Addressing Antisemitism in Germany: Challenges and Possibilities in Society, School, and Education

Julia Bernstein , Marc Grimm and Stefan Müller

This article begins by explaining the need for educational measures targeting antisemitism in its own right, distinct from anti-racist programs. The authors then provide succinct sketches of the evolution of contemporary antisemitism and the social parameters governing antisemitic communication in Germany. This is followed by a discussion of both individual and collective defense and evasion strategies that obstruct the necessary critical treatment of antisemitism and form an obstacle to antisemitism prevention work more generally. The extent to which Jewish life is respected at school tends to be determined directly by the extent to which such defense mechanisms are allowed to prevail, and it is of crucial importance that educational measures targeting antisemitism do not selectively instrumentalize Jewish input. Having discussed these challenges against the backdrop of the parameters governing the public communication of antisemitism, the article concludes with a short summary of the authors’ principal recommendations.

This is an Open Access article from JCA Vol. 5, Issue 2 (Fall 2022).

Exclusion, Isolation, and Rejection: Emerging Anecdotal Reports of Jews Studying Social Work. Preliminary Findings

Annette Poizner with Stacey Love and contributions by Andria Spindel, Jesse Primerano, Elisa Alloul, Rebecca Katzman, and Robert Walker

Owing to reports of antisemitism experienced by Jews studying social work, qualitative research is underway to better understand students’ lived experience. Participants, self-selected, had reached out to report antisemitism concerns or responded to a call for interviewees. Nine individuals representing five Canadian institutions were interviewed. Alarming feedback has warranted the release of early findings: the study of antisemitism is commonly omitted from curriculums. Some Jews experienced fear of being “canceled” because of their Jewishness, were subjected to micro-aggressions or hateful course content, or felt pressured to parrot ideologies that countered their Jewish values. Several claimed Jewish identity was denigrated and grossly misunderstood in their programs. While views expressed cannot be rigorously inferred to any broader population, the consistency of the responses, and the intensity of the emotions expressed, suggest that these experiences may be reflective of those faced by a larger number of students, warranting further investigation.

This is an Open Access article from JCA Vol. 5, Issue 2 (Fall 2022).

The Generalized Antisemitism (GeAs) Scale: Validity and Factor Structure

Daniel Allington, David Hirsh, and Louise Katz

This article validates the Generalized Antisemitism (GeAs) scale, which provides a measure of antisemitism consistent with the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance Working Definition of Antisemitism (generally known as the IHRA Definition). The GeAs scale is comprised of two six-item subscales, each containing a balance of reverse-coded items: the Judeophobic Antisemitism (JpAs) subscale, comprised of antisemitic statements about Jews as Jews, and the Antizionist Antisemitism (AzAs) subscale, comprised of antisemitic statements about Israel and its supporters. Pre-registered tests of convergent-discriminant validity are carried out using a quota sample (n= 602), which is also used to test the pre-registered hypothesis of positive correlation between subscales. The latter is supported and shown to be robust to outliers, as well as to hold both among male and female respondents and among younger and older respondents. Test-retest reliability is measured using re-invitees from the first sample (n= 428). Data from larger samples of UK-resident adults (a quota sample balanced for age and gender, n= 809, and a representative random sample from a recruited panel, n= 1853) are used in a confirmatory factor analysis and in tests of measurement invariance. The findings provide further evidence that the GeAs scale is reliable and valid. The finding that improved fit is achieved by bifactor models featuring two group factors and a general factor is consistent with the view that statements characteristic of “old” and “new” antisemitism express a single underlying trait.

This is an Open Access article from JCA Vol. 5, Issue 2 (Fall 2022).

Durban Antizionism: Its Sources, Its Impact, and Its Relation to Older Anti-Jewish Ideologies

David Hirsh and Hilary Miller

The antizionism that dominated the 2001 UN “World Conference against Racism” was neither a completely “new antisemitism” nor was it simply the latest manifestation of an ahistorical and eternal phenomenon. During the peace process in the late 80s and 90s, the intensifying focus on Israel as a key symbol of all that was bad in the world had been in remission, but at Durban, the 1970s “Zionism=Racism” culture returned. Many participants internalized and embraced the reconfigured antizionism. Others failed to speak out, even when they witnessed the recognizable older antisemitic tropes with which it came intertwined. The proposal to agree that Zionism was the key symbolic form of racism in the world after the fall of apartheid offered unity across different movements and milieus: post-colonialism, human rights and humanitarian law; the women’s movement, anti-racism, much of the global left and NGOs; even oppressive governments if they positioned themselves as anti-imperialist or “Islamic.” Activists, diplomats, and UN personnel at Durban were not passively infected by this antizionist ideology, they chose actively to embrace it or to tolerate it. Based on elements of truth, exaggeration, and invention, and made plausible by half-visible fragments of older antisemitisms, Durban antizionism was attractive because it offered an emotionally potent way of imagining and communicating all that “good people” oppose and that they have difficulty facing rationally. It portrayed racism, and in the end oppression itself, with an Israeli face. Delegates brought this worldview home to where they lived and to the spheres in which they operated intellectually and politically. They worked to make Durban antizionism into the radical common sense of the twenty-first century. There were people at the conference and in anti-hegemonic spaces around the world who understood the dangers of a unity built around opposition to a universal Jewish threat, but they found themselves on the defensive against a self-confident, formidable, and ostensibly coherent ideology or worldview.

Demonization Blueprints: Soviet Conspiracist Antizionism in Contemporary Leftwing Discourse

Izabella Tabarovsky

Contemporary left-wing antizionist discourse reproduces with stunning fidelity some of the central tropes of Soviet antizionist propaganda, which demonized Israel and Zionism. The article explores the background of these tropes, looks at the biographies of the right-wing Soviet ideologues who developed them, and examines the mechanisms through which they reached the West. The article concludes that these tropes are inextricably linked to antisemitic conspiracy theory, containing seeds of anti-Jewish violence that we ignore at our own peril.

This article is a preprint, to be featured in Vol. 5, Issue 1 (Spring 2022).

In the House of the Hangman One should not Mention the Noose: Jewish Voice for Labour’s Attack on the Equality and Human Rights Commission

Derek Spitz

In May 2021 Jewish Voice for Labour (“JVL”) published a combative document entitled How the EHRC Got It So Wrong—Antisemitism and the Labour Party. The document criticises the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s October 2020 Report of its investigation into antisemitism in the Labour Party. The Commission found the Labour Party responsible for antisemitic conduct giving rise to several unlawful acts in breach of the Equality Act 2010. In addition to its legal findings, it also made critical factual findings, identifying a culture of acceptance of antisemitism in the Labour Party, which suffered from serious failings in leadership, where the failure to tackle antisemitism more effectively was probably a matter of choice. The essence of JVL’s attack on the Commission’s Report is as follows. First, it is said that the Commission did not and could not lawfully investigate antisemitism as such; to the extent that it purported to do so, its findings of unlawfulness are purportedly meaningless. Secondly, JVL claims that the Commission made no finding of institutional antisemitism. Thirdly, by failing to require production of evidence referred to in a certain leaked report, probably prepared by Labour Party officials loyal to Jeremy Corbyn, the Commission is accused of nullifying at a stroke the value of its own Report as a factual account. Fourthly, JVL claims the Commission’s Report is not just legally untenable, but purportedly a threat to democracy. Finally, JVL claims the Commission’s analysis was not just wrong, but that it exercised its statutory powers in bad faith. This article offers a response to each of the five pillars of JVL’s attack, all of which collapse under scrutiny.

This article was featured in Vol. 4, Issue 2 (2021).

How the Word “Zionist” Functions in Antisemitic Vocabulary

David Hirsh

This paper is a partial response to the intuitive claim that hostility to “Zionists” is not hostility to Jews and so is not antisemitic. It examines ways in which the terms “Zionist” and “Zionism” themselves feature in antisemitic text and discourse. It argues that antisemitism should be understood as a complex phenomenon that is observable in the social world only with some difficulty, and that understanding should begin in a consideration of that observation data. This paper is critical of the opposite method, which sees the observable world only through pre-existing a priori concepts; an example of this is the construction of the concept of Zionism as essentially racist. This method treats observable phenomena, like racism, as inevitable manifestations of the predetermined concept, Zionism. Zionism, and its relationship to racism, should be understood after observing their actuality in the world, not as a priori definitions, which then structure what is observed. Much under-standing of Zionism therefore adds a methodological double standard to the double standards of judgment, which have already been well described. The paper draws on a number of case studies, that is, actualizations of Zionism and antisemitism in the existing world: the opposition to David Unterhalter’s nomination to the Constitution Court in South Africa; the antizionist construction of Zionism as racism without the consent or the collaboration of people who self-identify as Zionists; statements circulating in academia that define the communities of scholarship and of morality in ways that exclude most Jews; the designation of Israel as apartheid. The paper concludes with a word on how antizionist nostalgia resists facing the material changes to Jewish life, which were enforced during the twentieth century.

This article was featured in Vol. 4, Issue 2 (2021).

A Lesser Bigotry? The UK Conservative Evangelical Response to Stephen Sizer’s Antisemitism

James Mendelsohn & Bernard Nicholas Howard

Jewish commentators frequently lament that antisemitism is seen as a “lesser bigotry” by those claiming to oppose racism. This article argues that the response of British conservative evangelical Christians to the antisemitic activity of Rev. Dr. Stephen Sizer is a prime example of this phenomenon. The article starts by defining conservative evangelicalism in the British context and explaining Dr. Sizer’s position within it. It then describes his antisemitic conduct in detail. The article examines the disciplinary measures imposed upon Dr. Sizer by the Church of England, and it surveys the notoriety he earned in the UK media. The article then analyzes how Dr. Sizer’s fellow British conservative evangelicals responded to his antisemitic activity, comparing this with their responses to other forms of racism. The article concludes by locating this episode within the context of other contemporary responses to antisemitism.

Labour’s Leaked Report: Who Is to Blame for Antisemitism in Britain’s Labour Party?

Dave Rich

In April 2020, shortly after Keir Starmer replaced Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the UK Labour Party, an internal party report concerning the workings of Labour's internal disciplinary unit in relation to antisemitism was leaked to the media. This report was over 850 pages long and was intended to be submitted to the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which is conducting an inquiry into allegations of antisemitism in the Party. However, Labour's lawyers refused to allow it to be used, almost certainly because the content was so damaging to the Party's own defence. … The leaked report is selective and inaccurate in many respects and ignores the role played by Corbyn and his close advisers in denying the problem of antisemitism existed.

Conceptual Vandalism, Historical Distortion: The Labour Antisemitism Crisis and the Limits of Class Instrumentalism

Matthew Bolton

This article analyses the British left’s response to allegations of antisemitism within the UK Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership. It uses as its foil a collection of essays on the topic written over the course of the Corbyn era for leading online outlets of the contemporary Anglo-American left, and given away as a free e-book by Verso, the world’s biggest leftist publisher, during the 2019 British election campaign. On the basis of this collection, the article suggests that the Labour antisemitism crisis was the culmination of a long process of political and theoretical degeneration within the left.

Judeophobic Antisemitism among British Voters, 2016-2020

Daniel Allington

Through secondary analysis of survey data collected by YouGov for Campaign Against Antisemitism, this research note provides a longitudinal account of changes in Judeophobic antisemitism (that is, antisemitism articulated in relation to Jews identified as Jews) in mainland Britain from 2016-2020. Because survey responses are aggregated by most recent general election vote, the dataset facilitates comparison between those who voted for each of Britain’s three main parties in the 2015, 2017, and 2019 UK general elections.

A Looming Threat? A Survey of Anti-Shechita Agitation in Contemporary Britain

James Mendelsohn

Following the comprehensive defeat of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party in the 2019 General Election, many British Jews felt relieved that an “existential threat” had been vanquished. Subsequently, however, a different cloud has come on to the horizon: namely, the possibility of a ban on shechita—kosher slaughter—in the United Kingdom. This article argues that the legal status of shechita in Britain is more vulnerable than previously; and that a ban would have an antisemitic effect, regardless of the intention.

On Not Being among Friends: Some Observations on the Political Mind Seminar “Psychoanalysis and Palestine-Israel: Further Thoughts,” July 7, 2020

Derek Spitz

A seminar entitled “Psychoanalysis and Palestine-Israel: Further Thoughts” was recently presented at the British Psychoanalytical Society. The seminar and an earlier article by the presenting psychoanalyst emerged from a forum in which encounters took place giving expression to enmity between Israelis and Palestinians. The forum was originally established to enable German and Israeli psychoanalysts to work through difficult issues in the long shadow of the Holocaust. This article offers a critique of the presenting psychoanalyst’s seminar and article, and of the project of eliciting enmity between Israelis and Palestinians.

“What Others Dare Not Say”: An Antisemitic Conspiracy Fantasy and its YouTube Audience

Daniel Allington & Tanvi Joshi

The YouTube video-sharing platform is one of the most important sites for the dissemination of conspiracy theory, or—to give it a more accurately descriptive term—conspiracy fantasy. After surveying the historical and contemporary evidence for the role of conspiracy fantasy in right-wing violent extremism, this article turns its focus to a YouTube video excerpted from a public lecture in which professional conspiracy theorist David Icke purports to expose members of a “Rothschild Zionist” secret society.

Assessing the Threat of Antisemitic Harassment and Attack in France—Paris in Focus

Gunther Jikeli

Reports of antisemitic harassment and attacks against Jews in France have become frequent in the French and international media. However, such reports are mostly anecdotal and provide only limited information on how widespread these attacks are or if they are increasing over time. Has antisemitism become a frequent experience for French Jews?

The Devil’s Intersectionality: Contemporary Cloaked Academic Antisemitism

Cary Nelson

Over a period of years, a pattern has emerged in anti-Zionist faculty publications that seriously compromises not only the scholars’ credibility and professionalism but also that of academic publishing as a whole. Academia has proceeded for a decade by blindly assuming that basic evaluation procedures like peer review, fact-checking, and copy editing have continued to function reliably. The ferocity of anti-Zionist conviction in these books and essays unfortunately means that they often cross the line into antisemitism. Using examples from work by Jasbir Puar, Sari Makdisi, and others, I demonstrate how distinguished university presses have become purveyors of antisemitism.

The Re-Emergence of the Jewish Question

Shalom Lappin

Major economic transformations over the past forty years have produced wrenching social changes. These have now generated a strong anti-globalist reaction that is expressing itself in extremist political movements throughout Europe, America, and other parts of the world. Antisemitism is an integral element of this reaction in its far-right, far-left, and Islamist instantiations. These developments have caused a re-emergence of the question of the place of Jews in the non-Jewish world. To be effective, the Jewish response to the threat posed by widespread antisemitism must be informed by the lessons of recent Jewish history.