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Author(s): Phillips, Robert
Editor(s): Saleem, Adi
Date: 2024
Abstract: According to the Jewish Chronicle, on December 1, 2021, a group of Jewish bus passengers on their way to celebrate Chanukkah in London were attacked by a mob, spit upon, verbally abused, and subjected to Nazi salutes.1 Similarly, the monitoring group Tell MAMA reported that in the week after the Daily Telegraph published a column written by the then prime minister Boris Johnson, in which he compared Muslim women to “letterboxes” and “bank robbers,” Islamophobic incidents in the United Kingdom rose by 375 percent. In December 2019, a fourteen-­ year-­ old Muslim girl was violently attacked on her way home from school. The same month, a rabbi waiting in the Stamford Hill overground station was beaten by two men who shouted, “fucking Jew, dirty Jew” and “kill the Jews”; a month earlier a Jewish father and his two young sons were the targets of antisemitic abuse on the London Underground. While these forms of generalized Islamophobia and antisemitism have unfortunately become commonplace in the United Kingdom , there exists a largely unexamined form of antisemitic/Islamophobic violence perpetuated against LGBT Muslims and Jews—­ double minorities. In this chapter, I examine discourses present in the British print media that may contribute to a framing of LGBT Muslims and Jews in ways that can lead to the demonization of members of both communities. Robert Phillips My focus here is in the collective representation of double minorities by the British press. In choosing this focus, I should point out that those minorities who are the targets of harassment are targeted largely due to the saliency of their difference. As noted above, women wearing head or body coverings of any degree and men and boys wearing what are perceived to be “Muslim” or “Jewish” clothing or hairstyle (head coverings/payot) are often targeted. This includes Sikh men and boys wearing turbans, in that some may incorrectly identify them as Muslims. Because of outward appearance, many of the victims of these crimes may also be perceived to be observant in their faith and perhaps even threatening to national security and identity. This chapter is concerned with members of these communities who also identify as LGBT, positioning them as double minorities. As with members of other diasporic communities around the globe, LGBT Muslims and Jews have assumed unique types of identity forged through a combination of factors brought about by, among other things, processes of transnational migration. As both Muslims and Jews form some of the smallest ethnic communities in Britain, they are far outnumbered by more dominant Anglo groups and share a type of liminal subjectivity. Gay Muslim and Jewish men are both an ethnic and a sexual minority, further complicating this relationship. This dual-­minority status has had a distinctive effect on how nonminority British view these individuals. For instance, Yip focuses on kin relations when examining the narratives of non-heterosexual British Muslims and suggests that within these communities , there is a perception of homosexuality as a “Western” disease that did not exist in the family’s community of origin. They also point out the fraught negotiations between parents and children, complicated further by sociocultural and religious factors, when it comes time to marry and the subsequent strategies employed by the children. In terms of how the nation views Muslims in Britain, Jaspal and Cinnirella position such subjects as a hybridized threat—­ British Muslims are positioned solidly as “other” while simultaneously being framed as a threat to the survival of the “in-­ group.”
Author(s): Magnusson, Kjell
Date: 2024
Abstract: In 2017 a conflict erupted among the Bosniaks in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was related to identity and self-image, in particular the role of Bosnian Muslims during World War II. Highly sensitive but seldom discussed issues were brought to the fore. Had not Muslim forces massacred Serb villages? Did not Croat and Muslim Ustasha kill most of the Jews in Bosnia? Why, then, regard antisemitic collaborators as national role models?

Reactions varied from condemnation to arguments that Muslims acted in self-defence. Even antisemitic rhetoric appeared. There was a divide between a liberal, secular opinion and religious-national views within the ruling party or the Islamic Community. Apparently, a certain continuity existed between Muslim elites during World War II and those in power since 1990. In the 1930s, Bosnian Muslims were familiar with currents in the Middle East, the ideas of the Muslim Brotherhood and the anti-Jewish message of the Mufti of Jerusalem. The organization Young Muslims, inspired by Islamist ideas from Egypt, was violently supressed by the Communists 1945–48, but reappeared in 1990, forming the nucleus of the Party of Democratic Action, led by Alija Izetbegović. After the war, high-level contacts with the Muslim Brothers were cordial and regular.

The crisis revealed tensions between the religious foundation of Bosniak identity and the building of a modern nation. Parts of society had been nurturing a discourse of martyrdom where history had to be ignored or revised.
Author(s): Chapelan, Alexis
Date: 2024
Abstract: Social media platforms and the interactive web have had a significant impact on political socialisation, creating new pathways of community-building that shifted the focus from real-life, localised networks (such as unions or neighbourhood associations) to vast, diffuse and globalised communities (Finin et al. 2008, Rainie and Wellman 2012, Olson 2014, Miller 2017). Celebrities or influencers are often focal nodes for the spread of information and opinions across these new types of networks in the digital space (see Hutchins and Tindall 2021). Unfortunately, this means that celebrities’ endorsement of extremist discourse or narratives can potently drive the dissemination and normalisation of hate ideologies.

This paper sets out to analyse the reaction of French social media audiences to antisemitism controversies involving pop culture celebrities. I will focus on two such episodes, one with a ‘national’ celebrity at its centre and the other a ‘global’ celebrity: the social media ban of the French-Cameroonian comedian Dieudonné M’bala M’bala in June–July 2020 and the controversy following US rapper Kanye West’s spate of antisemitic statements in October–November 2022. The empirical corpus comprises over 4,000 user comments on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter (now X). My methodological approach is two-pronged: a preliminary mapping of the text through content analysis is followed by a qualitative Critical Discourse Analysis that examines linguistic strategies and discursive constructions employed by social media users to legitimise antisemitic worldviews. We lay particular emphasis on the manner in which memes, dog-whistling or coded language (such as allusions or inside jokes popular within certain communities or fandoms) are used not only to convey antisemitic meaning covertly but also to build a specific form of counter-cultural solidarity. This solidarity expresses itself in the form of “ deviant communities” (see Proust et al. 2020) based on the performative and deliberate transgression of societal taboos and norms.
Date: 2022
Date: 2022
Author(s): Sutcliffe, Adam
Date: 2024
Abstract: This article focuses on the rise of anti-antisemitic discourse in Britain over the past fifteen years. It explores the relationship between the increasingly emotional tone of public discourse in Britain and other western countries and the miring of anti-antisemitism in dynamics of competitive victimhood and ethnic antagonism. The development of this dynamic is traced from the bitter arguments over the representation and reporting of the Palestine/Israel conflict at the time of the Israeli ground assault in the Gaza Strip in early 2009 – with special attention to Caryl Churchill’s short play Seven Jewish Children – through to recent anti-antisemitic interventions such as David Baddiel’s bestselling polemic Jews Don’t Count (2021) and Jonathan Freedland’s verbatim play recently staged at London’s Royal Court Theatre (2022). These interventions, the article shows, call for the ‘normal’ treatment of anti-Jewish prejudice while simultaneously appealing on exceptionalist grounds for public sympathy with Jewish perceptions of antisemitism. The exceptional moral authority widely accorded to anti-antisemitism has made the cause an attractive one for those who resent what they believe to be the unwarranted priority accorded to non-white victimhood. Various forms of anti-antisemitism, such as Baddiel’s, have thus become front-line arguments in shrill culture-war tussles suffused with intellectual confusion and racially tinged rhetorical combat. This racialization, politicization and emotionalization of anti-antisemitism has reached new heights, the article concludes, following the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas in October 2023.
Date: 2024
Editor(s): Rose, Hannah
Date: 2024
Author(s): Laczó, Ferenc
Date: 2013
Author(s): Swanström, André
Date: 2024
Editor(s): Ermida, Isabel
Date: 2023
Abstract: This chapter introduces the notion of ‘enabling concepts’: concepts which may or may not themselves constitute a mode of hate speech, but which through their broad social acceptability facilitate or legitimate the articulation of concepts which can be more directly classed as hate speech. We argue that each distinct hate ideology will contain its own, partly overlapping set of ‘enabling concepts.’ In this chapter, we will focus on the enabling role of references to apartheid for the constitution of antisemitism in British online discourse around Israel. This argument does not rest on agreement as to whether the ‘apartheid analogy’—comparisons between contemporary Israel and the former Apartheid regime in South Africa—itself constitutes a form of antisemitism. The chapter draws on qualitative analysis of more than 10,000 user comments posted on social media profiles of mainstream media in the UK, undertaken by the Decoding Antisemitism project in the wake of the May 2021 escalation phase of the Arab-Israeli conflict. We will show how web commenters frequently use the apartheid analogy to trigger more extreme antisemitic stereotypes, including age-old tropes, intensifying and distorting analogies (such as Nazi comparisons) or calls for Israel’s elimination. The results will be presented in detail based on a pragmalinguistic approach taking into account the immediate context of the comment thread and broader world knowledge. Both of these aspects are relevant preconditions for examining all forms of antisemitic hate speech that can remain undetected when conducting solely statistical analysis. Based on this large dataset, we suggest that—under the cover of its widespread social acceptability—the apartheid analogy thus facilitates the articulation and legitimation of extreme antisemitic concepts that would, without this prior legitimation, be more likely to be rejected or countered.
Date: 2024
Abstract: Over the past 3.5 years, the Decoding Antisemitism research project has been analysing antisemitism on the internet in terms of content, structure, and frequency. Over this time, there has been no shortage of flashpoints which have generated antisemitic responses. Yet the online response to the Hamas attacks of 7 October and the subsequent Israeli operations in Gaza has surpassed anything the project has witnessed before. In no preceding escalation phase of the Arab-Israeli conflict has the predominant antisemitic reaction been one of open jubilation and joy over the deaths of Israeli Jews. As demonstrated in the sixth and final Discourse Report, this explicit approval of the Hamas attacks was the primary response from web users. The response to 7 October therefore represents a turning point in antisemitic online discourse, and its repercussions will be felt long into the future.

The report contains analysis of the various stages of online reactions to events in the Middle East, from the immediate aftermath to the Israeli retaliations and subsequent accusations of genocide against Israel. As well as examining online reactions in the project’s core focus—the United Kingdom, France, and Germany—this report also, for the first time, extends its view to analyse Israel-related web discourses in six further countries, including those in Southern and Eastern Europe as well as in North Africa. Alongside reactions to the escalation phase, the report also examines online responses to billionaire Elon Musk’s explosive comments about Jewish individuals and institutions.

Additionally, the report provides a retrospective overview of the project’s development over the past 3.5 years, tracking its successes and challenges, particularly regarding the conditions for successful interdisciplinary work and the ability of machine learning to capture the versatility and complexity of authentic web communication.

To mark the publication of the report, we are also sharing our new, interactive data visualisations tool, which lets you examine any two discourse events analysed by our research team between 2021 and 2023. You can compare the frequencies and co-occurrences of antisemitic concepts and speech acts by type and by country, look at frequencies of keywords in antisemitic comments, and plot keyword networks.
Date: 2023
Author(s): Becker, Matthias J
Date: 2022
Date: 2022
Author(s): Marincea, Adina
Date: 2023
Abstract: Common antisemitic visual representations are rooted in Ancient Christianity and the Middle Ages, but we have also witnessed new developments after the Holocaust and the condemnation of fascism. Stereotyping and dehumanization through zoomorphism, demonization, exaggeration of certain physical features anchored in the false presumptions of physiognomy and other visual devices have been weaponized across the centuries for racist and antisemitic agendas. This study undergoes a comparative analysis of two corpuses of antisemitic images from the Romanian press and social media at a distance of one century between them. I analyze the persistency, transformations, and new developments of antisemitic image codes popularized by the Romanian far-right from the start of the 20th century, through to the rise of fascism and the Second World War, up to the present-day social media. This visual qualitative analysis with critical historical insights is carried out on the following corpuses: a) a contemporary subset of 81 memes, digital stickers, and other visuals from 17 Romanian far-right Telegram channels and groups posted over the course of one year (August 2022 – August 2023); and b) 70 archival political cartoons published by 17 far-right ultranationalist newspapers (and one pro-Soviet communist newspaper) between 1911 and 1948. Findings show how persistent certain antisemitic stereotypes have proven across time and different cultural spaces – the hook-nose, zoomorphism, the blood-libel accusations, Judeo-Bolshevism, the satanic representations – and how the visual dimension serves to efficiently implant antisemitic narratives in the collective mind. These (visual) narratives are skillfully recontextualized to fit new (geo-)political realities – the post-Holocaust times, the COVID-19 crisis, the war in Ukraine.
Date: 2024
Date: 2023
Date: 2023
Author(s): Zawadzka, Anna
Date: 2023
Abstract: Książka Więcej niż stereotyp. „Żydokomuna” jako wzór kultury polskiej oparta jest na analizie dyskursu ntykomunistycznego i antysemickiego we współczesnej Polsce i ich wzajemnych powiązań. Jej powstaniu towarzyszyła intencja uszeregowania trzech zachodzących na siebie procesów: 1) intensyfikacji i rozwoju dyskursu antysemickiego w synergii z wciąż zyskującą na znaczeniu polityką historyczną, 2) powstawania nowych teorii interweniujących w pole badań nad antysemityzmem, 3) pojawiania się nowych zjawisk w sferze społecznej, które miałyby być tymi teoriami wyjaśniane.

Na tle dotychczasowych ujęć tematu podejście autorki wyróżniają rozbudowane rozważania metodologiczne, a zwłaszcza wypunktowanie niedostatków kategorii stereotypu i wyjście poza nią w kierunku kategorii wzoru kultury. Kategoria stereotypu sugeruje, że mamy do czynienia z błędem poznawczym, aberracją lub pomyłką. Zaproponowaną w książce analizę antysemityzmu charakteryzuje tymczasem całkowite zerwanie z koncepcją „ziarna prawdy”, na której zasadza się większość definicji stereotypu jako uproszczonej wizji jakiegoś wycinka rzeczywistości. Podążając tropem Sandera Gilmana, autorka traktuje treści stereotypów jako materiał do analizy grupy
wytwarzającej stereotypy. Takie podejście pozwala na wykorzystanie motywu „żydokomuny” do opisania status quo współczesnej kultury polskiej w zakresie wyobrażeń o żydowskości i o komunizmie. Autorka dowodzi, że przekonania na temat Żydów są integralną częścią kultury, wypracowaną i reprodukowaną w jej prawomocnych obiegach. Są one generowane, produkowane i używane do podtrzymywania pewnej całości kulturowej i pozostają w harmonii z jej pozostałymi elementami. Autorka broni tezy o „żydokomunie” jako motywie współcześnie konstytutywnym dla koherencji kulturowej, generowanej w ramach paradygmatu antykomunistycznego.

Książka ma dowieść, że antykomunizm nie tylko stanowi komponent tradycji antysemickiej, ale w dużej mierze ukształtował taki model badań nad antysemityzmem, w którym możliwość zdiagnozowania i rozmontowania tego ideologicznego konstruktu jest strukturalnie zablokowana. Strukturę tę umacnia fakt, że – za sprawą szantażu antysemicką zbitką „żydokomuny” zastosowanym wobec szkoły frankfurckiej na uchodźctwie – zbudowano ją niejako „rękami Żydów” – badaczek i badaczy, którzy po drugiej stronie żelaznej kurtyny w początkach zimnej wojny rozwinęli koncepcję relacji międzygrupowych, próbując ten szantaż obejść. Podążając tropem Stuarta Svonkina i Avivy Weingarten, autorka śledzi historię powojennego konstruowania narzędzi badawczych antysemityzmu w duchu psychologii społecznej przy równoczesnym odchodzeniu od kategorii socjologicznych. W książce wypunktowane zostają niedostatki takiego podejścia, ponieważ koncentruje się ono na szacowaniu indywidualnych podmiotów antysemityzmu, definiując antysemityzm podług cech nieadekwatnych do jego współczesnej konstrukcji. Tymczasem kategoria wzoru kultury pozwala przenieść punkt ciężkości z pytania o to, kto jest antysemitą, na pytanie o to, jakie
treści kulturowe cyrkulujące w rozmaitych rejestrach kultury, także tych najbardziej oficjalnych, są zakorzenione w antysemickich kategoriach postrzegania rzeczywistości oraz jakie są funkcje tych kategorii dla stabilizowania zastanego porządku. Takie ujęcie pozwala na uchwycenie mechanizmów odtwarzania motywu „żydokomuny” we
współczesnym dyskursie i jego funkcjonalności.

Zaproponowana w książce krytyka słownika pojęć używanych do analizy antysemityzmu obejmuje także terminy wypracowane w łonie nauk społecznych na Zachodzie, stosowane do półperyferyjnych warunków ostkomunistycznego kraju Europy Wschodniej. W książce znajdziemy krytykę powierzchownego przyswojenia kategorii: intersekcjonalność, białość, imperializm. Rozważając przystawalność amerykańskiego dyskursu o rasie i rasizmie do warunków polskich, autorka stara się dowieść, że użycie niektórych pojęć bez zważania na lokalny kontekst okazuje się mieć odwrotny wydźwięk w stosunku do intencji, które stały za ich wypracowaniem.
Ostatnia część książki poświęcona jest recepcji piętna „żydokomuny” przez napiętnowanych. Rozważania na ten temat wynikają z założenia autorki, że tylko przemoc symboliczna – przemoc, którą jednostki i grupy zadają same sobie, uwewnętrzniając przekonania grupy dominującej na własny temat i odgrywając przeznaczone im
przez grupę dominującą role (gościa, sublokatora, aspirującego, podejrzanego, niszczyciela, wroga itd.) – zapewnia tym przekonaniom pełną stabilność kulturową i możliwość bezkolizyjnego wypełniania określonych funkcji w kulturze. Zadając pytanie o to, w jaki sposób czytać narracje mniejszościowe, autorka mierzy się z metodologicznym impasem powodowanym faktem, że struktura dyskursywna stawia w upośledzonej pozycji tych uczestników dyskursu, którzy – bez względu na to, jaką mają tożsamość wybraną – postrzegani są przez pryzmat tożsamości wymuszonej. Nosicielki
i nosiciele piętna są w kulturze dominującej pozycjonowani jako stronniczy. Jest to jeden z efektów mistyfikacyjnego uniwersalizmu. Czy zatem, analizując narracje napiętnowanych, należy brać pod uwagę piętno podmiotu? Czy nie jest to powtórzenie – w imię analizy – gestu napiętnowania? Z drugiej strony, czy pominięcie piętna nie byłoby niedopuszczalnym przeoczeniem, skoro wiemy, że autorka/autor pisze w obrębie kultury, która z przyczyn strukturalnych, pod groźbą przemocy, nie chce dopuścić jej/go do głosu na równych prawach? By przełamać ten impas, autorka proponuje oryginalny, czterostopniowy schemat analizy dyskursu w badaniach nad recepcją piętna.
Date: 2022
Date: 2023
Abstract: CST’s Antisemitic Incidents Report 2022, shows 1,652 anti-Jewish hate incidents recorded nationwide in 2022. This is the fifth-highest annual total ever reported to CST, and a 27% decrease from the 2,261 antisemitic incidents in 2021, which was a record high sparked by antisemitic reactions to the conflict in the Middle East that year. CST recorded 1,684 incidents in 2020, 1,813 in 2019 and 1,690 in 2018. CST has been recording antisemitic incidents since 1984.

An additional 615 reports of potential incidents were received by CST in 2022 but were not deemed to be antisemitic and are not included in this total of 1,652 incidents. Many of these 615 potential incidents involved suspicious activity or possible hostile reconnaissance at Jewish locations; criminal activity affecting Jewish people and buildings; and anti-Israel activity that did not include antisemitic language, motivation or targeting.

The fall in reported incidents serves to illustrate the unprecedented volume of anti-Jewish hate recorded by CST in May and June 2021, during and following the escalation of violence between Israel and Hamas. In 2022, there was no similar external circumstance to have such an impact on the content or scale of antisemitic incidents in the UK. While the relative drop was predictable, the overall figure remains significant. Over 100 cases of antisemitism were reported each month, and the average monthly total was 138 incidents. For comparison, barring May and June – when incident figures were affected by the war-related surge in reports - the average monthly total in 2021 was 116 incidents. Without any relevant trigger event, the 1,652 instances of anti-Jewish hate recorded in 2022 can be considered a ‘new normal’ for antisemitism in the country, far exceeding what was typically observed prior to 2016.
Date: 2022
Date: 2021
Abstract: Why Do People Discriminate against Jews? provides a data-rich analysis of the causes of discrimination against Jews across the globe. Using the tools of comparative political science, Jonathan Fox and Lev Topor examine the causes of both government-based and societal discrimination against Jews in 76 countries. As they stress, anti-Semitism is an attitude, but discrimination is an action. In examining anti-Jewish discrimination, they combine ideas and theories from classic studies of anti-Semitism with social science theories on the causes of discrimination. On the one hand, conspiracy theories, a major topic in the anti-Semitism literature, are relatively unexplored in the social science literature as a potential instigator of discrimination. On the other, social science theories developed to explain how governments justify discrimination against Muslims are rarely formally applied to the processes that lead to discrimination against Jews. Fox and Topor conclude by identifying three potential causes of discrimination: religious causes, anti-Zionism, and belief in conspiracy theories about Jewish power and world domination. They conclude that while all three influence discrimination against Jews, belief in conspiracy theories is the strongest determinant. The most rigorous and geographically wide-ranging analysis of discrimination against Jews to date, this book reshapes our understanding of the persecution of religious minorities in general and the Jewish people in particular.

Contents:
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Patterns of Discrimination
Chapter 3: Religious Anti-Semitism
Chapter 4: Anti-Zionism and Anti-Israel Behavior and Sentiment
Chapter 5: Conspiracy Theories
Chapter 6: The British Example
Chapter 7: Conclusions
Appendix
Bibliography