Abstract: What drives antisemitic hostility in the 21st century? Competing theoretical frameworks provide different answers: the generalist framework views antisemitism as a manifestation of general outgroup hostility common to various
forms of prejudice, while the particularist framework posits that antisemitism today is distinctively linked to antizionist sentiment—enmity toward Zionism, Israel, and its supporters. This study evaluates these frameworks through a comparative, longitudinal case study of antisemitic hostility in Germany, Sweden, and Russia (1990–2020), using a mixed-methods approach to integrate incident counts, victimization surveys, media analysis, and expert interviews. Findings suggest that the particularist framework better explains observed patterns of variation in antisemitic hostility, with flare-ups in the Middle East conflict generating or catalyzing antisemitic hostility in other societies depending on the strength of local antizionist sentiment. The results support new directions
in prejudice research that differentiate between generalized and group-specific forms of hostility, where the latter are highly context-dependent.
Abstract: From an intercultural perspective, this article explores majority/minority and between minorities interactions, and revisits Allport’s contact theory, in a socially and ethnically diverse urban area hosting a large proportion of Jews and Muslims. The data comes from a telephone survey of a sample of inhabitants of the 19th arrondissement of Paris. Open and closed questions explore the symbolic social and political boundaries respondents construct between ‘us’ and ‘them’, and their patterns of sociability. Survey experiments with vignettes deal with more sensitive issues (reactions to circulating cartoons at school and police reactions to verbal assault, according to the ethnicity of the victim). The immediate social and ethnic surrounding of each respondent is reconstructed on the basis of census and ethnographic data. The results go against several common beliefs. Religion is not the only dimension of respondents’ identity; it intersects with social class, gender and generation. The relations between Jews and Muslims are not so much conflictual as ambivalent. Being minorities and feeling discriminated against as such brings them together. They both are more religious than the majority population, more traditional on sexual issues and more family-oriented, and most of them consider that Jews and Muslims have a common cultural heritage and should be united against discrimination. Nevertheless, there are friction points (Israeli-Palestinian conflict/the colonial past of France). Politically and socially Muslims are closer to the non-European immigrants, while Jews are closer to the French and the European-born ‘white’ population. Antisemitism is a clear taboo; anti-Jewish cartoons are seen as far more reprehensible than any other. But a majority of the sample, and Muslims a little more than average, see Jews as a ‘group apart’, and believe in the old stereotype about Jews having more influence, being more likely, for instance, to be helped by the police if needed.
Abstract: Introduction: Amid escalating global antisemitism, particularly following the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, this study addresses critical gaps in understanding the psychosocial impact of antisemitism on Jewish communities worldwide.
Methods: Focusing on the Jewish community in Germany, we conducted a cross-sectional survey of 420 Jewish individuals (mean age = 40.71 years, SD = 15.90; 57% female). Participants completed measures assessing four distinct forms of perceived and experienced antisemitism: everyday discrimination, microaggressions (subtle antisemitism and collective experiences such as encountering antisemitic comments on social media), vigilance against antisemitism, and perceived prevalence of antisemitism. Psychosocial outcomes—including depression, anxiety, subjective well-being, and social participation—were also measured. Data were analyzed using correlation analyses and multiple linear regressions, and Latent Profile Analysis (LPA) identified distinct groups based on shared perceptions and experiences of antisemitism and levels of Jewish identification.
Results: Results indicate that experiences of antisemitism, particularly everyday discriminatory acts, were significantly associated with poorer mental health outcomes and reduced social participation. The LPA revealed three distinct groups, with the high-identity, high-antisemitism group (53% of the sample) reporting significantly higher anxiety levels than those with average identification and more rare experience with antisemitism.
Discussion: These findings underscore the pervasive nature of antisemitism and its detrimental effects on the well-being of Jewish individuals. The study highlights the need for targeted interventions to promote resilience within Jewish communities and calls for broader societal efforts to combat antisemitism.
Abstract: The article engages with institutionalized German anti-anti-Semitism in recent debates about the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict. To elucidate Germany's raison d’état, current silencing of political dissent and drawing on Stuart Hall's notion of “conjuncture,” the first step is to sketch the dynamics of memory politics after the Holocaust: the silence of the postwar period, the student movement's struggle against bystanders and perpetrators, subsequent debates of representation, memorialization, trauma and finally the provincialization and nascent globalized memory (Conjunctures and the Politics of Memory). Articulating the aporias of current German (memory) politics between history and event, historical antecedents and singularity, particularity and universalism, in a second step the tensions between German raison d'état, anti-anti-Semitism and postcolonial perspectives are addressed that delimit the frameworks of negotiating anti-Semitism in the public sphere (Conjunctures and Aporias). In this sense, the remarks contribute to the critical debate on anti-anti-Semitism.
Abstract: CST recorded 3,528 antisemitic incidents in the UK in 2024, the second-highest total ever reported to CST in a single calendar year. This is a decrease of 18% from the 4,296 anti-Jewish hate incidents recorded by CST in 2023, which remains the record annual total ever reported, and was fuelled by responses to the 7 October terror attack by Hamas on Israel that year. CST recorded 1,662 antisemitic incidents in 2022, 2,261 in 2021, and 1,684 in 2020.
Although the 3,528 anti-Jewish hate incidents recorded in 2024 is a fall from the all-time high of 2023, it remains an unusually large total: 56% higher than the third-highest annual figure of 2,261 incidents reported in 2021. It is a reflection of the sustained levels of antisemitism that have been recorded across the UK since the Hamas terror attack in Israel on 7 October 2023. CST’s Antisemitic Incidents Report 2023 charted the immediacy and scope of the rise in anti-Jewish hate following that attack, before Israel had set in motion any extensive military response in Gaza. The subsequent ongoing war, and the public attention that it continues to hold, impacted both the volume and content of antisemitism in 2024.
Abstract: Current approach to tackling antisemitism not working, our report with the Birkbeck Institute for the Study of Antisemitism shows.
Antisemitism is deeply embedded into our common culture; it exists as a reservoir of racist stereotypes and narratives about Jewish people, which are normalised and widespread. Antisemitic incidents have spiked over the last year, particularly in response to the events of October 7th 2023 and the ongoing violence in Gaza. Yet, discussions around antisemitism have become highly politicised in ways that have been detrimental to Jewish communities’ safety and wellbeing.
Particularly damaging is the fact that these politicised discussions have inhibited the possibility of forging anti-racist solidarities with other communities that have been subject to the rise in far-right violence, and to the mainstreaming of racist rhetoric and policies.
Facing antisemitism highlights that:
Antisemitism is hardwired into UK society;
Current methods of defining, measuring and reacting to it are deeply contested and politicised;
The arguments that anti-Zionism always equates to antisemitism prevents meaningful and productive action to eradicate antisemitism in the UK;
Like other forms of racism, antisemitism in the UK consists of hateful attitudes and individual incidents but also institutional and structural racism;
The UK must move beyond framing and discussing antisemitism in ways that pit communities against one another, prohibit solidarity and encourage division;
Combating antisemitism must be undertaken as part of wider anti-racist initiatives, including building alliances with other racialised minorities.
The Runnymede Trust urgently calls for a different approach to combating antisemitism, including from the government and wider anti-racist organisations.
Abstract: Currently, Jewish and Muslim communities can be found as ethno-cultural minorities both in Berlin, the capital of Germany, and in the surrounding state of Brandenburg. While they sometimes differ greatly in religious and cultural life, both communities also share similar experiences - such as the (former) existence as immigrants, the image of the “cultural other” and the confrontation with group-related misanthropy (anti-Semitism and Islamophobia). Moreover, there are Jewish-Muslim encounters, there are forms of encounter between Muslims and Jews in the region, in different milieus and intercultural and interreligious projects that appear as a kind of “experimental laboratory”. Though, what are the differences, what are the similarities between the two groups? Finally, this article also relates to how October 7th 2023, Hamas’ brutal massacres of Israeli civilians and the subsequent war in the Gaza Strip influence relationships between Muslims and Jews in Berlin and Brandenburg today.
Abstract: The dissertation explores anti-Jewish racism as a structural phenomenon inherent to Swedish society. While research often has separated the study of anti-Jewish racism/antisemitism from other racisms, this dissertation is located within the field of critical race studies to explore anti-Jewish racism as part of larger social and racialised structures.
The study is theoretically framed by a feminist and antiracist gaze that locates Sweden and constructions of “Swedishness” at the core of the analysis, enabling a perspective on anti-Jewish racism as a relational and dynamic social phenomenon. Methodologically the study is inspired by a qualitative tradition, situated at the crossroads of in-depth interviews with self-identified Jews on experiences of anti-Jewish racism and Jewish identity, discourse analysis of media debates, film analysis, and participant observations.
The dissertation explores the entanglements of anti-Jewish racism with notions of “Swedish exceptionalism”, “Swedish gender equality”, the categories of Protestantism and secularism, and racism against other “Others” within what is referred to as the Swedish racial regime. By doing so, the thesis expands the field of critical race studies in Sweden to incorporate an analysis of anti-Jewish racism as a social phenomenon, but also develops a critical analysis of the Swedish racial regime through a specific focus of anti-Jewish racism.
The study illuminates that migration from the Global South is often portrayed within hegemonic discourses as a racist threat against Jews, obscuring Swedish anti-Jewish racism. At the same time, the important demographical shifts that have occurred in Sweden due to this migration have rendered Jews “whiter” in relative terms, and the pressure to adapt to Protestant-secular norms of Swedish “sameness” has decreased, opening up for demands of recognition and Jewish visibility. However, Protestant-secular norms regulating Swedish society confer the category of Jews to a position of conditional “Swedishness”, with public display of Jewishness creating instances of Swedish white discomfort. Thus, the category of Jews embodies a position of ambivalence in the Swedish racial regime, subjected to processes of racialisation but also relative racial privilege. Moreover, this ambiguity occurs in a context of a dynamic of “care” towards the Jewish “Other”, shaped through the perceived threat of the Muslim “Other”, partly reducing the category of Jews to a position of victimhood, while producing an image of Sweden as a progressive and “tolerant” nation, disavowing the ongoing exclusion of those categorised as “different” from Swedish Protestant secularism.
The dissertation suggests that challenging the demands for Swedish “sameness” and the dismantling of hegemonic and racist notions of “Swedishness” would open up for greater possibilities of lives beyond racism.
Topics: Antisemitism, Antisemitism: Attitude Surveys, Antisemitism: Christian, Antisemitism: Definitions, Antisemitism: Discourse, Antisemitism: Education against, Antisemitism: Far right, Antisemitism: Left-Wing, Antisemitism: Monitoring, Antisemitism: Muslim, Antisemitism: New Antisemitism, Antisemitism: Online, Internet, Jewish Perceptions of Antisemitism, Attitudes to Jews, Anti-Zionism, Israel Criticism, Main Topic: Antisemitism, Methodology, Social Media
Abstract: This open access book is the first comprehensive guide to identifying antisemitism online today, in both its explicit and implicit (or coded) forms. Developed through years of on-the-ground analysis of over 100,000 authentic comments posted by social media users in the UK, France, Germany and beyond, the book introduces and explains the central historical, conceptual and linguistic-semiotic elements of 46 antisemitic concepts, stereotypes and speech acts. The guide was assembled by researchers working on the Decoding Antisemitism project at the Centre for Research on Antisemitism at Technische Universität Berlin, building on existing basic definitions of antisemitism, and drawing on expertise in various fields. Using authentic examples taken from social media over the past four years, it sets out a pioneering step-by-step approach to identifying and categorising antisemitic content, providing guidance on how to recognise a statement as antisemitic or not. This book will be an invaluable tool through which researchers, students, practitioners and social media moderators can learn to recognise contemporary antisemitism online – and the structural aspects of hate speech more generally – in all its breadth and diversity.
Abstract: Since 7th October 2023, the date when Hamas perpetrated the worst and most murderous single massacre against Jews since the Holocaust, there has been a surge in antisemitism in UK universities. This report offers a summary of research by the Intra-Community Professorial Group (ICPG) about antisemitism at UK universities since the 7th October attacks, aimed at understanding and documenting problems on and off campus and proposing evidence-based solutions to address them.
Key findings include:
1. There has been up to 34 percentage points increase in rates of antisemitic abuse in universities since Oct 7th. These include physical attacks, threats of rape, violence, verbal abuse, harassment, and use of Nazi imagery.
2. Jewish students are withdrawing from all aspects of university life, including lecture theatres and seminar rooms,
online learning spaces, social activities, and entire areas of campus. More than half of respondents reported being
fearful of being on campus, and three quarters being uncomfortable to be open about their Jewish identity. The
consequential impact on their ability to participate in university life, let alone their mental and physical health, is
profound.
3. There is compelling evidence that some universities are failing in their responsibility to adequately safeguard
Jewish students from verbal abuse and physical attack.
Abstract: In this report:
This landmark report looks at how the October 7 attacks on Israel and the war in Gaza have impacted the British Jewish community one year on. The report demonstrates the profound impact the events of the last year have had on Jews in the UK by analysing the responses of over 4,500 adult British Jews to the JPR Jewish Current Affairs Survey in July 2024 – the largest survey of British Jews since October 7, 2023.
Among other things, the report explores how the original Hamas attack and the subsequent war have affected how British Jews view Israel politically, how the public reaction to the conflict has affected Jews’ sense of security and trust in critical organisations in the UK, and how the conflict has impacted the Jewish lives of British Jews – their connections to Israel and the Jewish community. The findings also form the basis for the second series of the JPR/JW3 “Jews Do Count” podcast, available on the JPR website and all major platforms.
Some of the key findings in this report:
British Jews express far more concern today about the state of Israel’s democracy than they did fifteen or so years ago. Nevertheless, more still believe it to be alive and well today than do not, by 52% to 38%.
British Jews are more likely to agree than to disagree that the IDF is acting morally and according to international law, though we see much division in the responses. 50% of British Jews feel that the IDF military action against Hamas since October 7 has been unsuccessful
For all the division and criticism, British Jews are still more likely to have felt proud of Israel than ashamed since October 7.
Just 54% of Jews in the UK agree that a two-state solution is the only way Israel will achieve peace with its neighbours, compared to 77% who did so in 2010. Only about one in four (26%) British Jews think that most Palestinians want peace with Israel, compared to nearly half (47%) in 2010.
Nearly four in five British Jews say that they often feel that they are being held responsible by non-Jews for the actions of Israel’s government, with 43% ‘strongly agreeing’ with this statement.
Nearly half of British Jews (46%) say that antisemitism is ‘a very big problem’ in the UK today, compared to 28% in 2018 and only 11% in 2012. In total, 83% of British define antisemitism as a problem in Britain, the highest proportion found since records began over a decade ago.
Nearly three in four respondents say they feel less safe as a Jewish person living in the UK, and almost two in three adult British Jews said they feel less confident displaying their Jewishness since the October 7 attacks.
Although most British Jews report no overall change in this regard, substantial proportions of British Jews say that they feel closer to their Jewish friends since October 7 (39%) and less close to their non-Jewish friends (24%). The findings also suggest a notable increase in levels of attachment to their local Jewish community.
Attachment levels of British Jews to Israel were steady before October 7 but have risen significantly since then, with half of British Jews saying they are ‘very’ attached to Israel today (up from 40% in 2022).
About two in three British Jews (65%) identify as Zionist, up slightly compared to before October 7. 10% identify as anti-Zionist, also up slightly.
Levels of anxiety among British Jews are higher than they were before October 7 and are notably higher than they are among the general population of Britain.
There is no evidence to indicate Jews are leaving the UK in elevated numbers in the past year – on the contrary, emigration levels are generally low and stable and have been for several decades. At the same time, a slight change in sentiment around this issue has occurred over the past year, with many moving up one notch from wherever they were on it before October 7.
Abstract: This report draws on data collected in June and July 2024, eight months after the October 7 attacks on Israel and in the context of the war in Gaza, to explore Jewish parents' understanding of whether their children have experienced antisemitism either at school, in the vicinity of school, and travelling to and from school. The research goes further to investigate whether parents would make different choices about where to educate their Jewish children in light of the events of October 7, the war in Gaza and the rise in antisemitism in the UK.
This is part of a growing body of evidence demonstrating how antisemitism can drive Jews away from participation in wider society, and that should be of concern to anyone who cares about building a more cohesive and understanding society. The findings raise critical questions for mainstream school administrators about how to manage the issue of antisemitism in their schools and, indeed, for government leaders about social cohesion.
Some of the key findings in this report:
A little under a quarter (23%) of British Jewish parents surveyed reported that their child or children had experienced antisemitism at school (12%), in the vicinity of school (6%) or travelling to or from school (9%).
Parents of children at a Jewish school are more likely to report that their children experienced antisemitism while travelling to or from school (13%) than at school (3%).
In comparison, those with children at mainstream schools are more likely to report their children experienced antisemitism at school (21%) than travelling to/from it (2%).
Three-quarters (73%) of Jewish parents with children in mainstream schools said that the October 7 attacks and the war in Gaza would not affect their choice about where to educate the children, but one in five (20%) said they would now be more likely to send their children to a Jewish school.
This proportion doubles (40%) for parents whose children have experienced antisemitism in, around or travelling to or from their mainstream school.
Just over half of Jewish parents with children in Jewish schools (52%) said that the attacks on Israel and the war in Gaza would not affect their school choice, with most of the remainder (46%) saying they would be even more likely to opt for Jewish schooling now.
Abstract: CST recorded 1,978 antisemitic incidents across the UK in the first half of 2024, the highest total ever reported to CST in the first six months of any year. This is an increase of 105% from the 964 antisemitic incidents recorded by CST in the January-to-June period of 2023, which was the third-highest half year figure reported to CST. CST recorded 823 incidents in the first six months of 2022, 1,371 from January to June 2021, and 875 in the first half of 2020.
The 1,978 antisemitic incidents recorded in the first six months of 2024 is 44% higher than the previous half-year record of 1,371 incidents in 2021, and is a reflection of the ongoing high volume of anti-Jewish hate reported since the Hamas terror attack in Israel on 7 October 2023. As documented in CST’s Antisemitic Incidents Report 2023, there was an instant increase in antisemitic incident levels in the UK following Hamas’ attack on Israel, before Israel had coordinated any large scale military response in Gaza. The subsequent war, and the widespread public focus it has drawn, have continued to impact the scale and content of antisemitism so far this year.
Abstract: In several of Sjón’s works, there is a preoccupation with the Second World War, especially the issues and ideologies at stake in the run-up to the conflict and in its aftermath. This is evident, for instance, in his trilogy CoDex 1962 and in his most recent novel Korngult hár, grá augu (Red Milk). The issues addressed in these texts are, for instance, the fate of the Jewish immigrant in Iceland, and the peculiar circumstances of the rise of neo-Nazism in post-war Iceland. The memory of the war in Iceland is in many ways at odds with the narratives established elsewhere in Europe. The particular circumstances of the country—occupied by allied forces from 1940 onwards, with its concomitant incursion of modernity, urbanisation, and creation of wealth in what had historically been a very poor country—have greatly influenced how the war is memorialised, or more to the point rather, not memorialised in Iceland. This chapter looks at how Sjón’s novels engage with the ruling national narrative and go against that memory by telling an alternative history of the war, focussing on transnational and marginalised histories and cultures that historically have been ignored in Icelandic cultural memory.
Abstract: Federace židovských obcí v České republice (dále jen FŽO) zaznamenala v roce 2023 celkem 4 328 antisemitských incidentů. Ve srovnání s rokem 2022, kdy bylo registrováno 2 277 incidentů, tak došlo k nárůstu o 90 %. Rok 2023 tedy znovu potvrdil konstantní trend dramatického nárůstu antisemitismu.
Shromážděná data nejsou úplným statistickým přehledem všech antisemitských incidentů za rok 2023. FŽO čerpá informace výlučně z otevřených zdrojů, které zahrnují pouze malý výsek popisované reality. Počet registrovaných incidentů závisí rovněž na ochotě a možnostech obětí i svědků projevy antisemitismu hlásit. V České republice, stejně jako v jiných zemích, přetrvává nedostatečná míra nahlašování nenávistných činů, často kvůli stigmatizaci, nedůvěře v instituce nebo obavám o osobní bezpečnost. Statistiky FŽO neumí odpovědět na otázku, jaká část české populace smýšlí či jedná antisemitsky, vypovídají však o trendech v jeho vnímání a o společenském klimatu ve vztahu k protižidovské předsudečné nenávisti. K antisemitsky motivovanému fyzickému násilí dochází v České republice pouze výjimečně. V posledních pěti letech byly FŽO nahlášeny dva násilné útoky (2020, 2021). V roce 2023 nebylo evidováno žádné napadení. Z hlediska fyzické bezpečnosti zůstala v roce 2023 Česká republika pro židovskou komunitu bezpečnou zemí.
Témata, motivy a rychlost šíření antisemitismu ovlivňovala řada domácích a zahraničních událostí. Až do samého konce roku 2023 se objevovaly antisemitské narativy spojené s ruskou vojenskou agresí proti Ukrajině i s doznívající pandemií nemoci covid-19. Jednoznačným zlomem se stal 7. říjen 2023, kdy palestinské teroristické organizace pod vedením Hamásu zaútočily z Pásma Gazy proti civilním a vojenským cílům v jižním Izraeli. Bezprecedentní útok zahájil válku mezi Izraelem a Hamásem. Bezprostředně po 7. říjnu následovala celosvětová explozivní vlna antisemitismu, která silně zasáhla i Českou republiku.
Měsíční statistiky zcela jednoznačně dokládají masivní nárůst antisemitismu v posledním čtvrtletí roku 2023. Za období leden–září bylo registrováno 2 528 incidentů, tj. 58,41 % celkového počtu, za období říjen–prosinec pak dalších 1 800 incidentů, které představují 41,59 % celkového počtu. Pro období leden–září 2023 platí, že průměrný měsíční nárůst v porovnání s rokem 2022 činil 50,03 %. V období říjen–prosinec byl průměrný nárůst 254,32 %.
Z hlediska šíření antisemitismu došlo v posledních pěti letech k aktivizaci všech hlavních ideologických proudů. Do roku 2019 představoval největší hrozbu pro židovskou komunitu pravicový extremismus. V letech 2020–2023 v souvislosti s pandemií nemoci covid-19 a s ruskou agresí proti Ukrajině významně posílil vliv dezinformačních platforem. Po teroristickém útoku 7. října akcelerovaly aktivity krajní levice a islamismu. Protižidovská nenávist zejména v podobě démonizace a delegitimizace Státu Izrael v roce 2023 masivně vstoupila do veřejného prostoru a stala se společensky přijatelným postojem. Stoupala agresivita antisemitských incidentů, které byly čím dál častěji adresovány konkrétním osobám či institucím. Protižidovské postoje přejímalo a šířilo stále více jednotlivců, kteří jinak neprojevovali žádné sympatie k politickému či ideologickému extremismu. Závěr roku 2023 tak přinesl zcela nový trend normalizace antisemitismu.
Abstract: The Sixth Survey of European Jewish Community Leaders and Professionals, 2024, presents the results of an online survey offered in 10 languages and administered to 879 respondents in 31 countries. Conducted every three years using the same format, the survey seeks to identify trends and their evolution over time.
The 2024 survey came during a historically fraught moment for the Jewish people globally. The impact of the horrific October 7th attacks and the subsequent war in Israel cannot be understated. How is this affecting Jewish leadership and Jewish communal life? Therefore, in addition to the regular topics covered by the survey (community priorities, threats, security concerns, attitudes towards Europe and Israel), this edition included a special section designed to understand the impact of October 7th on Jewish life in Europe.
That October 7th has profoundly affected Jewish Europe is evident across multiple sections throughout the survey. Concern about antisemitism and the threat of physical attack has intensified. A large majority of 78% feel less safe living as Jews in their cities than they did before the Hamas attack, and respondents are more cautious about how they identify themselves as Jews. They are also more distant from their wider environments, with 38% reporting they have become more distant from non-Jewish friends.
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
