Abstract: The study examines antisemitism and anti-Israel attitudes in Sweden, analyzing their links to prejudicial attitudes, conspiracy beliefs, and institutional trust. Based on a representative survey of 3,507 individuals, the findings reveal that antisemitism and anti-Israel attitudes are related, but differ in important ways. Antisemitism is associated with anti-immigrant and sexist attitudes and greater endorsement of conspiracy beliefs, but is unrelated to institutional trust. By contrast, anti-Israel attitudes are unrelated to anti-immigrant attitudes and are positively associated with governemnt trust and media confidence. Cluster analyses have identified three profiles: Neutral Moderates (low antisemitism and low anti-Israel attitudes), Critical Engagers (low antisemitism but moderate anti-Israel attitudes), and Distrustful Sceptics (heightened levels of both). These profiles differ in socio-demographic characteristics, prejudicial attitudes, and conspiracy beliefs, with higher institutional trust increasing the likelihood of belonging to Critical Engagers. The findings suggest that institutional trust may channel individuals toward stronger anti-Israel attitudes, particularly in Sweden.
Abstract: Not only Swedish studies, but also several international studies, claim an increase in anti-Semitic attitudes in recent decades. As prejudice is acquired in the early years of socialization, and/or is innate and fairly stable over the life cycle, examining adolescents’ attitudes is vitally important. Hence, by controlling for individual demographic and socio-economic background factors, we study two interrelated questions: Has anti-Semitism among Swedish secondary school-age youths changed between 2003 and 2009? Are changes equal across groups, with a specific focus on religious groups? Using two unique cross-section surveys of secondary school-age students in Sweden for the years 2003 and 2009, we try to address the above questions. Our analysis shows, in contrast to the views of the general public and other related studies, that anti-Semitism has decreased slightly during the examined period. Moreover, the study finds a variation in anti-Semitism by religious affiliation: it has increased among Muslim youth, but remains stable in other groups.
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".
Abstract: This article discusses the historical and geographical contexts of diasporic religious buildings in East London, revealing – contrary both to conventional narratives of immigrant integration, mobility, and succession and to identitarian understandings of belonging – that in such spaces and in the concrete devotional practices enacted in them, markers and boundaries of identity (ritual, spatial, and political) are contested, renegotiated, erased, and rewritten. It draws on a series of case-studies: Fieldgate Street Synagogue in its interrelationship with the East London Mosque; St Antony's Catholic Church in Forest Gate where Hindus and Christians worship together; and the intertwined histories of Methodism and Anglicanism in Bow Road. Exploration of the intersections between ethnicity, religiosity, and class illuminates the ambiguity and instability of identity-formation and expression within East London's diasporic faith spaces.
