Abstract: This paper examines the discourse around anti-Semitism in Germany since 2000. The discourse makes use of the figure of the Jew for national security purposes (i.e. via the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the trope of the “dangerous Muslim”) and the politics of national identity. The article introduces the concept of the “War on Anti-Semitism”, an assemblage of policies about national belonging and security that are propelled primarily by white racial anxieties. While the War on Terror is fought against the Muslim Other, or the War on Drugs is fought against predominantly Latinx and Black communities, the War on Anti-Semitism is ostensibly fought on behalf of the racialized Jewish Other. The War on Anti-Semitism serves as a pretext justifying Germany's internal and external security measures by providing a logic for the management of non-white migration in an ethnically diverse yet white supremacist Europe.
In 2000, a new citizenship law fundamentally changed the architecture of belonging and im/migration by replacing the old Wilhelminian jus sanguinis (principle of blood) with a jus soli (principle of residency). In the wake of these changes and the resulting racial anxiety about Germanness, state sponsored civil-society educational programs to fight anti-Semitism emerged, targeting predominantly Muslim non-/citizens. These education programs were developed alongside international debates around the War on Terror and what came to be called “Israel-oriented anti-Semitism” in Germany (more commonly known as “Muslim anti-Semitism”).
Triangulated through the enduring legacy of colonial racialization, the Jew and the Muslim are con/figured as enemies in socio-political German discourses. This analysis of the War on Anti-Semitism has serious implications for our understanding of “New Europe”. By focusing on the figure of the Jew and the Muslim, the implications of this work transcend national borders and stress the important connection between fantasy, power, and racialization in Germany and beyond.
Abstract: In June 2020, Black Lives Matter UK (BLM-UK) posted a series of tweets in which they endorsed the pro-Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. Calling for ‘targeted sanctions in line with international law against Israel’s colonial, apartheid regime,’ one tweet claimed that ‘mainstream British politics is gagged of the right to critique Zionism’. The tweets were seen by some to be antisemitic and resulted in the English Premier League, the BBC and Sky Sports, which had hitherto been supportive of the Black Lives Matter protests, distance themselves from the Black Lives Matter movement. One month later, during the BLM protests in the USA, Black NFL player DeSean Jackson posted material to his Instagram story that was also viewed as antisemitic. This article unpacks, via these two sports-based incidents, the relationship between anti-racism, antisemitism, and anti-Zionism. I discuss how these tensions are not new, but a clear echo of the tensions that existed in the 1960s and 1970s during the height of the Civil Rights Movement; these tensions continue because the foundational issues remain unchanged. These two incidents raise important questions about how sports organisations operate in a world where sport is seen as ‘apolitical’ and strive for ‘neutrality’ but fail to recognise sport is political and that a position of neutrality cannot be successfully achieved. The article assesses the challenges that arise when sports organisations, and their athletes, choose to engage in a certain kind of sport politics.
Abstract: The brutal, racist murder of George Floyd on 25 May 2020 sparked a reckoning about the treatment of Black people all over the world, and the undeniable reality of systemic racism and discrimination in societies on both sides of the Atlantic. We vociferously expressed our concerns about this at the time. However, we realised that we needed to go further. No community is immune from the scourge of prejudice and ours is no exception. As society as a whole sought to examine racial diversity, the Board of Deputies became aware of moving and concerning testimonies of Black members of our own community about their experiences.
As such, we launched this Commission to learn more about the experiences of Black Jews, Jews of Colour and Sephardi, Mizrahi and Yemenite Jews, to examine the issues and make recommendations for how our community can do better. We were delighted that the eminent journalist of Black and Jewish heritage, Stephen Bush, agreed to Chair the Commission.
The report’s release in the week that George Floyd’s murderer has been found guilty, and on this year’s Stephen Lawrence Day, feels particularly poignant, especially given the Commission’s many references to the Macpherson report into the murder of Stephen Lawrence.
Our Commission has considered 17 different areas of communal life, and the ground-breaking report makes 119 recommendations, with profound implications for British Jewry. Among them are the following:
Representative bodies and organisations involved in rabbinic training should encourage members of under-represented ethnic groups to put themselves forward for communal roles
Jewish schools should ensure that their secular curriculum engages with Black history, enslavement and the legacy of colonialism, and review their curriculum through a process led by students, particularly those who define as Black or of Colour
Jewish studies departments should ensure that their teaching celebrates and engages with the racial and cultural diversity of the Jewish community worldwide, including Mizrahi, Sephardi and Yemenite tradition
Communal institutions, particularly synagogues and schools, should commemorate key dates for diverse parts of the community, like the Ethiopian Jewish festival of Sigd and the official Day to Mark the Departure and Expulsion of Jews from the Arab Countries and Iran (30th November)
Schools and youth movements should improve training for teachers and youth leaders on tackling racist incidents
Communal bodies and Jewish schools should establish regular listening exercises that seek the concerns of their members or students
Communal bodies should ensure that complaints processes are accessible, transparent, fair and robust, with all complaints related to racism handled according to the Macpherson principle, and specific new processes for handling complaints about security
Communal venues should ensure that their security guards or volunteers desist from racial profiling
Communal venues should institute bag searches for all visitors, including regular attendees, so as not to stigmatise people who look different, without compromising on security
A code of conduct should be developed for discourse on social media, making clear that attempts to delegitimise converts, calling people names such as ‘Kapo’, or using Yiddish terms such as ‘Shvartzer’ in a racist way, are completely unacceptable
Batei Din should improve processes for conversion, including stricter vetting of teachers and host families, and a clearer process for complaints
Abstract: Restitution for the mostly Jewish property and assets that were confiscated by the Nazis during World War II (WWII) in various European states has been a highly debated issue ever since the end of the war. Countries that adhered to the ideas of communism and nationalisation of property in the immediate aftermath of the war failed to address this issue until very recently. Serbia, too, has only began to consider remedying the incredible damage done to its rather small Jewish community. More specifically, in the past decade, Serbia has been trying to repair the damage by passing a series of restitution laws which eventually led to separate legislation on heirless property. This paper explores the substance and application of these laws, as well as the history of discrimination based on which the Serbian Jewish community was persecuted by German occupiers and their collaborators. In doing so, through the lens of Critical Race Theory (CRT), this paper identifies another group that has been persecuted on the basis of race, namely the Romani. What follows from such research is the following: firstly, the law allowed for discrimination on a racial basis of both Jews and Roma during WWII and, secondly, the law is now remedying the damages caused towards the former group, but not the latter. In conclusion, this paper suggests that such a distinction is made due to a possible interest convergence, as defined by CRT.
Abstract: The more than a million, mostly Muslim, arrivals in the European Union in recent years have given mainstream politicians an opportunity to generate and exploit the public racist, xenophobic and ultra-nationalist urges of the sort that had previously been the exclusive preserve of the extreme right. This successful vote-getting strategy hingeS on disassociating ethno-religious hatred, which Islamophobia is, from its most stigmatized example in Europe: antisemitism. Nowhere has this process been clearer than in Hungary, infamous for ‘solving’ the migration crisis by erecting a wire fence along its borders. Viktor Orbán and his ruling Fidesz party have stolen the racist thunder of the far-right Jobbik party, but without the latter’s once open antisemitism. Jobbik has responded by also seemingly renouncing antisemitism, ignoring the protests of its more die-hard neo-Nazi supporters. Kalmar’s article focuses on the government’s use of a conspiracy theory about the Jewish financier George Soros as an example of exploiting antisemitism while claiming to oppose it. It suggests that the process of rejecting antisemitism, if disingenuously, in order to legitimize Islamophobic racism in Hungary is a useful model for examining similar processes in much of the Euro-Atlantic world.
Abstract: The question as posed is a challenge, not only to those who assigned it as a theme to be explored, and not only to those who expect to answer it, but also to all of Europe in which anti-Semitism persistently continues to show its face half a century after the closing of the Death Camps. Five decades separate us from the last days of the Gas Chambers and of the Crematoria, and still the embers of hatred for Jews, for "The Despised Other", smoulder beneath the surface of post-World War II Europe, erupting spasmodically from Madrid to Moscow. The question as phrased is a direct challenge to all of European heritage precisely because it contains its own answer, an answer no one desires to express or hear, for it embodies a confession of a fundamental flaw in the fraying tapestry that is Europe today after Bosnia. To give voice to the answer, however circuitously, would be to confront head on the centrifugal danger that, if not neutralised, could unravel the process of European unification and integration. The question as put is a classic example of a rhetorical query of a combined question and answer: thus "Why is it so?" implies, at the same time, "Hatred for Jews did not die in Auschwitz; it was not even mortally wounded". The only question remaining is: "How forthright will the attempt to examine the answer be?" Not how accurate, but how honest? Unavoidably it will be accusatory and, quite possibly, offensive. As one performs cultural vivisection of that which was, still is, and, most probably, will continue to be an attribute of a Europe chronically infected by the virus of continuing anti-Semitism, there has to be, of necessity, a shocked response. Hence the underlying tension of the topic for which the messenger is all too often blamed.
Abstract: Emma was born in 1956. Her parents survived the Holocaust with the help of false documents and their Slavic appearance – goes the family legend. Emma was brought up by her parents, according to communist principles. She is already 17 when she first learns from her aunt that she is Jewish. She meets her husband, Ben, a Nigerian, in 1976, and they leave for Nigeria. A year later Emma returns alone, pregnant, and from then on, her relationship with Ben is almost completely cut off. In 1990, Emma sends her child to a Jewish school. The analysis of the narrative interview reveals that for Emma, the meaning of choosing a stranger from a different culture was to get rid of a stigma. The presence of the colored child born from the relationship comforts her – if she manages to hide the Jewishness of the child, this covers her Jewishness as well. Along with this, she seems to be trying to protect her son from her identity problem: the color of his skin gives clear evidence of who he is and where he comes from. A decade later, she changes her strategy: now she wants the hidden stigma to be revealed and seen. And once more she uses her son to achieve this: if her son attends a Jewish school, he becomes Jewish. And if he is Jewish, that means that she too is Jewish.
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: A kutatás az Eötvös Loránd Tudományegyetem (ELTE) Szociálpszichológia Tanszékének vezetésével, a Social Development Institute és a Political Capital részvételével, a Foundation „Remembrance, Responsibility, and Future” (EVZ Alapítvány) támogatásával valósult meg 2017-ben. A projekt három célt kívánt elérni: 1) beazonosítani a romaellenesség és az antiszemitizmus sajátos, a társadalmi, politikai, gazdasági és pszichológiai tényezők által kiváltott mechanizmusait; 2) kiértékelni az előítéletek csökkentését célzó projekteket (intervenciókat); valamint 3) javaslatokat megfogalmazni a romaellenességgel és az antiszemitizmussal szembeni hatékony fellépéssel kapcsolatban. A projekt során a résztvevő szervezetek meta-analízist készítettek az antiszemitizmussal és romaellenességgel kapcsolatos már publikált vagy a jövőben megjelenő munkák alapján, feldolgozták a rendelkezésre álló nemzetközi adatbázisokat, valamint értékelték a létező projekteket, intervenciókat. Sor került továbbá egy online kérdőíves felmérésre is, hogy teszteljük a cigányellenességet és antiszemitizmust magyarázó változók közti kapcsolatokat.
Abstract: Stereotypy o Romech a Židech v české společnosti. Jaké jsou a jak s nimi pracovat?
Jak funguje vzdělávání proti předsudkům v českých školách a jaké jsou příklady dobré praxe?
Tým ze Sociologického ústavu Akademie věd na datech z posledních let ukázal, jak jsou v české společnosti rozšířené stereotypy o Romech a Židech. Jedním ze zjištění je, že menší předsudky vůči Romům mají lidé, kteří se s nějakými Romy osobně znají.
Škola je jedním z nejdůležitějších míst, kde je možné pozitivně ovlivnit postoje mladých lidí. Tým Ústavu pro studium totalitních režimů se proto ptal učitelů a lektorů, jaké jsou jejich zkušenosti se vzděláváním k toleranci. Nabízíme doporučení, jak pomoci školám efektivně oslabovat předsudky.
Zjistili jsme, že předpokladem úspěchu je spolupráce celé školy. Další úspěšnou strategií je podpora setkávání žáků z různých sociálních skupin. Je rovněž třeba podporovat vzdělávání učitelů tak, aby dokázali ve třídě zvládat debatu o kontroverzních tématech.
Výsledky výzkumu jsme shrnuli do závěrečné zprávy, v níž najdete:
Kvalitativní i kvantitativní shrnutí současné praxe vzdělávání pro toleranci, realizovaných programů a jejich podpory.
Naše doporučení pro donory, jak efektivněji nastavit projektovou podporu, a pro školy a pedagogy, jak s předsudky ve škole lépe pracovat.
Rozsáhlou studii o postojích české společnosti vůči Romům a Židům.
Abstract: #AtmintisAtsakomybeAteitis
Atmintis. Atsakomybė. Ateitis. Tai yra nuoseklūs laiptai, vedantys link realių teigiamų pokyčių
visuomenėje. Demokratijos ir tolerancijos ateitis priklauso nuo atminties ir prisiimtos atsakomybės,
leidžiančių žengti toliau. Žingsnis į ateitį – apžvelgus, įvertinus ir pasirėmus geriausių iniciatyvų prieš
diskriminaciją patirtimi – toks yra šio projekto tikslas.
Nuosekliai dirbant žmogaus teisių užtikrinimo ir tolerancijos sklaidos bei švietimo srityje Lietuvos žydų
Lietuvos žydų (litvakų) bendruomenė subūrė ekspertų grupę iš Lietuvos žmogaus teisių ekspertų,
bendruomenių aktyvistų, akademinės visuomenės atstovų ir užsienio ekspertų. Ši grupė ėmėsi ambicingos
užduoties - kurti veiksmingas ir kokybiškas rekomendacijas dėl veiksmų, kovojant su antisemitizmu ir
romafobija Lietuvoje.
Inicijavusi tyrimus ir remdamasi jų rezultatais, pasitelkusi mokslinius darbus bei geruosius pavyzdžius,
analizuoti projektai ir socialines iniciatyvos, prisidėjusios prie ksenofobijos apraiškų mažinimo Lietuvos
visuomenėje. Grupė ekspertų ruošė rekomendacijas ir išvadas, apie veiksmus, kurie geriausiai pasiekia
tikslines grupes ir turi esminį poveikį, skleidžiant toleranciją, keičiant visuomenės požiūrį į žydų bei romų
tautines bendruomenes, bei integruojant pažeidžiamiausias grupes į visuomenę.
Naujosios rekomendacijos teikiamos EVZ fondui ir viešinamos Europos sąjungos lygmeniu.
Šių rekomendacijų pagrindu EVZ fondas formuos tolimesnių programų gaires, kovojant su antisemitizmo,
romafobijos ir ksenofobijos apraiškomis Europos šalyse. Jomis vadovaujantis, bus siekiama efektyviai
šalinti Lietuvos visuomenėje netoleranciją skatinančius stereotipus, mažinti atskirtį tarp etninių sluoksnių,
užkirsti kelią įvairioms neapykantos „kitokiems“ apraiškoms.
Projektą lydėjo informacinė kampanija #AtmintisAtsakomybeAteitis socialiniuose tinkluose, ruošti
straipsniai Lietuvos žiniasklaidoje, įvairūs renginiai, orientuoti į visuomenės švietimą apie tragišką žydų ir
romų patirtį Holokausto metu ir sklaidantys ksenofobinius mitus.
Sukurtos rekomendacijos pristatytos baigiamojoje tarptautinėje konferencijoje, skirtoje paminėti
tarptautinę dieną prieš fašizmą ir antisemitizmą. Konferencija bei kiti renginiai padėjo plėtoti efektyvų valdžios institucijų ir nevyriausybinio sektoriaus dialogą, pasidalinti patirtimi ir rekomendacijomis, siekiant
užtikrinti tautinių bendruomenių teisių ir laisvių įtvirtinimą bei įgyvendinimą, demokratinių procesų ir
pilietinės visuomenės Lietuvoje stiprinimą ir tolerancijos sklaidą.
Lietuvos žydų (litvakų) bendruomenė projektą vykdė kartu su partneriais:
Romų visuomenės centras
Lietuvos žmogaus teisių centras
Moterų informacijos centras
Projektą „Rekomendacijų dėl veiksmų kovojant su antisemitizmu ir romafobija Lietuvoje, paruošimas ir
viešinimas“ rėmė:
EVZ fondas (Vokietija). („Erinnerung, Verantwortung, Zukunft“ vok. – tai „Atmintis, Atsakomybė,
Ateitis“ liet). Fondas remia sistemingus ir ilgalaikius tyrimus, analizuojančius romų ir žydų diskriminavimą
bei marginalizaciją Europoje.
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: La Fondazione Centro di Documentazione Ebraica Contemporanea e Ipsos hanno realizzato un’indagine volta ad indagare quali siano oggi le opinioni ed i sentimenti degli Italiani nei confronti degli ebrei: apertura/chiusura, possibili stereotipi diffusi, fino ad arrivare al misurare la presenza o meno di un vero e proprio antisemitismo.
L’indagine si inserisce all’interno di un quadro conoscitivo da parte dell’Osservatorio antisemitismo del CDEC già molto articolato, approfondito e ricco di indagini passate sia di natura qualitativa che quantitativa, sebbene – soprattutto quelle quantitative – siano un po’ datate nel tempo.
L’obiettivo di CDEC è stato dunque quello di disporre di un’indagine di scenario aggiornata, caratterizzata da una solida metodologia di rilevazione e che possa diventare un punto di partenza anche per monitoraggi periodici che vadano a costruire una sorta di «barometro dell’intolleranza».
Affrontare un tema come quello delle opinioni nei confronti di gruppi etnici o religiosi specifici, espone ai rischi della cosiddetta desiderabilità sociale, cioè al fatto che gli intervistati più difficilmente esprimono direttamente posizioni critiche o negative su temi come questo. In sostanza, sapendo che le proprie opinioni possono essere oggetto di riprovazione sociale, si tende a non esprimerle se non addirittura a mascherarle.
E’ apparso opportuno quindi far precedere il set di domande dedicate al tema specifico, da alcune domande utili a classificare gli intervistati in termini di apertura più generale nei confronti del mondo e verso «l’altro» e il «diverso», già sperimentate e validate da Ipsos in altre indagini su temi analoghi con un approfondimento sul tema dell’immigrazione: al netto dei rischi terroristici, respingimento o accoglienza? Gli immigrati sono un problema per il nostro stile di vita?
Abstract: During the course of her fieldwork in Paris, anthropologist Kimberly Arkin heard what she thought was a surprising admission. A French-born, North African Jewish (Sephardi) teenage girl laughingly told Arkin she was a racist. When asked what she meant by that, the girl responded, "It means I hate Arabs."
This girl was not unique. She and other Sephardi youth in Paris insisted, again and again, that they were not French, though born in France, and that they could not imagine their Jewish future in France. Fueled by her candid and compelling informants, Arkin's analysis delves into the connections and disjunctures between Jews and Muslims, religion and secular Republicanism, race and national community, and identity and culture in post-colonial France. Rhinestones argues that Sephardi youth, as both "Arabs" and "Jews," fall between categories of class, religion, and culture. Many reacted to this liminality by going beyond religion and culture to categorize their Jewishness as race, distinguishing Sephardi Jews from "Arab" Muslims, regardless of similarities they shared, while linking them to "European" Jews (Ashkenazim), regardless of their differences. But while racializing Jewishness might have made Sephardi Frenchness possible, it produced the opposite result: it re-grounded national community in religion-as-race, thereby making pluri-religious community appear threatening. Rhinestones thus sheds light on the production of race, alienation, and intolerance within marginalized French and European populations.
Abstract: This study examines the multiple and conflicting ways in which German national identity is spatially expressed through the material and metaphor of the human body. In particular, it describes the various gendered, sexed, and raced constructions of Germany, as they emerged in the capital city of Berlin since 1989. Based on two ethnographic case studies situated in neighboring urban environments, the Love Parade and the Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe, the author shows how bodily representations of post-1989 Germany are fluctuating between the sexualized, demasculinized celebration of multiculturalism and the repeatedly racist, masculinist and even anti-Semitic reconstruction of German nationhood. While the German government is making active efforts to situate the future Berlin Republic within a network of increasingly integrated European nation states, and is involved in sponsoring both the Love Parade and the MMJE, social movements in Berlin are actively supporting and contesting such politics. It is this struggle between government efforts and grassroots politics, and the role of the human body in the political process of constructing collective identities that this book ultimately explores.
Topics: Synagogues, Ethnography, Race, Racism, Ethnicity, Diversity, Pluralism, Conflict, Bukharian Jews, Mountain Jews, Main Topic: Identity and Community
Abstract: The prevalence of anti-Semitism in Russia is well known, but the issue of race within the Jewish community has rarely been discussed explicitly. Combining ethnography with archival research, Jewish Russians: Upheavals in a Moscow Synagogue documents the changing face of the historically dominant Russian Jewish community in the mid-1990s. Sascha Goluboff focuses on a Moscow synagogue, now comprising individuals from radically different cultures and backgrounds, as a nexus from which to explore issues of identity creation and negotiation. Following the rapid rise of this transnational congregation—headed by a Western rabbi and consisting of Jews from Georgia and the mountains of Azerbaijan and Dagestan, along with Bukharan Jews from Central Asia—she evaluates the process that created this diverse gathering and offers an intimate sense of individual interactions in the context of the synagogue's congregation.
Challenging earlier research claims that Russian and Jewish identities are mutually exclusive, Goluboff illustrates how post-Soviet Jews use Russian and Jewish ethnic labels and racial categories to describe themselves. Jews at the synagogue were constantly engaged in often contradictory but always culturally meaningful processes of identity formation. Ambivalent about emerging class distinctions, Georgian, Russian, Mountain, and Bukharan Jews evaluated one another based on each group's supposed success or failure in the new market economy. Goluboff argues that post-Soviet Jewry is based on perceived racial, class, and ethnic differences as they emerge within discourses of belonging to the Jewish people and the new Russian nation.
