Abstract: Un nombre considérable de juifs a quitté la France dans la dernière décennie, sans que les paroles rassurantes émanant des plus hautes autorités de l’État aient pu arrêter l’hémorragie. Quant à ceux qui restent, ils ne peuvent éviter l’idée de devoir peut-être partir un jour, au regard des événements et d’un climat général dont chacun perçoit le poids.
La sociologie politique, curieusement, n’a que bien peu à dire sur un tel phénomène. Prolixe sur la question de l’immigration, elle est pratiquement muette sur le fait que la France ait pu ainsi devenir une terre d’émigration. Qu’est-il donc arrivé ? Pour le comprendre, l’invocation commode des tensions intercommunautaires et du radicalisme islamiste est bien loin de suffire. C’est une généalogie au long cours de notre situation qui est requise, une restitution des dynamiques complexes où sont intriqués, depuis la Seconde Guerre mondiale, les juifs, l’Europe et l’État d’Israël.
De cette manière, et de cette manière seulement, l’un des points les plus sensibles du malaise politique actuel peut enfin être affronté.
Abstract: Love, to a significant other, can be the motivation for migration, inform a migration trajectory, or provide reasons for remaining in situ. Even so, love remains in the undercurrents of migration research. It is not explicitly addressed, even though it underpins migration within the constellation of arranged marriage, or if the pursuit of love is limited by social structures, or law. This paper links the dynamics of agentic love and self-initiated migration by way of German (non-Jewish) and Israeli (Jewish) migrants in Israel and Germany, respectively. It highlights individual trajectories of love migrants, establishing that love within the area of migration studies needs to be conceptualised as multifaceted and complex, at times contradictory, and as part of an affective trajectory of the migration process; and that the ability to follow up on falling in love, and to actualise love, cannot be unhinged from privilege.
Abstract: Настоящая книга представляет собой продолжение двух предыдущих изданий: "20 лет Большой алии" (2013) и “Четверть века Большой алии” (2017) и посвящена дальнейшим изменениям, которые претерпела еврейская русскоязычная община в Израиле. Наш анализ охватывает период с начала 1990-х годов до настоящего времени, и включает динамику общей численности репатриантов по республикам исхода, их расселение по городам и регионам Израиля, демографические аспекты, владение ивритом и англий-ским языком, компьютерную грамотность, армейскую/национальную службу, образова-ние (как взрослого населения, так и детей и молодежи). Особое внимание уделяется профессиональному трудоустройству репатриантов, и в частности, специалистов с выс-шим образованием. Рассматриваются также изменения в экономическом положении ре-патриантов, их состояние здоровья, а также общая удовлетворенность жизнью в Изра-иле, отношение к различным общественным институтам и уровень религиозности. По сравнению с предыдущим изданием, данные уточнены в соответствии с новыми источ-никами и с учетом тенденций последних лет.
Данные по репатриантам сопоставляются со всем еврейским населением Израиля, а по возможности – с еврейскими иммигрантами из бывшего СССР в США и Германии.
Книга предназначена для демографов, социологов, специалистов, занятых проблемами интеграции репатриантов в различных сферах и всех интересующихся данной пробле-мой.
Abstract: Visitor Experience at Holocaust Memorials and Museums is the first volume to offer comprehensive insights into visitor reactions to a wide range of museum exhibitions, memorials, and memory sites.
Drawing exclusively upon empirical research, chapters within the book offer critical insights about visitor experience at museums and memory sites in the United States, Poland, Austria, Germany, France, the UK, Norway, Hungary, Australia, and Israel. The contributions to the volume explore visitor experience in all its complexity and argue that visitors are more than just "learners". Approaching visitor experience as a multidimensional phenomenon, the book positions visitor experience within a diverse national, ethnic, cultural, social, and generational context. It also considers the impact of museums’ curatorial and design choices, visitor motivations and expectations, and the crucial role emotions play in shaping understanding of historical events and subjects. By approaching visitors as active interpreters of memory spaces and museum exhibitions, Popescu and the contributing authors provide a much-needed insight into the different ways in which members of the public act as "agents of memory", endowing this history with personal and collective meaning and relevance.
Visitor Experience at Holocaust Memorials and Museums offers significant insights into audience motivation, expectation, and behaviour. It is essential reading for academics, postgraduate students and practitioners with an interest in museums and heritage, visitor studies, Holocaust and genocide studies, and tourism.
Table of Contents
Introduction: Visitors at Holocaust Museums and Memory sites
Diana I. Popescu
Part I: Visitor Experience in Museum Spaces
Mobile Memory; or What Visitors Saw at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Michael Bernard-Donals
Visitor Emotions, Experientiality, Holocaust, and Human Rights: TripAdvisor Responses to the Topography of Terror (Berlin) and the Kazerne Dossin (Mechelen)
Stephan Jaeger
"Really made you feel for the Jews who went through this terrible time in History" Holocaust Audience Re-mediation and Re-narrativization at the Florida Holocaust Museum
Chaim Noy
Understanding Visitors’ Bodily Engagement with Holocaust Museum Architecture: A Comparative Empirical Research at three European Museums
Xenia Tsiftsi
Attention Please: The Tour Guide is Here to Speak Out. The Role of the Israeli Tour Guide at Holocaust Sites in Israel
Yael Shtauber, Yaniv Poria, and Zehavit Gross
The Impact of Emotions, Empathy, and Memory in Holocaust exhibitions: A Study of the National Holocaust Centre & Museum in Nottinghamshire, and the Jewish Museum in London
Sofia Katharaki
The Affective Entanglements of the Visitor Experience at Holocaust Sites and Museums
Adele Nye and Jennifer Clark
Part II: Digital Engagement Inside and Outside the Museum and Memory Site
"…It no longer is the same place": Exploring Realities in the Memorial Falstad Centre with the ‘Falstad Digital Reconstruction and V/AR Guide’
Anette Homlong Storeide
"Ways of seeing". Visitor response to Holocaust Photographs at ‘The Eye as Witness: Recording the Holocaust’ Exhibition
Diana I. Popescu and Maiken Umbach
Dachau from a Distance: The Liberation during The COVID-19 Pandemic
Kate Marrison
Curating the Past: Digital Media and Visitor Experiences at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe
Christoph Bareither
Diversity, Digital Programming, and the Small Holocaust Education Centre: Examining Paths and Obstacles to Visitor Experience
Laura Beth Cohen and Cary Lane
Part III: Visitors at Former Camp Sites
The Unanticipated Visitor: A Case Study of Response and Poetry at Sites of Holocaust Memory
Anna Veprinska
"Did you have a good trip?" Young people’s Reflections on Visiting the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum and the Town of Oświęcim
Alasdair Richardson
Rewind, Relisten, Rethink: The Value of Audience Reception for Grasping Art’s Efficacy
Tanja Schult
"The value of being there" -Visitor Experiences at German Holocaust Memorial Sites
Doreen Pastor
"Everyone Talks About the Wind": Temporality, Climate, and the More-than Representational Landscapes of the Mémorial du Camp de Rivesaltes
Ian Cantoni
Guiding or Obscuring? Visitor Engagement with Treblinka’s Audio Guide and Its Sonic Infrastructure
Kathryn Agnes Huether
Abstract: There is consensus that experiences gained during immigration have an impact on health status. However, studies comparing health-related outcomes in homogeneous groups of immigrants living in different host countries are rare. In a sample of Jewish immigrants from the Former Soviet Union (FSU) in two different host countries, Germany and Israel, possible predictors of health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and satisfaction with life (SWL) were examined. In total, 359 Jewish immigrants from the FSU living in Germany (n = 180) and Israel (n = 179) completed the questionnaire measuring immigration-related and sociodemographic characteristics. HRQoL was assessed via Short Form Health Survey Version 2 (SF-12v2), and SWL via Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS). Hierarchical linear regression models were applied for analyzing immigration-related and sociodemographic predictors of HRQoL and SWL. Participants living in Israel scored higher on HRQoL, and no differences were found concerning SWL ratings. However, no direct influences of the host country were detected by predicting HRQoL and SWL scores. In both subgroups, immigration-related factors such as perceived discrimination or level of integration were found as significant predictors. In the face of different immigration waves in the host countries, Germany and Israel, the results display similarities rather than differences between the groups concerning the sociodemographic and immigration-related predictors on HRQoL and SWL. The findings using cross-cultural analysis level underscore the need of much more detailed future research on this issue.
Abstract: Migration, displacement, and flight are major worldwide phenomena and typically pose challenges to mental health. Therefore, migrants’ mental health, and the factors which may predict it, have become an important research subject. The present population-based cross-national comparison study explores symptoms of depression, anxiety, and somatization, as well as quality-of-life in samples of ex-Soviet Jewish migrants settling in three new countries: Germany, Austria and Israel, as well as in a sample of non-migrant ex-Soviet Jews in their country of origin, Russia. In the current study, we investigate the relationship of perceived xenophobiа and antisemitism, acculturation attitudes, ethnic and national identity, as well as affiliation with Jewish religion and culture to the psychological well-being of these migrants. Furthermore, we consider xenophobic and antisemitic attitudes as well as the acculturation orientation of the new countries’ societies, assessed in the native control samples. Our data suggest that attitudes of the new country’s society matter for the mental health of this migrant group. We conclude that the level of distress among ex-Soviet Jewish migrants seems to depend, among other factors, on the characteristics of the new country and/or specific interactions of the migrant population with the society they are settling in.
Abstract: This dissertation illustrates how a moral burden of history manifests itself in social relationships, cultural processes, and material products. Specifically, it argues that what appears to many as a superficial, commercially motivated revival of Jewishness in Poland is also a significant joint venture between non-Jewish Poles and Jewish visitors to Poland in exploring inter-ethnic memory-building and reconciliation. The findings are based on 18 months of ethnographic research in the historical Jewish quarter (Kazimierz) in Krakow, Poland, with further research in Israel and the United States among diaspora Jews. My research reveals that the notion of uniform Holocaust tourism disguises a movement to contest lachrymose conceptions of Jewishness as victimhood. I document a sense of Jewish connection to Poland---overlooked in mainstream discourses---that animates new generations of Jews and Poles to seek each other out. Similarly, much of the Jewish revival in Kazimierz is orchestrated by non-Jewish Poles. I show how they use identification with Jewishness to reconfigure their own Polishness and their visions for a pluralistic Polish nation state. I conclude that (1) popular cultural products, practices, and spaces can be important manifestations of---and tools for---moral reckoning; (2) identification with someone else's ethnicity/religion (often called appropriation) can be understood as an enlargement of, rather than an escape from, the self, and (3) Kazimierz in Krakow represents the cutting edge of Polish-Jewish relations via local grassroots culture brokers who use Jewishness to expand the Polish universe of obligation.
Abstract: Mokslininkai sutinka, kad tapatumas yra kintantis pagal situaciją darinys, priklausomas nuo aplinkos. Kai aplinka yra traumuojanti, ji nutraukia stabilią individo gyvenimo tėkmę, pakeičia prisiimtus vaidmenis, nusistovėjusias vertybes, gyvenimo tikslus. Holokaustas buvo trauma, sutrikdžiusi žmonių kasdienį gyvenimą, privertusi iš naujo įvertinti save ir aplinką. Šiame darbe buvo nagrinėjama, kaip Holokausto sukelta trauma skatino keistis išgyvenusiųjų tapatumą karo metu, ir kokios yra ilgalaikės Holokausto pasekmės tapatumui. Atsakymams į šiuos klausimus atrasti buvo pasitelkta kokybinio tyrimo strategija ir teminės analizės metodas. 11 tyrimo dalyvių, išgyvenusių Holokaustą, interviu medžiaga atskleidė tapatumo pokyčius, sukeltus Holokausto karo metu - pakito išgyvenusiųjų savęs kaip visuomenės nario suvokimas dėl atskirties, susijusios su tautybe; pakito savo žydiškos kilmės suvokimas; pakito savo vaidmens šeimoje suvokimas, šeimos narių praradimas sustiprino šeiminius ryšius tarp išlikusiųjų; pakito gyvenimo tikslai, pagrindiniu tikslu tapo išgyvenimas; pakito savęs vertinimas. Holokaustas sukėlė ilgalaikes pasekmes tapatumui: Holokaustas suformavo savęs kaip „išgyvenusiojo“ suvokimą, kuris įgijo skirtingą vertę Lietuvos ir Izraelio visuomenių kontekste; išgyvenusieji save suvokia kaip vertinančius gyvybę, suprantančius materialių vertybių laikinumą; jie suvokia save kaip priimančius Dievą arba kaip neigiančius jo egzistavimą. Išgyvenusieji atskleidžia dvejopą savo santykį su Holokaustu: save suvokia kaip pasisėmusius stiprybės, gyvenimiškos patirties, Holokauste atradusius prasmę arba kaip netekusius gyvenimo tęstinumo, neradusius prasmės trauminiuose išgyvenimuose.
Abstract: The book "Survival of the Identity of Holocaust Survivors" was prepared on the basis of a doctoral dissertation. It examines how the trauma of the Holocaust led to a shift in identity among survivors during the war, and the long-term consequences of the Holocaust for identity.
The interview material of 11 research participants who survived the Holocaust revealed identity changes caused during the Holocaust war - the survivors' self-perception as a member of society changed due to the exclusion related to nationality; the perception of one's Jewish origin has changed; the perception of one's role in the family has changed, the loss of family members has strengthened family ties among the survivors; life goals changed, survival became the main goal; self-esteem has changed.
The Holocaust caused long-term consequences for identity: the Holocaust shaped the perception of oneself as a "survivor", which acquired a different value in the context of Lithuanian and Israeli societies; survivors perceive themselves as valuing life, understanding the transience of material values; they perceive themselves as accepting God or as denying his existence. Survivors reveals his dual relationship with the Holocaust: he perceives himself as having gained strength, life experience, having found meaning in the Holocaust, or as having lost the continuity of life.
The book has important lasting value because the research participants interviewed in the book were 80 years old or older at the time of the study, and now, several years after the study, some of them are no longer alive.
Abstract: Capitalising on new resources and advances made in the methods of estimation, this report is the first time that the global Haredi (strictly Orthodox) population size has been estimated and calculated, revealing that about 2,100,000 Haredi Jews live worldwide, out of a total global Jewish population of 15 million. The report projects that the Haredi population could double in size by the year 2040, rising to over a fifth of the total by that time.
Some of the key findings in this report:
• The global Haredi population is estimated at 2,100,000, constituting about 14% of the total Jewish population in the world.
• Together, Israel and the USA account for about 92% of all Haredi Jews. Europe hosts 5% of the global Haredi population, while the rest live mainly in Latin America, South Africa, Canada and Australia.
• Outside of Israel and the USA, the three largest Haredi populations are located in the UK (about 75,000, or 25% of all British Jews), Canada (30,000, 8%) and France (12,000, 3%).
• While the world Jewish population has been growing by approximately 0.7% per year over the past decade, the Haredi population is currently growing by about 3.5%-4.0% annually.
• Today, a large part of the growth of the global Jewish population as a whole is due to the Haredi population: perhaps as much as 70%-80% of the total growth worldwide.
• Haredi rates of growth are very high not simply due to high fertility, but rather to the combined effects of very high fertility and very low mortality.
Abstract: This article examines the Breslover Hasidim who attempted their annual pilgrimage to Uman during the COVID-19 pandemic. Following the Ukrainian border closure in August 2020, which was supported by the State of Israel, thousands of Breslovers were stranded in airports, land borders, and even imprisoned in the weeks leading up to the Jewish New Year. This research contributes to an emerging scholarly literature on religion and COVID-19, challenging the religion and science "conflict thesis," as interviews revealed that the choice of Breslovers to ignore public health directives stemmed less from a disbelief in science than from a conflict between state and religious authority. Pious mobilities emerge, I argue, when secular logics fail to contain and properly modify religious actors. The choice to travel to Uman was made according to a Breslover moral universe as informants turned to the spiritual tools and teachings of Rebbe Nachman to guide their decisions, especially his notion of ratzon [willpower], engaging in a form of pious mobility that attempted to transcend nation-state borders. Pious mobilities not only challenged public health initiatives in 2020, but as I demonstrate in the ethnography, Breslovers' insistence on reaching Uman simultaneously threatened the cooptation of Breslov Hasidim within a Zionist narrative, reigniting a debate over the relocation of Rebbe Nachman's remains to Israel. By ethnographically examining moments of conflict between religious groups and state officials managing the pandemic, we might better inform future public health policies and the messaging aimed at religious populations including ultra-Orthodox Jews.
Abstract: Of about a million Jews that arrived to Israel from the (former) USSR after 1989 some 12% left the country by the end of 2017. It is estimated that about a half of them left "back" for the FSU, and the rest for the USA, Canada and the Western Europe. The book provides a comprehensive analysis of this specific Jewish Israeli Diaspora group through cutting-edge approaches in the social sciences, and examines the settlement patterns of Israeli Russian-speaking emigrants, their identity, social demographic profile, reasons of emigration, their economic achievements, identification, and status vis-à-vis host Jewish and non-Jewish environment, vision of Israel, migration interests and behavior, as well as their social and community networks, elites and institutions. Vladimir Ze’ev Khanin makes a significant contribution to migration theory, academic understanding of transnational Diasporas, and sheds a new light on the identity and structure of contemporary Israeli society. The book is based on the unique statistics from Israeli and other Government sources and sociological information obtained from the author’s first of this kind on-going study of Israeli Russian-speaking emigrant communities in different regions of the world.
Abstract: Culture is the cornerstone where societies have always supported their respective identities. It is a way of life, as long as it expresses not only the values, but also the education, the art, and the daily life of all those who live and work in a society. Thessaloniki has been a multicultural city, gathering populations from different nations and religions over time. The city was a refuge destination for many persecuted Jews in Europe, between 1492 and 1943, which led to the creation of a large Jewish community. As a result, the long tradition combined with the several elements of Jewish cultural interest attracts a large number of tourists from Israel every year. This paper presents the main research results conducted in Thessaloniki regarding tourists’ from Israel motivations and characteristics, but also their main elements of interest. Thessaloniki has all the essential elements, such as history, tradition, monuments, infrastructure, and services for the development of cultural tourism. These, however, need to be improved, so that the city of Thessaloniki becomes a more popular tourist destination for Israelis.
Abstract: This article presents research notes on an oral history project on the impact of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) on Jews over the age of 65 years. During the first stage of the project, we conducted nearly 80 interviews in eight cities worldwide: Amsterdam, Berlin, London, Milan, New York, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, and St. Petersburg, and in Israel. The interviews were conducted in the spring of 2020 and reflect the atmosphere and perception of interviewees at the end of the first lockdown.
Based on an analysis of the interviews, the findings are divided into three spheres: (1) the personal experience during the pandemic, including personal difficulties and the impact of the lockdown on family and social contacts; (2) Jewish communal life, manifested in changed functions and emergence of new needs, as well as religious rituals during the pandemic; and (3) perceived relations between the Jewish community and wider society, including relations with state authorities and civil society, attitudes of and towards official media, and the possible impact of COVID-19 on antisemitism. Together, these spheres shed light on how elderly Jews experience their current situation under COVID-19—as individuals and as part of a community.
COVID-19 taught interviewees to reappraise what was important to them. They felt their family relations became stronger under the pandemic, and that their Jewish community was more meaningful than they had thought. They understood that online communication will continue to be present in all three spheres, but concluded that human contact cannot be substituted by technical devices.
Abstract: В статье рассматриваются некоторые понятия и термины, связанные с такими явлениями, как миграции, диаспора, постсоветские диаспоры, транснациональные сообщества. Опираясь на различные социологические исследования, автор доказывает, что современные российские евреи не являются классической диаспорой, а также так называемой «новой еврейской диаспорой». В настоящее время они представляют часть русскоязычного транснационального сообщества, базирующегося на системе различных связей. В то же время автор подчеркивает, что такое сообщество имеет временный характер, поскольку иммигранты во втором и третьем поколении все более полно интегрируются в принимающих обществах, в том числе в израильском.
Abstract: This article is a discussion on my research that examines the social and musical aspects of orthodox women’s Rosh Chodesh groups. These groups, both past and present, are not a widespread phenomenon and have remained very much on the periphery of Jewish practices which, apart from communities based in Israel, already operate on the periphery of non-Jewish societies. As such, my research has required a broad, international focus. My discussion is largely based on groups in North America and Europe (specific locations examined include New York, Montreal, Amsterdam, Berlin, and London, which is also the site for fieldwork on the relatively recent phenomenon called the ‘Partnership Minyan’). I also conducted preliminary fieldwork with the much-discussed group Women of the Wall (WoW) based in Jerusalem.
Abstract: This thesis analyses three Central European countries – Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary - and their relations with Israel. I chose these three Central European countries because they share the same geopolitical space and historical experience. These three Central European countries and Israel are geographically distant, face different geopolitical threats, and have only a few policy issues in common. Nonetheless, ‘the question of Israel’ has been very much present in the foreign policies of Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary. Building on constructivism and IR scholarship that engages with memory studies, this thesis explores the process of national identity re-formation and its impact on the formulation of national interest. Specifically, it focuses on: a) past legacies, institutionalized in collective memory and expressed in narratives, which linger over and constrain policy choices; b) the role of decision-makers with a special focus on their role in national identity re-formation in times when a policy is in transition and when a new regime must establish its legitimacy. I look at the historical roots of the relations of the three Central European countries with Israel. I do so by analysing the role of the Jewish question in the nation-building process of Polish, Czech, and Hungarian nations. Further, I argue that as the three former Communist countries started to re-define their relations with Israel, the legacy of the Jewish question has had a significant impact on the formulation of their foreign policies towards the Jewish state.
Topics: Educational Tours, Israel Tours, Main Topic: Education, Jewish Education, Jewish Identity, Israel Attachment, Israel Education, Israel Experience, Teenagers, Youth, Interviews
Abstract: From the Foreword:
The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Education Research Project aims to provide an overview of empirical research on teaching and learning about the Holocaust (TLH) with a cross-cultural and multilingual perspective. The outcomes include transferring knowledge between various regions and countries, intensifying dialogue between scholars and educational decision makers and enhancing networking among researchers.
To fulfill these aims, in 2012 the IHRA established a Steering Committee and tasked a team of researchers with skills in a large range of languages. Early in the process, the decision was made to focus upon research which deals with deliberate efforts to educate about the Holocaust and to limit the search accordingly. This decision
meant there was a focus on both teaching and learning. The teaching focused on school settings – although there is also some explicit instruction at museums and sites of memory. Certainly, learning takes place in both school settings and museums/ sites of memory. This focus meant that some areas of scholarship are generally not
included in this collection. Firstly, non-empirical work, which is extensive and important, was beyond the scope of this research. Secondly, analyses of materials such as curricula, films, and textbooks were also beyond the scope.
The Education Research Project culminated in the publication of volume 3 of the IHRA book series Research in Teaching and Learning about the Holocaust: A Dialogue Beyond Borders, edited by Monique Eckmann, Doyle Stevick and Jolanta Ambrosewicz-Jacobs. The book is available in hard copy for purchase and as a free PDF download.
The second outcome is this set of eight bibliographies. These eight bibliographies comprise references to empirical research on teaching and learning about the Holocaust. They also include abstracts or summaries of most of publications. Each bibliography includes research from a single language or related group of languages
(both geographically related or linguistically related). The research team identified almost 400 studies resulting in roughly 640 publications in fifteen languages that are grouped in the following eight language sets:
German, Polish, French, the languages of the Nordic countries, Romance languages other than French (specifically Spanish, Portuguese and Italian), East-Slavic languages (Belarussian, Russian and Ukrainian), English and Hebrew.
The bibliographies presented here contain titles in the original language and translations in English, as well as abstracts in English that were either written by the original authors, written by the research team or its contributors (or translated into English by the team). This set of bibliographies provides a unique tool for researchers
and educators, allowing them to gain insight into educational research dealing with teaching and learning about the Holocaust, not only in their own language, but also in languages they are not familiar with. We hope that this publication and these abstracts will provide a tool that facilitates research across language borders and contributes to further exchange, discussion and cooperation between researchers and educators as well as the creation of international and cross-language networks.
Abstract: This study, the first to assess mortality among Jews around the world during the COVID-19 crisis, draws on data from a wide variety of sources to understand the extent to which Jews were affected by coronavirus in different parts of the world during the first wave of the pandemic, March to May 2020.
The first section describes the methods of quantification of COVID-19 mortality, and explains why measuring it using the excess mortality method is the most effective way to understand how Jewish communities have been affected. The second section presents data on Jewish mortality during the first wave of the COVID-19 epidemic, drawing particularly on data provided to JPR by Jewish burial societies in communities all over the world. It does so in a comparative perspective, setting the data on Jews alongside the data on non-Jews, to explore both the extent to which Jews have been affected by the COVID-19 epidemic, and how the Jewish experience with COVID-19 compares to the experience of non-Jewish populations.
The immediate impression is that there is not a single ‘Jewish pattern’ that is observable everywhere, and, with respect to the presence of excess mortality, Jewish communities, by and large, followed the populations surrounding them.
The report cautions against speculation about why Jews were disproportionately affected in some places, but rule out two candidate explanations: that Jewish populations with particularly elderly age profiles were hardest hit, or that Jews have been badly affected due to any underlying health issue common among them. They consider the possibility that Jewish lifestyle effects (e.g. above average size families, convening in large groups for Jewish rituals and holidays), may have been an important factor in certain instances, noting that these are unambiguous risk factors in the context of communicable diseases. Whilst they suggest that the spread of the virus among Jews “may have been enhanced by intense social contact,” they argue that without accurate quantification, this explanation for elevated mortality in certain places remains unproven.
The report also includes a strongly worded preface from Hebrew University Professor Sergio DellaPergola, the Chair of the JPR European Jewish Demography Unit, and the world’s leading expert in Jewish demography. In it, he stresses the importance of systematically testing representative samples of the population at the national and local levels, and, in Jewish community contexts, of routinely gathering Jewish population vital statistics. He states: “If there is one lesson for Jewish community research that emerges out of this crisis it is that the routine gathering of vital statistics – the monitoring of deaths, as well as births, marriages, divorces, conversions, immigrants and emigrants – is one of the fundamental responsibilities community bodies must take.”
