechts 0,3% van de Nederlandse samenleving uitmaakt.
Uit de vandaag gepubliceerde ‘Monitor antisemitische incidenten in Nederland 2017’ van het CIDI blijkt verder dat het aantal antisemitische incidenten (internet niet meegerekend) vorig jaar uitkwam op 113, een lichte stijging ten opzichte van 2016. Onder dat aantal vielen 28 bekladdingen en vernielingen, waaronder het ingooien van ruiten van het Joodse restaurant HaCarmel en van de Joodse instelling Chabad Central te Amsterdam. Er werden vier geweldsincidenten geregistreerd, waaronder ernstige mishandelingen van een Joods Syrische vluchteling en twee Joodse toeristen uit Israel.
Het CIDI vindt dat geweldsmisdrijven vanuit antisemitische of anderszins discriminerende motieven zwaarder moeten worden bestraft. Wanneer iemand wordt aangevallen vanwege zijn of haar afkomst of geloof raakt dat namelijk niet alleen het individu maar de groep als geheel. Antisemitisch geweld heeft grote impact op het gevoel van onveiligheid in de gehele Joodse gemeenschap.
Een andere belangrijke aanbeveling is dat de Werkdefinitie Antisemitisme van de International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance door relevante organisaties en overheden wordt overgenomen en juridisch bindend verklaard. Momenteel wordt antisemitisme in de Nederlandse wet niet omschreven, waardoor het lastig te bestrijden is, zeker wanneer oude antisemitische vooroordelen en complottheorieën worden gerecycled door het woord ‘joden’ te vervangen door ‘zionisten’. Een heldere definitie helpt relevante actoren (politie, OM, onderwijs) antisemitisme te herkennen en te bestrijden. Een algemeen aanvaarde definitie van antisemitisme kan ook gebruikt worden op scholen en bijvoorbeeld bij de toetsing van subsidieaanvragen van maatschappelijke en religieuze instellingen.
Abstract: CIDI registreerde in 2016 109 antisemitische incidenten in Nederland, tegenover 126 in 2015. In meer Europese landen, bijvoorbeeld in Frankrijk, is een daling geconstateerd. Deze cijfers zijn echter hoger dan vóór 2014, met 171 incidenten een piekjaar in verband met de oorlog in Gaza.
CIDI is verheugd over de daling, maar wijst tegelijk op de volgende twee punten: Na twee jaar is het aantal meldingen nog hoger dan in het ‘normale jaar’ 2013, toen heeft CIDI 100 incidenten geteld. Bovendien is de daling voor een groot deel toe te schrijven aan het dalen van het aantal scheld-email-berichten (van 12 in 2015 naar 7 in 2016); dit medium lijkt vervangen te worden door sociale media, waarover CIDI steeds meer meldingen ontvangt.
Sociale media hebben steeds meer invloed op de publieke opinie en het maatschappelijk veld. Daarom heeft CIDI besloten met ingang van 2017 incidenten op internet die op personen gericht zijn ook mee te nemen in de Monitor Antisemitische Incidenten.
Vooral het dalen van het aantal incidenten op scholen stemt positief. Helaas is het aantal incidenten rondom voetbal nog steeds hoog. (9 in 2016, 10 in 2015) en is het aantal scheldpartijen gestegen. In de categorie scheldpartijen en lastigvallen op straat heeft CIDI in 2015 24 incidenten geregistreerd, in 2016 waren het 25 incidenten.
Vandalisme (21 incidenten) en fysiek geweld (3 incidenten) vormen nog steeds een probleem. Ter vergelijking: in 2015 telden we 20 vandalisme- en 5 fysiek geweld incidenten. In 2016 telde CIDI 2016 3 meldingen in de ‘traditionele’ media. In 2015 telden we geen melding in deze categorie.
Het woord “Jood” wordt helaas steeds vaker als scheldwoord gebruikt. Steeds meer constateren we het gebruik hiervan bij (algemene, niet eens op Joden gerichte) scheldpartijen. CIDI vindt dit zeer verontrustend.
De Joodse gemeenschap wordt nog altijd bedreigd. Inlichtingen van antiterreurorganisaties in binnen- en buitenland geven aan dat joden bovenaan de “hitlijst” staan van terroristen. Daarom verdient de beveiliging van Joodse instellingen de hoogste prioriteit.
CIDI blijft wijzen op het belang van educatie vanaf jonge leeftijd, op scholen en op informele clubs zoals sportverenigingen.
