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Some Epistemological Issues in the Public Debate on Contemporary Antisemitism in France
Author(s): Zawadzki, Paul
Date: 2017
Topics: Antisemitism, Theory, Main Topic: Antisemitism
Abstract: During the last 15 years, the phenomenon of an increase in antisemitic acts in France has led to numerous commentaries, to people taking public stances, and to some preliminary university-based research studies. In this article, we formulate certain epistemological and moral issues that we always encounter sooner or later when we study antisemitism. By starting with certain elements of the public discussion in which a number of academics have participated, we wanted to raise awareness of the reasoning and logic of ideas connected to sociological practice. Among the number of entangled questions that the public debates let us glimpse, at least two of these call into question the practice of sociology. The first has to do with the negation of the reality of contemporary antisemitism. The second touches on a problem that is both moral and epistemological, and has to do with the problem of causal determinism. An individual is only responsible if he is free. If we think that individuals are determined by causes, we must accept to think them as not responsible. We think that it is by taking into account these two questions that a non-deterministic sociology could be developed. This article is dedicated to providing a brief answer to these questions.
Réflexion sur le type arendtien du « paria conscient » et ses usages dans la France d’aujourd’hui De Bernard Lazare aux intellectuels juifs français contemporains ?
Translated Title: Reflection on the Arendtian type of the "conscious pariah" and its uses in France today. From Bernard Lazare to contemporary French Jewish intellectuals?
Author(s): Poizat, Jean-Claude
Editor(s): Tartakowsky, Ewa; Dimentstein, Marcelo
Date: 2017
Topics: Jewish Identity, Main Topic: Other, Theory, Jewish Studies, Universities / Higher Education
Researching vernacular Judaism: reflections on theory and method
Author(s): Illman, Ruth
Date: 2019
Topics: Main Topic: Other, Theory, Ethnography, Methodology
Abstract: This article presents the ethnographically driven multi-method research perspective of vernacular religion and analyses its potential to contribute to the theoretical advancement of Jewish studies. The ongoing discussion on religion and change within the study of religions in gen­eral and Jewish studies in particular is outlined and structured around three ‘turns’ identified in the re­search on vernacular religiosity. To exemplify these theoretical and methodological considerations, a recently initiated research project focusing on vernacular Judaism in Finland is presented. This project seeks to examine central ideas of boundaries as they are negotiated and interpreted among Finnish Jewry, to compare the emerging patterns with Nordic counterparts and thus contribute to a more nuanced perception of Jewish identities in these contexts. The article concludes with a discussion on the advances of such an approach, pointing to the relative novelty of research into vernacular religion within Jewish studies and the exceptionality of the Finnish Jewish context.
Fighting with phantoms: a contribution to the debate on antisemitism in Europe
Author(s): Fine, Robert
Date: 2009
Topics: Main Topic: Antisemitism, Antisemitism: New Antisemitism, Theory
Abstract: The point of departure of this paper is the polarization of ways of thinking about antisemitism in Europe, between those who see its recent resurgence and those that affirm its empirical marginalization and normative delegitimation. The historical question raised by this polarization of discourses is this: what has happened to the antisemitism that once haunted Europe? Both the current camps—‘alarmists’ and ‘deniers’, as they are sometimes known, or, perhaps more accurately, new antisemitism theorists and their critics—have the strength to challenge celebratory views of European civilization. One camp sees the return to Europe of an old antisemitism in a new and mediated guise. The other sees the return to Europe of a rhetoric of antisemitism that is not only anachronistic but also delusory and deceptive. Overshadowing this debate is the memory of the Holocaust and the continuing presence of the Israel–Palestine conflict. The aim of this paper is to get inside these discourses and deconstruct the dualism that generates homogenizing and stigmatizing typifications on either side. The spirit of Hannah Arendt hovers over this work and the question of the meaning of her legacy runs through the text.
What do you call it when Jeremy Corbyn walks into a Seder? Jewishness, Gustav Landauer (1870–1919) and ethical subject-formation
Author(s): Gabay, Clive
Date: 2021
Topics: Anti-Zionism, Antisemitism: Left-Wing, Main Topic: Other, Theory
Abstract: Then UK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn’s attendance at a Passover Seder organised by the radical leftist group, Jewdas, in April 2018, led to a brief but vitriolic controversy involving Anglo-Jewish umbrella organisations concerning who qualifies to speak as a Jew. This article uses this controversy to engage with Judith Butler’s attempt to address this question, suggesting that in decentring Zionist claims to Jewish subjectivity she fails to take account of how different Jewish subjectivities are formed, and thus ends up proposing a ‘good Jew/bad Jew’ binary that dissolves Jewishness into universal humanism. Drawing on the work of the German-Jewish mystical anarchist Gustav Landauer (1870–1919), the article proposes a different way of understanding subjectivity that retains ontological inherency as a plausible precondition for ethical solidarity. As such, the article’s argument has implications not merely for a reworked understanding of Jewish subjectivity but for the politics of subject formation more broadly.
The Jews of France at the Turn of the Third Millenium: A Sociological and Cultural Analysis
Author(s): Cohen, Erik H.
Date: 2009
Topics: Demography, Surveys, Statistics, Jewish Identity, Theory, Main Topic: Demography and Migration
Abstract: This is a sociological and cultural analysis of French Jewry, the second largest and one of the most vibrant Diaspora communities in the world today. The book addresses fundamental questions such as: Jewish identity (e.g. national, ethnic and religious), social issues (e.g. level of happiness, concerns/worries and politics), solidarity (e.g. loyalty to the State vs. involvement with an ethnic and religious community, Jewish education and Israel) and values.

After a brief introduction on the history of French Jewry, and the current social, political and cultural situation (rising anti-Semitism and anti-Israel sentiment), Dr. Cohen describes various demographic statistics on French Jewry, including size of population, country of birth, ethnicity, geographical distribution, age, marital status, size of family, level of education and employment.

After a brief introduction on the history of French Jewry, and the current social, political and cultural situation (rising anti-Semitism and anti-Israel sentiment), Dr. Cohen describes various demographic statistics on French Jewry, including size of population, country of birth, ethnicity, geographical distribution, age, marital status, size of family, level of education and employment.

The core of the book is an extensive analysis based on a comprehensive, socio-demographic and attitudinal survey conducted among a representative sample of French Jewry during the month of January 2002 (an explanation is also provided on the method used for selecting the interviewees). Additional data was drawn from other surveys directed by Dr. Cohen, in 2003-2007 such as a follow-up survey of a majority of the same population and surveys of French-Jewish professionals, tourists to Israel and participants in the Israel Experience tours.

The data, analyzed and presented in the form of tables and cognitive maps, offers a rich picture of the French Jewish population. An axiological typology of the French Jews is designed comprising four types: Universalists, Individualists, Revivalists, and Traditionalists, providing a pioneering theoretical platform for international or cross-cultural comparisons to other Jewish communities and potentially to non-Jewish populations.
Religion and ethnicity: Judaism in the ethnic consciousness of contemporary Russian Jews 
Author(s): Chervyakov, Valeriy; Gitelman, Zvi; Shapiro, Vladimir
Date: 1997
Topics: Theory, Jewish History, Religion, Ethnicity, Jewish Identity, Main Topic: Identity and Community
Abstract: Jews have debated whether they are a racial, religious, ethnic or cultural group. Historically, Judaism (religion) and Jewish ethnicity have been fused. The Soviet regime suppressed traditional Jewish identities and substituted a secular, socialist Jewishness based on Yiddish which proved unpopular. Now that they are free to reconstruct Jewish life, we interviewed 1,300 Jews in three Russian cities to ascertain what they think being Jewish means. Judaism plays a very small role in their conceptions of Jewishness. To the extent that religious rituals are observed, they are manifestations of ‘symbolic ethnicity’. Many do not ‘feel’ Jewish because their culture and consciousness are largely Russian. Nevertheless, they are interested in learning more about Jewish traditions and culture. A Jewish ‘civil religion’ may emerge in Russia. Jewish identities have varied over space and time, and a uniquely Russian Jewish identity may evolve in the coming years. 
In Search of a Meaningful Framework for the Study of Post-Soviet Jewish Identities, with Special Emphasis on the Case of Ukraine
Author(s): Golbert, Rebecca
Date: 1998
Topics: Jewish Revival, Soviet Jewry, Communism, Theory, Jewish Identity, Main Topic: Identity and Community
Jews and Judaism in Contemporary Europe: Religion or Ethnic Group
Author(s): Webber, Jonathan
Date: 1997
Topics: Theory, Jewish History, Religion, Ethnicity, Jewish Identity, Main Topic: Identity and Community
Abstract: The Jewish experience in Europe over the past two hundred years offers much of interest to the student of ethnicity and the sociologist of religion because of the opportunity to undertake comparative work on a single group living in a range of diverse socio‐political environments. European Jews have been treated from the outside as constituting a religion and, more recently, as an ethnic group; both these models have been internalized by Jews themselves. However, they coexist with major processes of internal change involving not only the disintegration of traditional Jewish culture and its reconstruction in highly attenuated form, but also the respective influences of the devastation of the Holocaust and of newer models deriving from Israeli perspectives on diaspora Jewish identity. Under these circumstances, ethnicity and religion as analytic categories do not easily fit the Jewish case: the proposal is made that attention to Jewish historical consciousness may be useful in advancing comparative and ethnographic studies.