Abstract: This research study seeks to understand the current state of Holocaust education in Romanian classrooms and the variety of forces that influence its treatment. By identifying obstacles, challenges, and successes, this study provides a generative knowledge base for curriculum proposals, symposia, and other initiatives that seek to disrupt reticence on this topic. Given the wide range of possible influences on Holocaust instruction, this study employs ethnographic methods to seek out constructed meanings among students, teachers, subject matter, and numerous forces within the milieu. The findings reveal some promises for addressing this history in schools, including teacher autonomy, institutional support, and teacher trainings. Yet Romania faces a number of challenges, such as the legacy of communism, the role of Antonescu in the curriculum, few opportunities to address controversies, limited instructional time, and other institutional and community forces. Holocaust education is a relatively new phenomenon in Romania and understanding its evolution can inform other societies and cultures that are working to introduce Holocaust studies or controversial issues into their curricula. As more post-Soviet and post-communist states attempt to build pluralistic, tolerant, and open-minded societies, their treatment of historical silences and the renegotiation of their past becomes a critical feature for the development of democratic citizens.
Abstract: This paper examines the discourses relating to antisemitism in the three leading UK national “quality” newspapers from 1993 to 2009. To this end, three corpora were compiled, each consisting of the complete set of instances in context in these papers where antisemitism is mentioned, the first from 1993 the others from 2005 and 2009. Considerable changes were noted between the discourses in the earlier corpus compared to the later ones. In the first, the majority of discourses were either historical and/or literary-artistic (typically discussing whether a particular writer or artist had been antisemitic) or, if they were related to contemporary society, they were discussions of potential or reported antisemitism outside the UK, especially in Eastern Europe. In the later corpora, however, there is much more discussion about a perceived resurgence of antisemitism in the UK and Western Europe. After an overview of these changing patterns, particularly controversial recent cases of alleged antisemitism in British politics are discussed. The methodology of this research combines corpus-analysis techniques with more traditional close textual analysis, characteristic of corpus-assisted discourse studies (CADS: Stubbs 1996, Partington 2008).
Abstract: Examines antisemitism in various aspects of Greek society in the 1980s and early 1990s. Regarding religious antisemitism, the official position of the Orthodox Church recognizes Judaism's contribution to Christianity and condemns antisemitism, but some in the Church exhibit anti-Jewish sentiments, hiding behind opposition to Zionists and Chiliasts (Jehovah's Witnesses). Greeks often confuse the terms Israelis, Zionists, and Jews. Discusses issues such as antisemitic texts in government schoolbooks, legislation against racial discrimination (which has rarely been enforced), political antisemitism expressed on occasion by the socialist PASOK party and by the Communist party, extreme right and terrorist organizations [e.g. ENEK (United Nationalist Movement), Ethniko Metopo (National Front), Chrysi Avghi (Golden Dawn)], antisemitic press and literature, and antisemitic incidents. The most common way of dealing with antisemitism in Greece is denial of its existence.
Abstract: Contemporary expressions of Judeophobia—in Germany, as elsewhere in Europe—contain a potentially explosive mix of traditional and newer forms of antisemitism. Since 9/11, and especially in the wake of the Iraq war, anti-Americanism has been a potent factor in envenoming hostile attitudes to Israel and the Jews—as alleged architects of the war, and “aggressors” in the Middle East. Conspiracy theories, with an antisemitic subtext, have flourished on the Left and in the mainstream media, as well as on the far Right. One-sided representations of the Middle East conflict, downplaying Palestinian terrorism, the threat posed by radical Islam and the genocidal antisemitism rampant in the Muslim and Arab media—while highlighting Israeli counter-violence as gratuitous sadism—have contributed to fostering anti-Jewish feelings. “AntiSharonism” has been widely used as a cover to present Israel as a
“criminal” state in its essence.
Such commentaries reinforce long-standing and widespread antiJewish stereotypes, revealed by surveys of German public opinion over the years—especially those related to Jewish money, power, and exploitative “abuse” of the Holocaust. Much of contemporary German antisemitism can best be understood as a form of ressentiment against constant reminders of the Nazi past and the desire to reverse the roles, to turn Israelis/Jews into “perpetrators”
and Germans into “victims.”
Abstract: Papers delivered at a conference in Jerusalem, October 1990.
Contents:
Kulka, Otto Dov: History and Historical Prognoses (9-11);
Bauer, Yehuda: The Danger of Antisemitism in Today's Central Europe (13-24);
Benz, Wolfgang: Antisemitism in East and West Germany: Will It Increase after Reunification? (25-33);
Stern, Frank: The "Jewish Question" in the "German Question" 1945-1990: Reflections in the Light of November 9th (35- 51);
Deak, Istvan: The Danger of Antisemitism in Hungary (53-61);
Vago, Raphael: Antisemitism in the New Romania (63-74);
Gutman, Yisrael: Polish Antisemitism in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: Will Things Ever Change? (75-81);
Nosenko, Vladimir: The Upsurge of Antisemitism in the Soviet Union in the Years of Perestroika: Background and Causes (83-93);
Avineri, Shlomo: The Return to History and Its Consequences for the Jewish Communities in Eastern Europe (95-101);
Bauer, Yehuda: In Conclusion (103-106)
Abstract: This paper is the first output of the new European Jewish Demography Unit, set up by JPR in January 2019 with the generous support of the Rothschild Foundation Hanadiv Europe, to undertake demographic research about Jewish populations across Europe.
Demography provides answers to questions such as how many Jews exist in the world? Or in Europe? Or in any particular country of Europe? And where will European Jewry go from here?
The objective of the Unit is to create demographic profiles of European Jewish populations at a country level, documenting their size, structure, composition, patterns of Jewish identity, factors of growth and decline and past and projected trajectories over time. The foundational paper demonstrates the practical sides and uses of demography, with the focus on its use by the Jewish community.
The paper is written in three parts. Part 1 describes what Jewish demography is, as a subject area, and its purpose and value, with specific reference to Jews in Europe. Part 2 explores some of the critiques of demography from the past and present and responds to these by outlining how the data should be used and have been used for highly constructive purposes. Part 3 outlines what the European Jewish Demography Unit will do, and the methods and approach it will take.
Abstract: This book illustrates the two clear trends in antisemitism today: “old” antisemitism, based in religious and racist prejudices, which has largely disappeared from public discourse in the West after the defeat of Nazi Germany, but has resurfaced in the last quarter-century in the face of right wing frustration of weakening nation states in a globalized world; and “new” antisemitism, or the antisemitic narrativization of Israel, which is most commonly found on the Left, in the Muslim world, and in the post-colonial discourse.
This collection of essays analyzes both old and new antisemitisms, in order to understand their place in the world of today and tomorrow. It is written by experts in the field of antisemitism working for, or connected with, the Kantor Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry at Tel Aviv University.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: The Continuity and Change of Antisemitism
Mikael Shainkman
Different Antisemitisms: On Three Distinct Forms of Antisemitism in Contemporary Europe, with a Special Focus on Sweden
Lars Dencik and Karl Marosi
Holocaust Memory and Holocaust Revisionism in Poland and Moldova: A Comparison
Natalia Sineaeva-Pankowska
Honoring the Collaborators: The Ukrainian Case
Irena Cantorovich
The Rise of the Radical Right in Europe and the Jews
Michael Whine
The Worrisome Defiance of the Golden Dawn
Michal Navoth
The Struggle over the International Working Definition of Antisemitism
Dina Porat
Discrimination against Muslims and Antisemitic Views among Young Muslims in Europe
Günther Jikeli
Debates on Islamized Antisemitism in Austria in the Wake of the Israel-Gaza Conflict, 2014
Julia Edthofer
Antisemitism and the Struggle for the “Good” Society: Ambivalent Responses to Antisemitic Attitudes and Ideas in the 2014 Swedish Electoral Race
Kristin Wagrell
Mohamed Omar and the Selective Detection of Non-Nazi Antisemitism
Mathan Ravid
After the Charlie Hebdo Attack: The Line between Freedom of Expression and Hate Speech
Andre Oboler
Online Antisemitic Propaganda and Negationism in the Islamic Republic of Iran: Ahmadinejad and His Enduring Legacy
Liora Hendelman-Baavur
The Nisman Case: Its Impact on the Jewish Community and on National Politics in Argentina
Adrian Gruszniewski and Lidia Lerner
Venezuela’s 2012 Presidential Elections: Introducing Antisemitism into Venezuelan Political Discourse
Lidia Lerner
