Abstract: The successful incorporation of Eastern European states into the European Union, NATO and the Western pro-democratic family of nations usually focuses on the import of ideas, governmental and societal structures, and products, from West to East, and of large movements of East European populations westward. Often overlooked in the export of ideas has been the intensive, expensive and industrial-scale effort to rewrite the history of the Holocaust and World War II in the direction of Double Genocide and Holocaust Obfuscation, a trend spurred on dramatically by the decline in East-West relations and the increasingly frightening movement of Russia toward revanchist authoritarianism that threatens its neighbors. The paper argues that no good can or will come from the adaptation of models of bogus nationalist history rooted in far-right, ultranationalist thought in the liberated states of Eastern Europe. Double Genocide and its corollaries as currently practiced and underwritten by state budgets, represent a threat to history, freedom of thought and speech, equal rights and ultimately, a ruse to insert far-right academic revisionism disguised as anti-Russian activity into Western discourse.
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: CST recorded 1,805 antisemitic incidents in the UK in 2019, the highest total that CST has ever recorded in a single calendar year. This is seven per cent higher than the 1,690 antisemitic incidents reported to CST in 2018, making 2019 the fourth consecutive year in which the annual record has been broken.
This record total, following on from those registered in 2016, 2017 and 2018, perpetuates a sustained pattern of historically high antisemitic incident figures. Furthermore, CST recorded over 100 antisemitic incidents in every calendar month for the second year in a row and the second year ever. Since April 2016, more than 100
incidents have been reported in all but two months. This is unprecedented: by way of comparison, CST only recorded monthly totals exceeding 100 incidents on six occasions in the decade prior, from 2006 to 2015.
The record totals in 2019 and the preceding three years were due to consistently high monthly totals, at a time when Jews, antisemitism and the Labour Party were the repeated subjects of national controversy. Debate surrounding Brexit also made this a politically contentious time during which recorded hate crime rose more generally, affecting many communities. These relatively lengthy contexts differ from the pre-2015 antisemitic incident highs, which were largely caused by temporary ‘spikes’ and sudden ‘trigger’ events.
Abstract: This chapter situates France’s diverse Jewish community, the largest in Europe, in relation to Holocaust memory, exile from North Africa, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, anti-Semitism and cultural (co-)production. The chapter begins by historically contextualising contemporary anti-Semitism and goes on to explore cultural representations, including Jewish-Muslim artistic collaborations. Contemporary anti-Semitism in France is driven by three main motivations which sometimes overlap, namely radical Islam, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and old anti-Jewish stereotypes. Education and cultural production (particularly collaborative, that is, through Jewish–Muslim cooperation) are particularly important in combating the conflation between Jews and Zionists, and in expressing solidarity between Jews and Muslims, who are both victims of racism in France albeit in the differing forms of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.
Abstract: Kolektivní monografie o podobách antisemitismu v Čechách a na Slovensku analyzuje diskursivní a vizuální formy obrazu Žida v české a slovenské většinové společnosti. Příspěvky se zabývají otázkou, jak se v průběhu 20. a 21. století utvářel pojem „Žid“ nebo „židovský“ a jak se v souvislosti s tímto „cizím“ obrazem utvářel obraz „nás“ samotných. Autoři jednotlivých studií se ve svých analýzách tematicky obrací k otázce kontinuity a transformace těchto zrcadlových obrazů a zároveň zkoumají vztah identity a (politické) moci. Badatelé na příkladu Protektorátu Čechy a Morava, válečného slovenského státu, komunistického Československa, ale také soudobých reálií přesvědčivě ukazují, že antisemitismus není vázaný na skutečného nebo domnělého nepřítele, nýbrž na (sebe)legitimizační konstrukty. Předkládaná kniha je založena na využití dobového tisku, orálněhistorických životopisných rozhovorů, pamětí a archivních dokumentů. Také proto je publikace určena nejenom akademické obci a učitelské veřejnosti, ale všem zájemcům o fenomén antisemitismu, jeho projevy a vývoj ve 20. století a v současnosti.
Abstract: [Edited from press release]
The AJC Paris study was conducted by IFOP, a leading polling firm, in partnership with Fondapol, a major French think tank. They polled 505 French Jews and 1027 French people between October 14 and November 19, 2019.
As antisemitism in France continues to spiral, Jews and the general population in France agree on the magnitude of the problem, according to the American Jewish Committee (AJC) Paris survey of perceptions of and experiences with antisemitism in France.
But alignment on the antisemitism threat to French society, and the government’s weak responsiveness, does not mitigate the fears of Jews about their safety and future in France.
Nearly three-quarters, 73%, of the French public, and 72% of Jews, consider antisemitism a problem that affects all of French society. 47% of the general public and 67% of the Jewish respondents say the level of antisemitism in France is high, while 27% and 22%, respectively, say it is low.
While 53% of the general public say antisemitism has been increasing, and 18% decreasing, in recent years, 77% of Jews say it has increased and 12% decreased.
The AJC Paris survey found that 70 percent of French Jews say they have been victims of at least one antisemitic incident in their lifetime, 64% have suffered anti-Semitic verbal abuse at least once, and 23% have been targets of physical violence on at least one occasion, with 10 percent saying they were attacked several times.
The continued spiraling of antisemitism in France has led significant percentages of the Jewish population to take protective actions. More than one-third, 37%, refrain from using visible Jewish symbols, 25% avoid revealing their Jewish identity in the workplace, and 52% have considered leaving France.
Overall, 44% of the Jewish sample say the situation for French Jews is worse than a year ago, only 11% say it is better and 42% no better or worse.
The youngest Jews, ages 18-24, are on the “front line” more than older cohorts in confronting antisemitism. 84% of them have suffered at last one antisemitic act, compared with 70% of all respondents; 79 percent had suffered verbal abuse, compared with 64% of all respondents, and 39% faced an act of physical aggression, compared with 23% of the full Jewish sample.
Visibly religious French Jews feel the most vulnerable, with 74% of them saying they had been a victim of at least one act of verbal abuse, compared with 64% of the full Jewish sample.
The main locations where antisemitic incidents occur the most are in the street and school. 55% said they had been insulted or threatened on the street, and 59% said they had suffered physical abuse in the school.
54% were victims of verbal abuse, and 26% had been victims of antisemitic violence in schools.
But equally disturbing is the finding that 46% said they had suffered anti-Semitic verbal abuse in the workplace.
Regarding the responsiveness of elected officials, Jews and the general public agree. Only 47% of Jews and 48% of the general public have confidence in the President of France tackling antisemitism, 46% of Jews and 41% of the public in the French government, and 58% of Jews and 56% of the public in local elected officials
Abstract: This article analyzes contemporary antisemitism and Holocaust distortion in Eastern Europe. The main argument is that Brown and Red, Nazism and Communism, respectively are not at all equal. In Eastern Europe, in particular, antisemitic ideology is grounded on the rehabilitation of anticommunist national “heroes.” The history of the Holocaust is thereby distorted. Based on Maurice Halbwachs’s theory of “social frameworks,” the author shows how “competitive martyrdom,” the “Double Genocide” ideology, and “Holocaust obfuscation” are intertwined. Empirically, the paper examines these concepts in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Hungary, Serbia and Croatia, and Romania.
Topics: Antisemitism, Antisemitism: Education against, Antisemitism: Far right, Antisemitism: Left-Wing, Antisemitism: Muslim, Antisemitism: New Antisemitism, Antisemitism: Monitoring, Antisemitism: Discourse, Main Topic: Antisemitism, Terrorism, European Union, Integration
Abstract: In this article the term 'resentment', as used by Friedrich Nietzsche and then redefined by Max Scheler, is employed to explain anti-Semitic attitudes in Poland. The resentful attitude is based on the emotion of jealousy, which leads to a desire to degrade anyone with whom comparisons are made, in order to increase feelings of self-worth. This characteristic of the term was used to description of the group's attitudes. In this article, modern anti-Semitism is portrayed as an inseparable element of a wider Catholic-nationalist ideology, which creates the image of (symbolic) Jews as morally inferior and unfairly competing with (symbolic) Poles. In research conducted between 1992 and 2012 the author finds correlations between strong nationalist feelings and attitudes of jealousy and a desire to degrade Jewish people. The image produced by the empirical data is one in which the Jews are the enemy, directed by their own national (sic!) interests, and desiring to take advantage of the Poles, who are honest and idealistic, driving by theirs declarations and values, even against their own, actual interests.The author hopes the article can be a starting point for discussing the idea of resentment as a theoretical tool in research devoted not only to anti-Semitism, but also to xenophobia and attitudes to other groups in the democracy.
Abstract: The article presents the results of surveys done on anti-Semitism in Poland in 1992, which in part were compared to results from a 1996 survey. The group, under the author's direction researched anti-Semitism in the context of Poles' attitudes towards other nations, as well as in terms of their own national identity. Two types of anti-Semitic attitudes were observed: traditional, religiously grounded anti-Semitism, and anti-Semitism rooted in anti-Semitic political ideology, of the type that has developed since in the French Revolution. Traditional anti-Semitism occurs only among older people who are not well educated and live in rural areas; increased education results in the disappearance of this type of anti-Semitism. Modern anti-Semitism, on the other hand occurs among both the lowest and most highly educated groups in society. Moreover, from 1992 to 1996, the percentage of the respondents declaring anti-Semitic views increased. At the same time, however, there was also a larger increase in the number of respondents declaring anti-anti-Semitic views, which has meant that there has been a clear polarization of attitudes. Having a university education makes a person more likely to be ill-disposed toward anti-Semitism. Nevertheless, the attitude of Poles toward Jews cannot be described simply on the basis of anti-Semitic attitudes. The researchers noted that there was also an attitude of "not liking Jews", which was less engaged than the anti-Semitic views, and to a large extent a result of the content comprising Polish national identity. The model of Polishness assumes a Romantic-Messianic image of the Polish nation. According to this model, Poles see themselves as being distinguished by their noble fulfillment of obligations, even when it is to their own detriment, particularly with respect to symbolic Jews and Germans. Researchers also assumed that there was a particular kind of competition between Poles and Jews with respect to the moral superiority of their respective nations. The results from 1992 in part confirmed this hypothesis.
Abstract: Using an integrated archival and ethnographic approach, this study investigates how the growing Haredi Jewish minority and the UK government negotiate their positions in the context of healthcare services in Manchester as one of the few sites where they directly engage. Low-level uptake of certain maternal and infant health interventions has led to claims that Haredi Jews are ‘hard to reach’ or a ‘non-compliant community.’ This thesis critically engages the above outlook by exploring how responses to healthcare services should be framed.
Rather than evading the NHS altogether, as the ‘hard to reach’ label implies, Haredi Jews in Manchester selectively negotiate healthcare services in order to avoid a cosmological conflict with the halachic custodianship of Jewish bodies. Maternal and infant care is situated as a particularly sensitive area of minority-state relations in which competing constructions of bodily protection are at play. Whilst maternal and infant care has historically formed part of the state’s strategy to govern the population, it is increasingly being seized as a point of intervention by Haredi rabbis, doulas, and parents when attempting to reproduce the Haredi social body.
Following Roberto Esposito’s (2015 [2002]) theoretical elaboration of ‘immunitas’ the present work depicts the margins as giving rise to antonymic conceptions of ‘immunity’ as a means of protecting collective life. Interventions that the state regard as protecting the health of the nation can, in turn, be viewed as a threat to the life of the Jewish social body. Immunity at the margins can be characterised by an antonymic fault of both the Haredim and the state to understand each other’s expectations of health and bodily care. The margins of the state illustrate how responses to healthcare interventions can be entangled within a struggle of integration, insulation, and assimilation for minority groups in ways that are contiguous over time.
Abstract: Both engaging in and researching interreligious dialogue initiatives after the 2015 Paris attacks among people who associate strongly with Jewish and Muslim communal structures provides a valuable framework for considering one of the central puzzles in the sociology of religion, namely, social transformations that apply not only to the observed but also to the observer. However, scholarship on interreligious dialogue does not have any well-established research episteme from which to proceed analytically. Academic doxa places interreligious dialogue initiatives in the realm of the “practical” and at times doctrinal, but not the rigorously analytical. These initiatives are often referred to in the English-speaking world as “interfaith,” a word which encompasses a vast array of voluntarist encounters across time and space. The underlying assumption of the academy is that researching dialogue initiatives is a form of “action-research,” a results-oriented mode of scholarship constrained by the necessity to obtain “best practice,” which is of little prestige or value to academics and intellectuals (Bielo 2018: 28). Moreover, since these initiatives have thus far often involved top-down practices, receiving their impetus from the state or dominant religious structures, they have lacked societal legitimacy and therefore have been of little interest to sociology.
Abstract: Teacher and parent ratings of emotional and behavioural disorders were made for children aged 5-15 years in the strictly orthodox Jewish community in North London, on the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ; Goodman, 1997). We obtained 369 sets of teacher ratings and 226 parent ratings. Our parent ratings generally reflected less disturbance than did parent ratings in the national samples reported by Meltzer and colleagues (Meltzer, Gatward, Corbin, Goodman, & Ford, 2003; Meltzer, Gatward, Goodman, & Ford, 2000). Our teacher ratings reflected similar levels of disturbance to teacher ratings in the national sample, except that the older boys in this sample were rated as more disturbed by their teachers. Teacher ratings of disturbance were associated with perceived Special Educational Needs (SENs), and it was noted that statutory remedial help was said to be needed particularly urgently for older boys. In this community there is negligible statutory educational funding and remedial support for older boys is said to be particularly under-resourced. The strictly orthodox Jewish community is characterized by large family size and high levels of economic deprivation, and it might be expected that there would be high levels of associated emotional and behavioural disorders. The relatively low levels of behaviour disturbance found were suggested to be the result of moderating factors such as high levels of family cohesion, social support and religiosity.
Abstract: London Jewish women were sampled from “middle-” and “ultra”orthodox synagogue membership lists, and measures of well-being and distress, together with information on demographic and other factors, were obtained from 121 of them. For the whole sample, correlates of depression and well-being related to the wife-and-mother roles, and generally resembled the correlates that have been found in other groups of women, although the Jewish women with fewer dependent children were the more depressed. The two groups of women differed on a number of demographic characteristics, which might explain the slightly lower levels of distress and dissatisfaction in the ultraorthodox. For the middle-orthodox group, happiness relates to marriage, whereas for the ultraorthodox, happiness relates to integration into their community
