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Antisemitiska hatbrott: Samtida erfarenheter från judiska församlingar och organisationer
Translated Title: Antisemitic hate crime; Contemporary experiences from Jewish congregations and organisations.
Date: 2025
Topics: Antisemitism: Jewish Perceptions and Experiences, Hate crime, Interviews, Main Topic: Antisemitism, Jewish Leadership and Representation, Jewish Community, Jewish Organisations
Abstract: Den här rapporten presenterar resultaten från en intervjustudie med representanter för judiska församlingar och organisationer i olika delar av Sverige. Syftet är att öka kunskapen om den samtida antisemitiska hatbrottslighetens karaktär och effekter.
Identity transformations of Ukrainian Jewry during the Russian–Ukrainian war: Odesa’s communities and religious leaders at home and in exile
Author(s): Sapritsky-Nahum, Marina
Date: 2025
Topics: Main Topic: Identity and Community, Jewish Identity, Jewish Community, Jewish Leadership and Representation, Jewish Organisations, Ukraine-Russia conflict (2014 onwards), National Identity
Abstract: Russia’s extended war on Ukraine has profoundly affected the country’s religious communities, institutions, and congregational networks. These networks were built on deep historical, cultural, and familial ties across the region. Most literature on identity transformations during the war has focused on the macro-level analysis of Ukraine’s majority populations and the relationship between Russian and Ukrainian cultural and linguistic elements in the rise of civic Ukrainian identity. This article expands this discussion by examining the experiences of Ukraine’s Jewish ethnoreligious minority as well as the roles of its community organizations and religious leaders in shaping attitudes and orientations towards emerging identities. It argues that the war has triggered a multidirectional process of identity transformation, and it challenges it conventional understandings of belonging in wartime Ukraine and in communities of the displaced. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews conducted virtually and in the field, primarily with Jews from Odesa, the author shows how Jews at home and in exile have come to position themselves as more and more Ukrainian while at the same time deepening their Jewish identity through active participation in Jewish communal life.
“It’s Not Doctrine, This Is Just How It Is Happening!”: Religious Creativity in the Time of COVID-19
Author(s): Taragin-Zeller, Lea; Kessler, Edward
Date: 2021
Topics: Jewish Leadership and Representation, Rabbis, Main Topic: Other, Interviews, Ritual, Religious Observance and Practice, Prayer, Comparisons: Between Jews and Non-Jews, Covid-19 Pandemic
Abstract: Drawing on thirty in-depth interviews with faith leaders in the UK (including Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, and Sikhism), we examine the diverse ways religious groups reorient religious life during COVID-19. Analysing the shift to virtual and home-based worship, we show the creative ways religious communities altered their customs, rituals, and practices to fit a new virtual reality amidst rigid social distancing guidelines. This study offers a distinctive comparative perspective into religious creativity amidst acute social change, allowing us to showcase notable differences, especially in terms of the possibility to fully perform worship online. We found that whilst all faith communities faced the same challenge of ministering and supporting their communities online, some were able to deliver services and perform worship online but others, for theological reasons, could not offer communal prayer. These differences existed within each religion rather than across religious boundaries, representing intra-faith divergence at the same time as cross-faith convergence. This analysis allows us to go beyond common socio-religious categories of religion, while showcasing the diverse forms of religious life amidst COVID-19. This study also offers a diverse case study of the relationship between religions as well as between religion, state, and society amidst COVID-19.
Jews and Jewish Ethno-politics in Independent Ukraine in Times of Peace And in Times of War
Author(s): Khanin, Vladimir (Zeev); Chernin, Velvl
Date: 2024
Topics: Ukraine-Russia conflict (2014 onwards), Politics: Jewish Political Engagement, Main Topic: Other, Jewish Leadership and Representation
Diaspora Solidarity and Identity: Shifting Bonds Between Europe's Jewish Officials and Israel After 7 October
Author(s): Schlerkmann, Isabel
Date: 2025
Topics: Israel Attachment, Israel: Jewish and Israeli Advocacy, Hasbarah and Lobbying, Diaspora-Israel Relations, Jewish Leadership and Representation, Main Topic: Other, Interviews, October 7 2023 attacks + aftermath
Abstract: This article examines the impact of the October 7 attack on Israel on relations between officials of the Jewish communities in Europe and Israel. For this purpose, interviews were conducted with representatives of Jewish
communities and institutions. The analysis showed that the events have led to increased support and solidarity with Israel. In addition, increased participation in aid campaigns and a stronger bond with Israel were observed.
The attack changed the perception of Israel as a “safe haven” and led to a deeper exploration of Jewish identity.
Holy People, Holy Place Images of the Synagogue and its Leadership in Progressive Judaism
Author(s): Palmer, Barry
Date: 2002
Topics: Synagogues, Main Topic: Other, Volunteering and Voluntary Sector Organisations, Jewish Organisations, Jewish Leadership and Representation, Denominations: Reform/Liberal/Progressive
Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to enable rabbis, honorary and paid officers of synagogues, and those who train and support them, to gain a clearer understanding of the demands upon synagogue leaders. No leadership role can be understood without an understanding of the institution or organisation which is led. The demands of running a school or a theatre or a government department or the proverbial whelk stall are different, because the aims, ethos, scale and context of each enterprise is different; though they all include certain generic skills like planning, budgeting and holding intelligent conversations. The paper therefore sets out to explore how can we most usefully describe progressive synagogues as institutions.
Jewish Identity in the Post-Soviet Countries: Parameters, Models and Challenges
Author(s): Khanin, Vladimir (Zeev); Chernin, Velvl
Date: 2020
Topics: Jewish Identity, Main Topic: Identity and Community, Demography, Jewish Community, Post-Communist Transitions, Ethnicity, Emigration, Aliyah, Jewish Leadership and Representation
Abstract: In 2019-2020, the Institute for Euro-Asian Jewish Studies, founded by the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress, conducted a large-scale study in five post-Soviet countries.
Comment vivent les juifs de France depuis le 7-Octobre ?
Translated Title: How have France’s Jews fared since October 7?
Author(s): Klein, Laurent
Date: 2025
Topics: October 7 2023 attacks + aftermath, Antisemitism, Jewish Leadership and Representation, Jewish Organisations, Jewish Community, Main Topic: Identity and Community
Abstract: Alors que l’antisémitisme s’est intensifié sous différentes formes depuis le 7 octobre 2023, l’auteur a rencontré plusieurs représentants de la communauté juive française pour percevoir leurs évolutions politiques. Il a recueilli leur angoisse récurrente, leur sentiment de solitude et, malgré tout, leur fort attachement à la France.
Sixth Survey of European Jewish Community Leaders and Professionals, 2024
Author(s): Dimentstein, Marcelo
Date: 2024
Topics: Antisemitism, Antisemitism: Jewish Perceptions and Experiences, Jewish Identity, Jewish Community, Jewish Leadership and Representation, Jewish Organisations, Main Topic: Antisemitism, October 7 2023 attacks + aftermath, Surveys
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
The Jewish religious heritage continuum: Jewish religious communities’ interactions with synagogues and ceremonial objects in Amsterdam
Author(s): Ariese, Paul
Date: 2024
Topics: Synagogues, Rabbis, Jewish Leadership and Representation, Jewish Heritage, Jewish Continuity, Religious Observance and Practice, Main Topic: Culture and Heritage, Jewish Museums, Artefacts and Material Culture, Jewish Populations and Ethnicities: Sephardi
Abstract: This article explores how rabbis, directors and members of Amsterdam’s Jewish religious communities view the heritagisation of Jewish religious life by analysing how they interact with Amsterdam’s main synagogues and their collections of ceremonial objects. It focuses on the synagogues of the Jewish Cultural Quarter – the Portuguese Synagogue with its accompanying Sephardi community, and the former Ashkenazi synagogue complex, now the Jewish Museum. From a dynamic heritage perspective, this heterogeneous constellation raises questions about how and why heritage making occurs here. Following a Constructivist Grounded Theory methodology, concurrent data collection and analysis let emerge interrelated conceptual categories that explain how communities interact with these functioning and musealised synagogues and objects: Embodying the transmission of tradition; Instrumentalising the heritage of Jewish religious life; Transforming the beauty of holiness; and Assembling in heritagised synagogues. These categories intersect in the core category of the Jewish religious heritage continuum, which this article presents as a dynamic embodiment of remembering, reconnection, and revival of Jewish tradition. For the interviewees, these performances, and the deployment of functioning and musealised synagogues and collections, form a cultural apparatus that marks their present, diverse and living material culture and grafts a Jewish future onto a Jewish past.
The Social Context of De-assimilation and Its Challenges
Author(s): Zubrzycki, Geneviève
Date: 2023
Topics: Jewish Identity, Jewish Renewal, Jewish Revival, Main Topic: Identity and Community, Jewish Continuity, Post-Communist Transitions, Educational Tours, Israel Tours and Programmes: Birthright-Taglit, Interviews, Jewish Leadership and Representation, Young Adults / Emerging Adulthood
Abstract: This article examines the broader context for Polish Jews' de-assimilation since the fall of communism, analyzes the complex process of individual discovery and communal recovery of Jewish identity, and discusses the multiple challenges de-assimilated Jews face in constructing a new Jewish identity. The study is based on fieldwork conducted between 2010 and 2019, and includes participant observation in Jewish organizations in Poland and during a Birthright trip to Israel with a group of young Polish Jews; interviews with Jewish communal leaders and Poles recovering a Jewish identity; and archival research documenting the institutional rebirth of Jewish life in Poland.
New Relations in the Making? Jews and Non-Jews in Germany Reflect on Shoah Memory, Unexpected Growing Jewish Pluralism, Israel, and New Antisemitism
Author(s): Glöckner, Olaf
Editor(s): Zoufalá, Marcela Menachem; Glöckner, Olaf
Date: 2023
Topics: Attitudes to Jews, Integration, Jewish Identity, Interviews, Main Topic: Identity and Community, Holocaust Commemoration, Jewish Leadership and Representation, Antisemitism: Jewish Perceptions and Experiences
Abstract: Our narrative and expert interviews with Jewish and non-Jewish key figures in public and political life mainly focussed on the question of to what extent have Jewish-non Jewish relations changed, compared to the discord prior to 1933, and the general reservation and uncertainty after 1945? We also raised other key questions like: to what extent do Jews in Germany feel integrated into today’s non-Jewish majority society? What do they consider core elements of their Jewish identities? What is the meaning of Israel in their lives as Jews? How do they cope with new trends of antisemitism in Germany? As a complementary question, we wanted to know from our non-Jewish interviewees how different they consider Jewish/non-Jewish relations today? To what extent does Shoah memory (still) affect these relations? How do Jews and non-Jews cooperate in social activities, and are there new, joint strategies to combat antisemitism?

Our interviews revealed that Jews in present-day Germany do not romanticize their lives in the country of the former Nazi regime. However, they appreciate efforts by the state to promote future Jewish life, to carry out dignified politics of commemoration, and to ensure security. Antisemitism is perceived as a societal problem but not as an existential threat. None of the Jewish interview partners considered Germany as a place that is too dangerous for Jews. Memory of the Shoah is considered important, but building a Jewish future, especially for one’s
own children, is the more relevant issue.

A key finding of our interviews in Germany is that a new generation of young Jews has grown up neither justifying living in the “country of the offenders” nor considering themselves representatives of the State of Israel. Young Jews in Germany run their own multifaceted networks, understanding themselves as Jews but to a similar extent also as Germans. Some of them enjoy participation in public and political life, deliberately acting in both roles
Jewish Leadership in the UK for the 21st Century: Values, Relationships and Intergenerational Renewal
Date: 2023
Topics: Jewish Leadership and Representation, Jewish Organisations, Jewish Community, Main Topic: Identity and Community, Interviews, Youth Movements: Jewish, Young Adults / Emerging Adulthood, Age and Generational Issues, Values, Youth: Jewish
Abstract: In 2022, UJIA, in partnership with the Jewish Leadership Council (JLC) and thanks to funding from the
Pears Foundation, engaged Rosov Consulting to design and conduct a study to explore Jewish leadership
in the UK to inform UJIA's and JLC's strategic planning. This research project had three primary goals.
The first was to develop a conceptual model of Jewish leadership in the UK and a map of the community's
existing leadership supports to show who is currently serving as Jewish leaders and what has shaped and
empowered them. The second was to identify the challenges Jewish leaders presently face, the issues they
are likely to encounter, and their readiness to do so, and provide recommendations for how UJIA and JLC
might better prepare and support these leaders now and for what lies ahead. The third goal of this project
was to present these findings to community stakeholders to spark reflections and generate meaning that
would assist UJIA and JLC in their approach to developing leaders and leadership structures to ensure a
future thriving Jewish community.
“We've all got the virus inside us now”: Disaggregating public health relations and responsibilities for health protection in pandemic London
Author(s): Kasstan, Ben; Mounier-Jack, Sandra; Gaskell, Katherine M.; Eggo, Rosalind M.; Marks, Michael; Chantler, Tracey
Date: 2022
Topics: Covid-19 Pandemic, Health, Health Education, Interviews, Main Topic: Other, Jewish Organisations, Jewish Organisations: Representative and Umbrella Bodies, Jewish Leadership and Representation, Denominations: Haredi / Strictly Orthodox
Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately impacted ethnic minorities in the global north, evidenced by higher rates of transmission, morbidity, and mortality relative to population sizes. Orthodox Jewish neighbourhoods in London had extremely high SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence rates, reflecting patterns in Israel and the US. The aim of this paper is to examine how responsibilities over health protection are conveyed, and to what extent responsibility is sought by, and shared between, state services, and ‘community’ stakeholders or representative groups, and families in public health emergencies.

The study investigates how public health and statutory services stakeholders, Orthodox Jewish communal custodians and households sought to enact health protection in London during the first year of the pandemic (March 2020–March 2021). Twenty-eight semi-structured interviews were conducted across these cohorts. Findings demonstrate that institutional relations – both their formation and at times fragmentation – were directly shaped by issues surrounding COVID-19 control measures. Exchanges around protective interventions (whether control measures, contact tracing technologies, or vaccines) reveal diverse and diverging attributions of responsibility and authority.

The paper develops a framework of public health relations to understand negotiations between statutory services and minority groups over responsiveness and accountability in health protection. Disaggregating public health relations can help social scientists to critique who and what characterises institutional relationships with minority groups, and what ideas of responsibility and responsiveness are projected by differently-positioned stakeholders in health protection.
Overcoming Hate: Jewish Minority Voices’ Strategies for Participating in the News Media
Author(s): Haanshuus, Birgitte P.
Date: 2023
Topics: Antisemitism, Antisemitism: Jewish Perceptions and Experiences, Jewish Relations With Non-Jews, Interviews, Main Topic: Other, Media, Newspapers, Magazines and Periodicals, Jewish Leadership and Representation
Abstract: For a well-functioning and inclusive democracy, it is crucial that minority voices can participate in public debate and express their opinions through the news media. However, media participation can be demanding, especially considering the proliferation of online hate. Based on in-depth interviews with 15 self-identified Jews who have participated in Norwegian media as Jews, this article explores the strategies Jewish minority voices employ when participating in the news media, both to position themselves and achieve their aims as representatives of a small-sized and vulnerable minority, and to deal with the risk of and experiences with antisemitism. The findings show that it can be demanding and distressing, but also rewarding to participate in the media as a minority voice, and most often the motivations and gains outweigh the risks. Although it is common to experience antisemitic hate speech in the wake of media participation, this has not led the participants to withdraw from public engagement. Consequently, this article argues that hate speech does not necessarily represent a boundary for public participation. However, participating as a minority voice requires strong motivation, emotional resilience, and the ability to focus on the positive outcomes of media participation, including the possibility of social change.
The Golden Mean Principle. A Handful of Comments on the Currently Dominant Discourse on ‘Polish-Jewish Relations’
Author(s): Forecki, Piotr; Zawadzka, Anna
Date: 2017
Topics: Jewish Heritage, Jewish Leadership and Representation, Jewish Relations With Non-Jews, Antisemitism, Main Topic: Other, Memory, Film
Abstract: The article attempts to deconstruct the dominant Polish discourse regarding the ‘Polish-Jewish relations’. Its central figures are: the logic of the golden mean as a tool to reach historical truth, symmetrisation of Polish and Jewish wrongs and faults, and hospitality as the prevalent attitude of Poles towards Jews. The authors show its opinion forming power using three examples: a review of Paweł Pawlikowski’s film Ida, the reception of the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, and a discussion on the Righteous monuments, which were to be erected in Warsaw.
Challenges, Opportunities, and Coping in the Wake of the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Case of Jewish Communities around the World
Author(s): Braun-Lewensohn, Orna
Date: 2023
Topics: Covid-19 Pandemic, Jewish Community, Main Topic: Identity and Community, Jewish Leadership and Representation, Interviews
Abstract: Against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic, which lasted more than two years and included several waves, the present study focused on Jewish communities around the world, in order to understand the role of community during the pandemic. This study focused on the community mechanisms that helped community members to cope with the pandemic. To that end, between October 2021 and July 2022, in-person interviews were conducted with leaders and members of the following communities: Budapest, Hungary; Subotica, Serbia; Vienna, Austria; Bratislava, Slovakia; Vilna, Lithuania; Buenos Aires, Rosario, Salta, and Ushuaia in Argentina; and Mexico City and Cancun in Mexico. Each interview lasted between 45 min and 1.5 h. All of the interviews were audio-recorded and transcripts of those recordings were prepared. Three major themes emerged from the interviews: challenges, coping, and opportunities. Most of these themes were common to the different communities around the world. The findings of this work are discussed in terms of the concept of sense of community and resiliency theories.
Le CRIF : de la résistance juive à la tentation du lobby 1943-2010
Author(s): Ghiles-Meilhac, Samuel
Date: 2010
Topics: Politics, Politics: Jewish Political Engagement, Main Topic: Other, Israel: Jewish and Israeli Advocacy, Hasbarah and Lobbying, Jewish Community, Jewish Organisations: Representative and Umbrella Bodies, Jewish Leadership and Representation
Abstract: Le Conseil représentatif des institutions juives de France (CRIF), créé en 1943 dans la clandestinité, jouit depuis les années 1980 d'une forte présence médiatique et d'une reconnaissance sociale et politique qui n'a pas d'équivalent en France. Cette thèse retrace son histoire, en lien avec les évolutions du judaïsme français, les étapes des conflits israélo-arabes et les tournants politiques de la France, en politique étrangère mais aussi sur des enjeux intérieurs tel que la lutte contre l'antisémitisme ou le discours public autour du régime de Vichy et de la déportation des Juifs pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Cette approche chronologique est renforcée par une réflexion sur la nature et l'influence du CRIF en France, notamment à la lumière d'une comparaison avec des organisations juives américaines, très actives dans le soutien politique à Israël. Cette thèse se base sur des recherches en archives ainsi que des entretiens, effectués en France et en Israël
Who represents the Jews of France?
Author(s): Farhi, Daniel
Date: 1995
Topics: Main Topic: Identity and Community, Jewish Community, Jewish Organisations, Jewish Organisations: Representative and Umbrella Bodies, Jewish Leadership and Representation
Pandemic Hate: COVID-related Antisemitism and Islamophobia, and the Role of Social Media
Author(s): Rose, Hannah
Date: 2021
Topics: Antisemitism, Antisemitism: Discourse and Tropes, Covid-19 Pandemic, Jewish Leadership and Representation, Interviews, Main Topic: Antisemitism, Social Media, Islamophobia, Antisemitism: Jewish Perceptions and Experiences
Abstract: As pandemic restrictions intensified in Western Europe, so too did a wave of COVID-related
antisemitism and Islamophobia, proliferating on social media. Considering antisemitism and
Islamophobia as joint and intersecting phenomena, this report investigates the ways in which,
eighteen months after the start of the pandemic, anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim narratives continue to be created, spread and accessed on social media. Through interviews with thirteen Jewish
and Muslim community leaders, subject-area experts and representatives of inter-governmental
organisations, this report presents not only the key trends both on and offline, but they ways in
which they have impacted the targeted communities, and the ability of Jews and Muslims in
Western Europe to live and practice their religion threat-free. This research makes ten key recommendations for social media companies, governments and civil societies, in order to urgently
address the spiralling radicalisation which is evidenced throughout this report.
Jews and antisemites in Romania since the death of Rabbi Rosen
Author(s): Shafir, Michael
Date: 1994
Topics: Antisemitism, Main Topic: Antisemitism, Rabbis, Jewish Leadership and Representation, Post-Communist Transitions
Russian-Speaking Jews in Germany’s Jewish Communities, 1990–2005
Author(s): Cronin, Joseph
Date: 2019
Topics: Jewish Community, Main Topic: Identity and Community, Immigration, Jewish Organisations: Representative and Umbrella Bodies, Jewish Leadership and Representation, Jewish Populations and Ethnicities: Russian-Speaking, Jewish Status (Who is a Jew?)
Abstract: This book explores the transformative impact that the immigration of large numbers of Jews from the former Soviet Union to Germany had on Jewish communities from 1990 to 2005. It focuses on four points of tension and conflict between existing community members and new Russian-speaking arrivals. These raised the fundamental questions: who should count as a Jew, how should Jews in Germany relate to the Holocaust, and who should the communities represent? By analyzing a wide range of source material, including Jewish and German newspapers, Bundestag debates and the opinions of some prominent Jewish commentators, Joseph Cronin investigates how such conflicts arose within Jewish communities and the measures taken to deal with them. This book provides a unique insight into a Jewish population little understood outside Germany, but whose significance in the post-Holocaust world cannot be underestimated.
A Rabbinical Revolution? Religion, Power and Politics in the Contemporary Ukrainian Jewish Movement
Author(s): Khanin, Vladimir
Date: 1998
Topics: Jewish Leadership and Representation, Main Topic: Other, Rabbis, Power and Authority, Politics: Jewish Internal Communal Politics
Abstract: The role of the "religious element" in the contemporary Ukrainian Jewish movement is examined in the wider context of Jewish politics in that country. Analyses focus on the reasons for and objectives of the political advancement of Ukrainian rabbinic leaders in the second half of the 1990s and the growth of their influence on Jewish community-building in post-Soviet Ukraine. Also discussed is the political nature of the rabbinic leadership and the place of Jewish spiritual leaders as a ruling group within the disposition of political forces in the local Jewish community.
Jews in Divided Germany (1945–1990) and Beyond: Scrutinized in Retrospect
Author(s): Wolffsohn, Michael
Editor(s): Glöckner, Olaf; Fireberg, Haim
Date: 2015
Topics: Jewish Revival, Jewish Relations with Non-Jews: German-Jewish Relations, Jewish Populations and Ethnicities: Russian-Speaking, Immigration, Main Topic: Other, Jewish Leadership and Representation, Memory, Post-Communist Transitions
Does European Jewry Need a New Ethnic Spiritual Umbrella? Reflections
Author(s): Gorny, Yosef
Editor(s): Gloeckner, Olaf; Schoeps, Julius H.
Date: 2011
Topics: Main Topic: Other, Jewish Peoplehood, European Union, Jewish Leadership and Representation, Jewish Organisations: Representative and Umbrella Bodies, Diaspora and Relations Between Diaspora Countries
L’Unione delle Comunità ebraiche italiane tra adesione all’ebraismo ortodosso e rappresentanza di tutti gli ebrei italiani: l’Intesa del 1987 è ancora attuale?
Translated Title: The Union of Italian Jewish Communities between adherence to Orthodox Judaism and representation of all Jew in Italy: Is the constitutional Agreement of 1987 with the Italian State still adequate?
Author(s): Sacerdoti, Giorgio
Date: 2020
Topics: Jewish Organisations, Main Topic: Other, Law and Justice, Diversity, Jewish Organisations: Representative and Umbrella Bodies, Jewish Leadership and Representation, Denominations: Orthodox
Abstract: 1 - Introduzione - 2. Il quadro pluralistico dell’ebraismo diasporico e delle sue organizzazioni - 3. Peculiarità dell’organizzazione dell’ebraismo italiano - 4. Pluralismo interno e tensioni nel contesto unitario delle Comunità - 5. Le origini storiche del peculiare assetto organizzativo dell’ebraismo italiano: l’assenza del movimento riformato in Italia e la normativa statualistica del 1930-31 - 6. La struttura unitaria e l’adesione delle Comunità all’ortodossia nello Statuto e nell’Intesa - 7. Conclusioni: la necessaria conciliazione tra pluralismo e unitarietà tra le varie anime dell’ebraismo italiano.
Fourth Survey of European Jewish Community Leaders and Professionals, 2018
Author(s): Kosmin, Barry A.
Date: 2018
Topics: Antisemitism, Fundraising and Philanthropy, Israel Attachment, Jewish Continuity, Surveys, Jewish Leadership and Representation, Jewish Organisations, Main Topic: Identity and Community, Jewish Identity, Denominations, Security / Insecurity
Abstract: The Fourth Survey of European Jewish Community Leaders and Professionals, 2018 presents the results of an online survey offered in 10 languages and administered to 893 respondents in 29 countries. Conducted every three years using the same format, the survey seeks to identify trends and their evolution in time.

The survey asked Jewish lay leaders and community professionals questions regarding future community priorities, identifying the main threats to Jewish life, views on the safety and security situation in their cities, including emergency preparedness, and opinions on an array of internal community issues. Examples include conversions, membership criteria policies on intermarriage, and their vision of Europe and Israel.

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.

The JDC International Centre for Community Development established the survey as a means to identify the priorities, sensibilities and concerns of Europe’s top Jewish leaders and professionals working in Jewish institutions, taking into account the changes that European Jewry has gone through since 1989, and the current political challenges and uncertainties in the continent. In a landscape with few mechanisms that can truly gauge these phenomena, the European Jewish Community Leaders Survey is an essential tool for analysis and applied research in the field of community development.

The Survey team was directed by Dr. Barry Kosmin (Trinity College), who has conducted several large national social surveys and opinion polls in Europe, Africa and the U.S., including the CJF 1990 US National Jewish Population Survey.
Da Belsen a Gaza: The Promise e l’identità nazionale britannica
Translated Title: From Belsen to Gaza: The Promise and British national identity
Author(s): Perra, Emiliano
Editor(s): Garofalo, Damiano; Roghi, Vanessa
Date: 2015
Topics: Main Topic: Other, Television, Zionism, Anti-Zionism, Attitudes to Israel, Attitudes to Jews, Conflict, Jewish Leadership and Representation, Jewish Relations With Non-Jews
From Belsen to Gaza: The Promise (2011), British and British-Jewish identity
Author(s): Perra, Emiliano
Date: 2018
Topics: Main Topic: Other, Television, Zionism, Anti-Zionism, Attitudes to Israel, Attitudes to Jews, Conflict, Jewish Leadership and Representation, Jewish Relations With Non-Jews
Abstract: This article discusses Peter Kosminsky’s miniseries The Promise (2011) and investigates the intense public responses it engendered in Britain. The first part of the article explores how the miniseries takes the lead from the liberation of Belsen to engage with issues of British national self-perception. Drawing on the notion of ‘postimperial melancholia’, the article argues that The Promise explores important issues related to Britain’s past and present, in particular the lasting heritage of Empire. The second part engages with the intense reception of the miniseries among opinion makers and the general public, with many critics seeing The Promise as aimed at delegitimising the State of Israel. In thus doing, the article situates the debate within broader discussions on the supposed relationship between anti-Zionism and “new anti-Semitism”, and more specifically discussion of the role of anti-Zionist Jews. The debate around The Promise is a case study for the exploration of two related controversies. The first one pertains to Jewish/non-Jewish relations, in particular regarding the international role of Israel in the twenty-first century. The second one is more specifically infra-Jewish and revolves around the issue of which subjects are legitimate to speak out as Jews and in the name of which values.
Jewish Identity Politics and the Scarf Affairs in France
Author(s): Vichniac, Judith E.
Date: 2008
Topics: Main Topic: Other, Antisemitism, Religion and State, Jewish Leadership and Representation, Jewish Relations With Non-Jews
Abstract: Much has been written about the scarf affairs in France and the subsequent legislation banning large religious symbols from the classroom. Less has been written about the major religious leaderships' responses from 1989 when the first affair took place until the debates surrounding the Stasi Commission in 2003. This article traces the evolution of their thinking with special emphasis on the splits within the Jewish leadership within the context of a rise of anti-Semitic acts.
The Jews of Ukraine: Past and Present
Author(s): Smilianskaya, Yuliana
Date: 2015
Topics: Main Topic: Identity and Community, Jewish Community, Jewish Organisations, Jewish Leadership and Representation, Jewish Organisations: Representative and Umbrella Bodies
Abstract: A large number of Jewish communities as well as non-profit and cultural organizations have been
established in Ukraine since 1991. Restored and new synagogues serve as religious and cultural centers.
The Jewish institutions focus their efforts on the integration of the history of the Ukrainian Jews
into the historical memory of Ukraine. Ukrainian Jews also protested on Maidan Square.
Good Jew, bad Jew … good Muslim, bad Muslim: “managing” Europe’s others
Author(s): Topolski, Anya
Date: 2018
Topics: Main Topic: Other, Antisemitism, Islamophobia, Jewish Relations With Non-Jews: Jewish - Muslim Relations, Jewish Leadership and Representation, Comparisons: Between Jews and Non-Jews
Abstract: In this contribution, I examine the Catholic political practice of “intercessions” (shtadlanut) as a means to control and manage relations between state power and Jewish communities by means of a privileged elite. While governmental techniques or mechanisms of minority management are only part of a broader question of majority–minority power relations, the theological-political roots of such “management” strategies are often overlooked because the problem is assumed to be secular. In my analysis of shtadlanut, I show how Jewish communities were internally divided between “good” and “bad”, “managed” by the ruling powers, and homogenized. It is precisely this type of enforced collaboration with power, in combination with reduced agency and de-politicization, that I claim goes beyond the “Jewish Question”. Rather, we must turn our gaze on Europe and consider how, and why, it continues to make 'others' into problems. By doing so, we can challenge the frame of the contemporary "Muslim Question".
Leaders' Perceptions of Youth Identity in a Summer Camp in the United Kingdom A Qualitative Enquiry
Author(s): Shabi, Maya; El Ansari, Walid
Date: 2001
Topics: Main Topic: Education, Youth Movements: Jewish, Summer/Youth Camps, Jewish Identity, Jewish Leadership and Representation, Interviews, Education: Informal
Abstract: Informal Jewish educational settings are places that both affect Jewish Identity and transmit Jewish knowledge (Chazan, 1991). For instance, Jewish youth movements provide young people with social, cultural, and informal educational Jewish experiences outside of the classroom setting (Reisman, 1991). Chazan (1991) explained informal education as ‘an activity that is freely chosen by a person and that is very dependent on that person’s active involvement and positive motivation. It is not effected in any special place, but may happen in a variety of settings and venues’. Hence, informal education is not based on the fixed curriculum or grading systems which are characteristic of schools, although, it should reflect a well-defined set of goals, contents, and programmes (Chazan, 1991).
Джойнт в СНГ: что происходит? (Независимая точка зрения израильских и российских экспертов.)
Editor(s): Членов, Михаил
Date: 2008
Topics: Main Topic: Other, Jewish Organisations, Jewish Leadership and Representation, Fundraising and Philanthropy, Conflict
Abstract: Американский еврейский распределительный комитет «Джойнт» и его политика в постсоветских странах стали в последнее время одной из самых обсуждаемых тем в еврейских общинах евразийского пространства. Этот вопрос был затронут в одной из публикаций прошлого "Евроазиатского еврейского ежегодника", что вызвало активную реакцию представителей российской еврейской общины.

Недавно в выходящей в Нью-Йорке газете "Мы здесь" был опубликован обширный аналитический доклад на эту тему, подготовленный группой израильских и российских экспертов, которые предпочли сохранить свою анонимность, по заказу московских предпринимателей, активно участвующих в еврейской благотворительной деятельности.

Мы перепечатываем эту статью с любезного разрешения редакции газеты "Мы здесь" и надеемся, что ее появление приведет к оживлению дискуссии о будущем еврейской общины на постсоветском пространстве.
Jewish Peoplehood in Hungary: a Challenge and an Opportunity
Author(s): Balazs, Gabor; Cernov, Mircea
Date: 2012
Topics: Main Topic: Identity and Community, Jewish Leadership and Representation, Jewish Community, Jewish Revival, Jewish Peoplehood, Jewish Organisations
Abstract:

The lack of leadership in the Jewish community in Hungary prevents an obstacle to the promotion of Jewish peoplehood as a focal point for developing the community of tomorrow. The Hungarian Jewish community suffers from a weak and ineffective structure and a lack of leadership. Nevertheless, the last decade has witnessed a revival of Jewish life in Hungary, with a particular focus on Jewish peoplehood. This focus is both a challenge and an opportunity for the Jewish community in Hungary.
Autoritet og autoritetens grenser. Den ortodokse rabbineren som religiøs leder i Det Mosaiske Trossamfund
Author(s): Stene, Nora
Editor(s): Døving, Cora Alexa; Thorbjørnsrud, Berit
Date: 2012
Topics: Rabbis, Rabbis: Chief Rabbinates, Jewish Leadership and Representation, Main Topic: Other
Third Survey of European Jewish Leaders and Opinion Formers, 2015
Author(s): Kosmin, Barry A.
Date: 2016
Topics: Antisemitism, Fundraising and Philanthropy, Israel Attachment, Jewish Continuity, Surveys, Jewish Leadership and Representation, Jewish Organisations, Main Topic: Identity and Community, Jewish Identity, Denominations, Security / Insecurity
Abstract: Launched by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee’s International Centre for Community Development (JDC-ICCD), and conducted by a research team at Trinity College (Hartford, Connecticut, USA) between June and August 2015, the Third Survey of European Jewish Leaders and Opinion Formers presents the results of an online survey administered to 314 respondents in 29 countries. The survey was conducted online in five languages: English, French, Spanish, German and Hungarian. The Survey of European Jewish Leaders and Opinion Formers is conducted every three or four years using the same format, in order to identify trends and their evolution. Findings of the 2015 edition were assessed and evaluated based on the results of previous surveys (2008 and 2011). The survey posed Jewish leaders and opinion formers a range of questions about major challenges and issues that
concern European Jewish communities in 2015, and about their expectations of how communities will evolve over the next 5-10 years. The 45 questions (see Appendix) dealt
with topics that relate to internal community structures and their functions, as well as the external environment affecting communities. The questionnaire also included six open-ended questions in a choice of five languages. These answers form the basis of the qualitative analysis of the report. The questions were organized under the following headings:• Vision & Change (6 questions)
• Decision-Making & Control (1 question)
• Lay Leadership (1 question)
• Professional Leadership (2 questions)
• Status Issues & Intermarriage (5 questions)
• Organizational Frameworks (2 questions)
• Community Causes (2 questions)
• Jewish Education (1 question)
• Funding (3 questions)
• Communal Tensions (3 questions)
• Anti-Semitism/Security (5 questions)
• Europe (1 question)
• Israel (1 question)
• Future (2 questions)
• Personal Profile (9 questions)
The British Chief Rabbinate: A Model for Leadership or Decline?
Author(s): Freud-Kandel, Miri
Date: 2015
Topics: Denominations: Orthodox, Rabbis: Chief Rabbinates, Jewish Leadership and Representation, Main Topic: Other
Abstract: Extract:

A striking feature of the debates associated with appointing a new chief rabbi in Britain at the end of the term of Emeritus Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks was a clear sense of the contribution the role makes to Jewish life both in Britain and more broadly. This was widely noted, also, in the specific praise and reflection on the achievements of the outgoing chief rabbi which accompanied his retirement. On both a national and international plane, the British chief rabbinate is perceived to have acquired a wide-ranging voice and influence. The reach of the office is seen to extend both to Jewish communities outside Britain and in a British context to the wider society beyond the Jewish community. The possibility of abolishing the post and replacing it with some sort of body that could serve in its place was given only the most cursory consideration.1 This was despite the fact that it is a role that has its origins in nineteenth-century Victorian Britain, when it was designed under Anglican influences to serve a very different community with markedly different needs.2 The instinct to retain the post in its current form also ignores the fact that the chief rabbinate itself has rather limited real powers, a product of its evolutionary development rather than being a particularly clearly thought out office from the outset. Moreover, the reality of the British chief rabbinate is that notwithstanding the varied types of “success,” however we may choose to define this notion, that different chief rabbis have enjoyed in Britain, it has also consistently been a cause of division and disagreement—as much a source of controversy as it has been a source for leadership and representation.
Survey Results: General Assembly Budapest 2004
Date: 2004
Topics: Jewish Organisations, Jewish Community, Jewish Identity, Surveys, Jewish Leadership and Representation, Antisemitism, Main Topic: Identity and Community, Jewish Community: Affiliation, Engagement and Involvement
Abstract: This survey was given to participants in the 3rd General Assembly of European Jewry, which was held in Budapest in May 2004. Participants were asked how many Jews participate in community programs in their respective cities; the programs and activities their Jewish community offers; and how they believe their community could be more effective in attracting more members.
The European Jewish Leaders and Opinion Formers Survey
Author(s): Gallup
Date: 2009
Topics: Jewish Community: Community Development, Jewish Continuity, Jewish Leadership and Representation, Jewish Organisations, Main Topic: Identity and Community, Jewish Relations With Non-Jews
Abstract: This report presents methodology, results and analysis of an online survey of Jewish leaders (lay and professional) and other Jewish opinion formers, conducted in late 2008. Key topics include population movement and change; security and antisemitism; status issues, intermarriage and non-Orthodox conversions; denominational tensions; financial situation of Jewish communities; ties with and attitudes toward Israel; decision-making and control; vision and change; Jewish community lay and professional leadership; community causes; and major priorities. (Jewish education is the top priority, most of the leaders survey agree.) Supplementary files are an executive summary and an accompanying press release.
Second Survey of European Jewish Leaders and Opinion Formers, 2011
Author(s): Kosmin, Barry A.
Date: 2012
Topics: Antisemitism, Fundraising and Philanthropy, Israel Attachment, Jewish Continuity, Surveys, Jewish Leadership and Representation, Jewish Organisations, Main Topic: Identity and Community, Jewish Identity, Denominations, Security / Insecurity
Abstract: unquoted attribute value: "margin-left: 4
Jewish Life in Ukraine at the Dawn of the Twenty-First Century: Part One
Author(s): Gidwitz, Betsy
Date: 2001
Topics: Demography, History, Jewish Organisations, Jewish Leadership and Representation, Main Topic: Identity and Community
Abstract:

This survey of contemporary issues in Ukrainian Jewish life provides detailed information on the following topics: contemporary Ukrainian political and economic climate; Jewish history; Jewish demography; contemporary antisemistism; indigenous Jewish leadership; the role of international Jewish organizations; and Ukrainian national Jewish organizations.
 
Scotland’s Jews: Community and Political Challenge
Author(s): Borowski, Ephraim
Date: 2010
Topics: Antisemitism, Main Topic: Identity and Community, Jewish Leadership and Representation, Jewish Organisations: Representative and Umbrella Bodies, Jewish Relations With Non-Jews
Abstract: The Jewish community in Scotland numbered eighteen thousand in the 1950s but has now shrunk to around ten thousand, largely through emigration. The community is overwhelmingly concentrated in the Greater Glasgow area with around a thousand Jews in Edinburgh and smaller numbers scattered around the country.
When the Scottish Parliament was established in 1999, with responsibility for almost all home affairs, the Jewish community set up the Scottish Council of Jewish Communities (SCoJeC) as a democratic representative body to speak on its behalf. SCoJeC monitors legislation and informs Parliament and civic and religious bodies on Jewish issues and attitudes.
SCoJeC has been very successful in influencing Scottish government policy in areas such as family law, looted Holocaust art, the census, and health and safety issues. It also has responsibility for outreach work to scattered Jews in outlying areas, ensuring their access to Jewish facilities in the larger centers as well as arranging activities in remote centers in the Highlands.
There has been historically little antisemitism in Scotland, and in particular good relations with the churches. Recently there has been a significant increase, much of it associated with events in the Middle East. Specifically, the Scottish trade union movement has pursued a policy of boycotting Israel despite a dialogue with the Jewish community aimed at understanding both sides of the conflict.
A Challenging Summer: Israel Tour and Birthright Groups 2014. Support for Madrichim
Author(s): Miller, Helena
Date: 2014
Topics: Israel Tours and Programmes, Youth Movements: Jewish, Jewish Leadership and Representation, Main Topic: Education, Israel Tours and Programmes: Birthright-Taglit
Abstract: This summer has been a challenging and exceptional one for Israel Tour madrichim, who have run Tour during a period of ferocious hostilities between Israel and Gaza, which have impacted on both the itineraries and the day to day running of their groups. They have had to deal with sirens, taking their groups into shelters, hearing explosions afar and nearby, the political situation and last minute changes to itineraries caused by the security situation. This of course, has been in addition to the regular stresses and challenges of being responsible for a group of 35-40 sixteen year olds for three and a half weeks in Israel.

Remarkably, the chanichim have almost without exception had a fantastic time. UJIA felt, however, that it would be the responsible way forward to follow up with all madrichim on their return, to do the following:

a) To thank the madrichim
b) To acknowledge concern for the welfare for the madrichim
c) To see if there are any particular chanichim requiring follow up
d) To find out the extent to which Tour Providers/YMs/UJIA/taglit/other agencies and individuals were supportive to them and their chanichim before and during the time in Israel
e) To find out if the madrichim would like/need additional support/counselling etc now that they are home.
f) To find out whether the madrichim have any advice for UJIA regarding our handling of the situation, handling of the madrichim and YMs, and could this be improved upon for the future.
In addition, we agreed that a letter of appreciation and thanks would be emailed to all madrichim just prior to return. In the email, they were told that a named person (usually their UJIA contact) would ‘phone them within a couple of days of their return to debrief and check how they are.
Jewish Schools in a Changing Europe: Old and New Challenges
Author(s): Dimentstein, Marcelo
Date: 2012
Topics: Schools: Jewish Schools, Jewish Education, Policy, Jewish Leadership and Representation, Main Topic: Education
Abstract: This paper is based on the outcomes of a think tank on formal Jewish education in Europe, organized by the JDC International Centre for Community Development, in October 2010, Oxford, England and attended by key professionals in the field across Europe. If Jewish education is thriving in the major centers of Jewish life across the continent, there are still a number of issues and dilemmas that remain undiscussed by the professionals and educators working in Europe. Also, this paper stresses the need for Jewish schools to start profiting from, at all levels, an intra- European dialogue.
Likrat — Leadership and Dialogue: Project for Jewish Teens — Forging Jewish Identity in Switzerland and Germany
Author(s): Pruschy, Eva
Date: 2012
Topics: Teenagers, Youth: Jewish, Main Topic: Education, Youth Clubs and Youth Work: Jewish, Jewish Leadership and Representation
Abstract: This article introduces the Leadership and Dialogue project Likrat as a creative answer to the question of how Jewish adolescents between sixteen and eighteen years-of-age can gain a nuanced understanding of Jewish themes, expand their Jewish knowledge and strengthen their Jewish identity. The genesis of the Likrat project is specifically Swiss, yet the situation of Jewish communities in other European countries, especially those with marginal Jewish populations, is not fundamentally different from that of Switzerland. As a result, Likrat can serve as a model for educating Jewish youth in other European countries.
Contemporary Anglo-Jewish community leadership: coping with multiculturalism
Author(s): Gidley, Ben; Kahn-Harris, Keith
Date: 2012
Topics: Jewish Community, Multiculturalism, Jewish Leadership and Representation, Main Topic: Identity and Community
Abstract: In this article, drawing on qualitative interviews and documentary analysis, we argue that the Jewish community in Britain has undergone a fundamental shift since 1990 from a ‘strategy of security’, a strategy of communal leadership based on emphasizing the secure British citizenship and belonging of the UK's Jews, to a ‘strategy of insecurity’, where the communal leadership instead stresses an excess of security among Anglo-Jewry. We demonstrate this based on two case studies: of the Jewish renewal movement in the 1990s and the ‘new antisemitism’ phenomenon of the 2000s. We conclude that this shift is tied to the shift from a monocultural Britain to an officially multicultural one, and that therefore there are lessons that can be taken from it for the study of British and other multiculturalisms.
Im Wandel – Entwürfe jüdischer Identität in den 1980er und 1990er Jahren
Translated Title: In Transition - drafts of Jewish identity in the 1980s and 1990s
Author(s): Schünborn, Susanne
Date: 2010
Topics: Jewish Identity, Jewish Relations With Non-Jews, Politics, Interviews, Jewish Leadership and Representation, Main Topic: Identity and Community
Abstract: Die Arbeit gibt einen aufschlussreichen Einblick in die Entwürfe jüdischer Identität während der 1980er und 1990er Jahre in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Hierzu analysiert die Autorin zentrale politische Debatten der Bundesrepublik, von denen sich in der Rückschau sagen lässt, dass sie Weichen gestellt haben und als Marksteine der deutsch-jüdischen Nachkriegsgeschichte zu bewerten sind. Gestützt auf eine breite Quellenbasis zeichnet die Arbeit den Diskurs zwischen Juden und nichtjüdischen Deutschen über die Frage nach, wie es sich als Jude nach dem Holocaust in Deutschland leben lässt und welche Bedingungen Juden ein Leben in Deutschland ermöglichen. Dabei gibt die Studie auch Auskunft über das jüdische Selbstverständnis prominenter Vertreter der jüdischen Gemeinschaft, wie beispielsweise Ignatz Bubis, Michel Friedmann, Daniel Cohn-Bendit und Salomon Korn.
Jews and Europe in the Twenty-first Century: Thinking Jewish
Author(s): Lambert, Nick
Date: 2007
Topics: Jewish Leadership and Representation, Interviews, Rabbis, Main Topic: Other
Abstract: The book explores the interplay between minority and mainstream populations, and religious and civic identities in the West, and is based around more than two hundred hours of interviews with prominent Jewish novelists, playwrights, Chief Rabbis, philosophers, sociologists, historians, psychiatrists, economists and parliamentarians in the Netherlands, Britain and Italy.
Organized National Life of Russian Jews in the Late Soviet and Post-Soviet Era: a View from Moscow
Author(s): Satanovsky, Eugene
Date: 2002
Topics: Jewish Organisations, Jewish Leadership and Representation, Politics: Jewish Political Engagement, Main Topic: Identity and Community
Abstract: The reestablishment of organized Jewish life in the Russian Federation involved four steps: The period of informal, mostly underground and dispersed Jewish movements of the late Soviet era (from the late 1970s until 1989); the period of the first legal umbrella organizations, which dominated organized Jewish life during 1989-1996; the second half of the 1990s, featuring the leading role of the Russian Jewish Congress and affiliated organizations; and the period of the regrouping of political and organizational structures, which began in 2000.