Abstract: EUJS has published a report on the Rise of Antisemitism at European Universities as a result of the October 7 Massacre. For the compilation of this report, we received more than one hundred and ten (110) reports of antisemitic incidents across Europe. However, this in no way reflects the true magnitude of incidents that have taken place, as many have gone unreported.
This report has been sent out to the European Commission, Members of the European Parliament, major Jewish organisations, Heads of Jewish communities, our Partners, Universities, and the press.
The message we want to spread with the report is: Jewish students do not feel safe on their campuses. Jewish students have even stopped attending classes out of fear due to the extremely hostile campus atmosphere. In 2024, this is unacceptable.
The European Union of Jewish Students will continue to gather information and data on antisemitism from University campuses across Europe. We will continue to fight against all forms of antisemitism, be it on campus or online, and to protect our Jewish students. We will continue, throughout, to advocate for a world that will allow for Jews to showcase and celebrate their Judaism in a positive way. But for this, collaboration on a university, institutional, governmental, and societal level is needed
Abstract: Scholars have drawn attention to the prevalence of antizionist campaigning on campus, but previous studies have found lower levels of antisemitism among graduates. In this cross-sectional study, levels of antisemitism were measured among members of a large, demographically representative sample of UK residents (N = 1725), using the Generalised Antisemitism (GeAs) scale. Overall scores, as well as scores for the two subscales of this scale (that is, Judeophobic Antisemitism, JpAs, and Antizionist Antisemitism, AzAs) were measured, with comparisons being made according to educational level (degree-educated vs non-degree educated) and subject area (among degree holders only, classified using the JACS 3.0 principal subject area codes). Degree holders were found to have significantly lower scores than non-degree holders for Generalised Antisemitism and Judeophobic Antisemitism, while scores for Antizionist Antisemitism were effectively identical. Among degree holders, graduates from subjects under the JACS 3.0 umbrella category of Historical and Philosophical Studies exhibited significantly lower scores for Generalised Antisemitism and Judeophobic Antisemitism, and lower scores for Antizionist Antisemitism, although the latter association fell short of significance following application of the Holm-Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons (unsurprisingly, given the large number of hypotheses and the small absolute number of respondents in this category, N = 65). Exploratory analysis of the dataset suggests possible further negative associations with antisemitism for graduates of economics, psychology, and counselling, which may have been concealed by the system of categories employed. These associations may have intuitive theoretical explanations. However, further research will be necessary to test whether they are statistically robust. The article concludes with a discussion of possible theoretical explanations for observed patterns, and some suggestions for further research
Abstract: Äußerungen gegen den Staat Israel bieten als Umwegkommunikation in Europa zunehmend die Mög-lichkeit, das Tabu des offenen Antisemitismus zu umgehen. Konkrete Kriterien zur Abgrenzung von Kritik wurden daher entwickelt, vor allem in Deutschland und Großbritannien allerdings auch starkdebattiert. Der Beitrag stellt Ergebnisse einer Diskursanalyse vor, die wissenschaftliche Debattenüber Definitionen des israelbezogenen Antisemitismus in den beiden Ländern fokussiert. Untersuchtwurden dabei wissenschaftliche Bewertungen der Delegitimierung der israelischen Staatlichkeit, einhäufig zu beobachtendes Phänomen, das Juden und Jüdinnen das Recht auf Selbstbestimmung ab- spricht. Es zeigt sich, dass die Debatten stark durch die jeweilige nationale Kultur beeinflusst sind. Antizionismus wird nicht durchgehend als antisemitisch bewertet, ja z.T. sogar gerechtfertigt. InGroßbritannien ist eine weitere Verwendung des Antizionismus-Begriffs zu beobachten als in Deutsch-land, die z.T. Kritik an der israelischen Regierung einschließt. Diese Verwirrung wird noch gesteigert,weil nicht immer klar ist, ob über potentiell antisemitische Wirkungen oder aber jüd*innenfeindliche Motivationen gesprochen wird.
Abstract: While some of the founders of American cultural anthropology and British social anthropology were part of the transregional Jewish and non-Jewish German speaking community, Jewish anthropology, and anthropology by or on Jews in German-speaking countries, was seriously impacted by the Shoah. Some sources in the area of historical anthropology engage with Jews, who were anthropologists, and who were murdered or who fled, others focus on the appropriation of Jewish cultural heritage and zoom in on discourses about Jews. Living Jews are oftentimes covered in dissertations, after which the nascent ethnologist/anthropologist vanishes from academia, or leaves the country: research on living Jews seems an unsustainable career move. This paper is a first attempt to sketch out the developments of Jewish anthropology – in the broadest sense – in Germany post-1945. It will pay due attention to structures, societal, social, and academic; the place of anthropology within these structures; and Jews, as an ethno-religious group being researched by anthropologists (and other ethnographers); and the anthropologists/ethnographers who research them. By paying close attention to the anthropologists and ethnographers themselves, it is possible to “map the margins” (Crenshaw 1991) of anthropological and ethnographic work in an emotionalized, ideologized, and politicized field, a field that is indicative of post-genocidal intergroup relations in situ.
Abstract: Religious minorities have always been at the centre of the German nation-state’s self-understanding, as it came to define itself vis a vis, and often against, them. Historically, this can be seen specifically in the Jewish experience, and today reverberates in the experience of Muslims grappling with a position of alterity in German society. We will move beyond the scholarship on these two religious minority groups to that of these two religious minority groups—that is the intellectual milieu of German Jews and German Muslims. Both have confronted the insider-outsider status of religious minorities in Germany, while themselves occupying—and thinking from—this position of alterity. As Jewish intellectuals a century prior, Muslim intellectuals are confronting the (im)possibility of fully belonging to the society at hand. In so doing, they are, at times inadvertently, coming into conversation with Jewish intellectuals past on ideas surrounding the practice of religion, pluralism, minority-state relations, and social ethics.
Topics: Antisemitism, Antisemitism: Education against, Main Topic: Antisemitism, Schools: Non-Jewish, Schools: Primary / Elementary, Schools: Seconday / High Schools, Jewish Pupils, Jewish Children In Mainstream Schools, Jewish Perceptions of Antisemitism, Teaching and Pedagogy, Universities / Higher Education
Abstract: Malmö stad har under hösten 2020 undersökt förekomsten av antisemitism och förutsättningarna för judiskt liv i Malmös förskolor, skolor, gymnasier och vuxenutbildning. Resultatet presenteras nu i en rapport tillsammans med en forskningsöversikt och förslag på åtgärder framåt. Undersökningen och rapporten är en del av Malmö stad och Judiska Församlingen Malmös samverkansöverenskommelse.
Rapporten handlar om att motarbeta antisemitism och stärka förutsättningarna för judiskt liv i Malmös förskolor, skolor, gymnasier och vuxenutbildning. Studien består av intervjuer med skolpersonal och judiska barn och unga i Malmö, vilket kompletteras med en skolpersonalenkät utförd i några av Malmös grundskolor och gymnasier, samt en forskningsöversikt.
- Antisemitismen i Malmö är ett verkligt problem med tydliga offer, men frågan är mer mångbottnad än vad den ibland beskrivs som. Målsättningen med det här arbetet är att, utifrån kunskap och forskning, identifiera problem och behov i Malmös skolor för att skapa förutsättningar för att arbeta systematiskt med dessa frågor i utbildningen, säger Mirjam Katzin, samordnare för arbetet mot antisemitism och författare till rapporten.
Resultatet visar att det ofta saknas tillräckliga förutsättningar och förkunskaper hos skolpersonal för att arbeta mot antisemitism. För att förebygga rasism och antisemitism är en ökad kunskapsnivå central. Detta gäller i första hand lärare och annan skolpersonal och i andra hand eleverna. Slutsatsen är att det behövs kunskap och utbildning i demokrati, rättigheter, antirasism och specifikt frågor om antisemitism, konspirationsteorier, Israel/Palestina och de nationella minoriteterna.
Abstract: This report, which focuses on the past two academic years, uncovers a much higher number of antisemitic incidents
on UK campuses than had previously been reported. It shows that in some instances, university staff, academics
and student societies were themselves responsible for antisemitism on campus, and that university complaints processes are sometimes inadequate. In one case reported to CST, a Jewish student at the University of Warwick was even subjected to disciplinary investigation after he complained that a member of academic staff had made an antisemitic comment in a lecture. This was later dropped with no action taken against the student.
CST recorded a total of 58 university incidents in the 2018/2019 academic year and 65 university incidents in the
2019/2020 academic year, making a total of 123 antisemitic incidents during the two years covered by this report. The total for 2019/2020 is the highest total CST has ever recorded in a single academic year, despite the year being cut short as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Previously, CST had recorded university incidents by calendar
year, and logged 25 such incidents in 2018; 22 in 2017; and 41 in 2016. The significant increase in university incident totals since 2018 reflects a sustained drive by CST’s campus team to encourage students to report antisemitic incidents. This increase in the number of university incidents therefore needs to be seen within the context of increased awareness among university students of the need and importance of reporting incidents to CST, as well as the rising levels of antisemitism in the UK more widely. It is likely that more incidents
remain unreported.
Abstract: Since 2014, JPR's European Jewish Research Archive (EJRA) has consolidated social research on post-1990 European Jewish populations within one single, freely available, online resource. EJRA is designed to be a service to community leaders, policymakers and researchers, as well as a resource to help inform the European Jewish research agenda going forward.
Drawing on an innovative methodology, this report presents a detailed statistical analysis of EJRA's holdings. Through this analysis, we are able to pinpoint specific strengths and weaknesses in social research coverage of particular issues in particular countries.
The report finds a clear increase in the research coverage of European Jewish populations since 1990. The amount of coverage in each country is broadly in line with the size of each country’s Jewish population. The majority of the research is produced by researchers whose work is not confined to this field, with a small ‘core' of committed Jewishly-focused researchers. Academia provides the primary base for researchers, but there has been a significant increase in recent years in research reports produced by non-academic institutions, particularly those concerned with monitoring antisemitism.
Approximately 20% of EJRA items concern antisemitism and this proportion has more than trebled since 1990. Research on ‘living’ Jewish communities - as opposed to research on antisemitism and Holocaust remembrance - is far less developed in countries with small Jewish populations. At 8% of the collection, Jewish education appears to be underdeveloped in all European countries with the exception of the UK.
Drawing on the research findings, the report goes on to raise questions regarding possible strategic priorities for European Jewish research for discussion by researchers and organisations that sponsor research. In particular, we ask how and whether research across Europe could be better coordinated and what countries and topics require further support to develop a stronger research infrastructure.
Abstract: The tradition of Jewish studies in Poland has been drastically interrupted by the Second World War and the Holocaust. In the immediate postwar period the process of re-establishing research on Jewish history and heritage was undertaken by the Jewish Historical Commissions and later Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw. More examples of the individual and group initiatives can be traced only in the 1970s and 1980s. The real happened in the late 1980s with Kraków as one of the first and main centers of revitalized Jewish studies in Poland. The first postwar academic institution in Krakow specializing in Jewish studies – Research Center for Jewish History and Culture in Poland – was established already in 1986 in the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. More than a decade later, in 2000, it was transformed into the first Poland’s Department of Jewish Studies (Katedra Judaistyki) – now the Institute of Jewish Studies. Nowadays there are more similar programs and institutions – at the universities in Warsaw, Wrocław and Lublin (UMCS). Also other academic centers tend to have at least individual scholars, programs, classes or projects focusing on widely understood “Jewish topics.” Jewish studies in Poland, along with the revival of Jewish culture, reflect the contemporary Polish attitude to the Jewish heritage, and their scale and intensity remains unique in the European context. The growing interest in Jewish studies in Poland can be seen as a sign of respect for the role of Jewish Poles in the country’s history, and as an attempt to recreate the missing Jewish part of Poland through research, education and commemoration, accompanied by slow but promising revival of Jewish life in Poland.
Abstract: Los instrumentos y técnicas docentes, tanto en estudios primarios y secundarios como en el ámbito universitario, se adaptan a los nuevos métodos desarrollados por la ciencia de la didáctica para un mejor entendimiento y asimilación. Este hecho encuen-tra también formas en las nuevas tecnologías (TIC) que sirven como refuerzo para el aprendizaje. Sin embargo, herramientas clásicas tales como el uso del teatro aún siguen teniendo resultados destacables. El objetivo de estas páginas es el de ofrecer el modo en que se articula el género dramático en la adquisición de elementos lingüísticos, culturales e histórico-sociales y su practicidad en los estudiantes de grado en la Uni-versidad de Granada a través de dos ejemplos prácticos, el teatro en lengua hebrea y en judeoespañol o sefardí. 1. El género teatral en el contexto pedagógico: técnicas y aprendizaje de idiomas La enseñanza de técnicas teatrales no está programada en las guías docentes ni for-ma parte de ellas como una materia optativa, en nuestro caso, en el grado de Lenguas Modernas y sus Literaturas de la Universidad de Granada. Esta tarea, aunque requiere importante consideración y queda en manos de los responsables del taller, docentes que actúan como los directores del mismo. Las claves que se aplican en esta actividad, destinada a alumnos de idioma y cultura, tienen que ver con las formas de comuni-cación y la construcción de un conocimiento intercultural. El espacio teatral genera un lugar en el cual el alumno/actor puede discutir su personalidad y confrontarla con
Abstract: JPR has been conducting research on Jews in Britain for many years, allowing us to explore trends in Jewish life over time. This study takes four major datasets, spanning close to quarter of a century, to investigate an important and challenging question: is there a negative correlation between high academic achievement and Jewish community engagement? Or, more simply, are the most academically qualified Jews turning away from Jewish communal life?
The answer appears to be yes. It demonstrates that:
• Jews with postgraduate qualifications are, on average, the least engaged members of the Jewish community;
• The gap in levels of Jewish communal engagement between postgraduates and others is particularly substantial in areas such as synagogue membership, outmarriage, charitable priorities and support for Israeli government policy
• Highly educated Jews are about half as likely as non-graduates to see their fellow Jews as a source of natural support, or to express concern about Jewish continuity.
However, high academic achievers are more likely than others to cite positive traits and values (such as fairness, respect, dislike of prejudice, love of learning) as examples of how they feel their Jewishness has affected them.
The report author, Professor Stephen H. Miller OBE, one of the leading experts in the social scientific study of British Jews and senior adviser to JPR’s research team, also notes that the drop in Jewish engagement seen in highly educated Jews can be largely attributed to their more critical evaluation of the Jewish community, rather than any weakness in their personal identity as Jews.
So, in short, the fundamental message of this study is a challenging one for Jews of all types. It indicates that the most academically qualified Jews are turning away from organised Jewish life in unusually high numbers, because the types of Jewishness they find there fail to resonate with the ways in which they understand their own Jewish identities.
It leaves us with at least two critical questions: (i) is academia a detrimental environment for Jews, teaching them to think in ways that implicitly undermine their links with Jewish life (or, viewed from an alternative perspective, is academia a positive environment for Jews, helping to free them from the limitations imposed by Judaism and to think more openly?); and (ii) is Jewish communal life insufficiently rigorous in its thinking to attract the most thoughtful and qualified (or, again, viewed differently, an intellectually rich environment that rightly differs from the academy and challenges its modes of thinking by offering an alternative model)?
