Pub Date : 2019-11-05DOI: 10.1515/9783110618594-009
Katharina von Schnurbein
Even today, the Jewish community of Vienna sets an excellent example of a positive interaction between the community and wider society, thanks to organizations such as the Makkabi Sports Club, the Maimonides Center, the Job Training Centre JBBZ, the psychosocial center ESRA, to name a few. The fact that Jewish life was revived at all in such a way after the Shoah was certainly not a given and testifies to the inherent strength of the community here in Vienna. At the European Commission, we are very much aware that Europe has a specific obligation to protect and support Jewish life. Europe would not be Europe without its two thousand years of European Jewish history, cherishing the continuation of this special symbiosis. The European Commission is about supporting vibrant Jewish life across Europe, and all our antisemitism policies are geared towards it. With this contribution, I will add a European perspective to our reflections on how to tackle this cancer and prevent it from spreading its malignant manifestations further across European societies and indeed to end antisemitism. While none of us are naïve enough to think that this will be any time soon, I like the exclamation mark in the title of “An End to Antisemitism!” If we do not aim for the maximum, we will not achieve the minimum. Antisemitism is not a national problem only! It is a European one. It touches the very heart of the European project. And it needs to be tackled with the greatest rigor on all levels, European, national and local. Yet, in Europe at the start of 2018, antisemitic prejudices are found in all forms, in all countries, irrespective of the size of the Jewish community, and in all strata of society. Sometimes violent, sometimes “only” as oral pinpricks, by questioning the right to a Jewish identity in public. Where antisemitic incidents are recorded properly, figures are record-high: Four antisemitic incidents per day were recorded in Germany and the UK (in 2017)1 and France (in 2016),2 while in all European countries the Jewish community represents significantly less than one percent of the population.
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Pub Date : 2019-11-05DOI: 10.1515/9783110618594-008
Raya Kalenova
The European Jewish Congress (EJC), the umbrella organization of European Jewry, represents Jewish communities in 42 countries across Europe. Our communities face very diverse challenges, from security issues and attacks on fundamental freedom, to antisemitism,which comes from the far right, the far left, and from radical Islam. As such, they need a strong voice, a voice that is heard and respected, and most importantly, an effective voice. From our headquarters in Brussels, we advocate for policies and mechanisms that will hopefully have tangible effects for our communities, and we are vigilant against attacks on human dignity and democratic values. At the core of these challenges lies the scourge of antisemitism. In all dimensions of our work,we focus on practical efforts towards combatting this evil. This is why I would like to share some of our strategies with you: Our main tool in order to achieve tangible results on the ground is advocacy. A central element of our strategy is to advocate for the development and implementation of legislation.We also identified the need for a dedicated forum to raise awareness and develop tools to fight antisemitism at the European Parliament.We succeeded in establishing the European Parliament Working Group on Antisemitism, which brings together around one hundred principled and motivated MEPs across all major political groups.1 The EJC advises the Working Group and acts currently as its Secretariat. The Working Group’s groundbreaking success of 2017 was the adoption by the European Parliament of the first Resolution solely dedicated to the fight against antisemitism at EU level. The Chair of the Working Group at the time, the former Justice Minister of Spain was the legislative initiator of the Resolution. In the plenary, we found broad political support across all political the spectrum, with 76 percent of MEPs voting in favor. Through this Resolution,
{"title":"Leadership Talk by the Executive Vice-President and CEO of the European Jewish Congress","authors":"Raya Kalenova","doi":"10.1515/9783110618594-008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110618594-008","url":null,"abstract":"The European Jewish Congress (EJC), the umbrella organization of European Jewry, represents Jewish communities in 42 countries across Europe. Our communities face very diverse challenges, from security issues and attacks on fundamental freedom, to antisemitism,which comes from the far right, the far left, and from radical Islam. As such, they need a strong voice, a voice that is heard and respected, and most importantly, an effective voice. From our headquarters in Brussels, we advocate for policies and mechanisms that will hopefully have tangible effects for our communities, and we are vigilant against attacks on human dignity and democratic values. At the core of these challenges lies the scourge of antisemitism. In all dimensions of our work,we focus on practical efforts towards combatting this evil. This is why I would like to share some of our strategies with you: Our main tool in order to achieve tangible results on the ground is advocacy. A central element of our strategy is to advocate for the development and implementation of legislation.We also identified the need for a dedicated forum to raise awareness and develop tools to fight antisemitism at the European Parliament.We succeeded in establishing the European Parliament Working Group on Antisemitism, which brings together around one hundred principled and motivated MEPs across all major political groups.1 The EJC advises the Working Group and acts currently as its Secretariat. The Working Group’s groundbreaking success of 2017 was the adoption by the European Parliament of the first Resolution solely dedicated to the fight against antisemitism at EU level. The Chair of the Working Group at the time, the former Justice Minister of Spain was the legislative initiator of the Resolution. In the plenary, we found broad political support across all political the spectrum, with 76 percent of MEPs voting in favor. Through this Resolution,","PeriodicalId":418945,"journal":{"name":"Comprehending and Confronting Antisemitism","volume":"93 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-11-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125397664","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-11-05DOI: 10.1515/9783110618594-023
E. Ben-Rafael
The story of European Jewry is more than two thousand years old. It has known periods of prosperity but also times of persecutions.1 Above all, it is impossible to describe this history without assessing the vicissitudes of their condition as a minority repetitively harassed in most various circumstances. Hatred of Jews has even received a special label—antisemitism. Early examples of massacre of Jews took place in Alexandria, before and after the beginning of the Common Era, when the city was home to the largest Jewish diaspora community.2 Manetho, an Egyptian historian, wrote scathingly of the Jews and so did Agatharchides of Cnidus who ridiculed Jews’ laws as “absurd.” Many scholars have studied this persistent attitude and come up with a variety of accounts. Shaul Bassi cites the historical testimony of Ludwig Börne, a German Jew who converted to Christianity, written in 1832: “Certain people object to my being a Jew; others forgive me; still others praise me for this; but everybody remembers it.”3 It is this special look on Jews or past-Jews that qualifies for the term antisemitism. The term itself was formulated by Wilhelm Marr who in 1879 founded the “League for Antisemitism” and elaborated on his intentions in Der Weg zum Siege des Germanenthums über das Judenthum [The Way to Victory of Germanism over Judaism], published the same year.4 This term became common usage in many languages. According to Marr, Jews constituted physically and morally a distinct inferior race predisposed to be a “slave race.” He followed notorious figures who shared his hatred of Jews among whom Richard Wagner stood out with his Das Judenthum in der Musik [Jewishness in Music], published in 1850.Wagner
欧洲犹太人的故事有两千多年的历史。它有繁荣的时期，也有受迫害的时期最重要的是，在描述这段历史时，不可能不评估他们作为一个在大多数不同环境中不断受到骚扰的少数民族的状况的变迁。对犹太人的仇恨甚至被贴上了一个特殊的标签——反犹主义。早期的犹太人大屠杀发生在亚历山大，在公元开始之前和之后，当时这座城市是最大的犹太侨民社区的家园埃及历史学家马涅托(Manetho)对犹太人进行了严厉的批评，尼都斯的阿加达基德(Agatharchides)也曾嘲笑犹太人的法律是“荒谬的”。许多学者研究了这种执着的态度，并提出了各种各样的说法。扫罗·巴西引用路德维希Börne的历史证词，路德维希是一位皈依基督教的德国犹太人，他在1832年写道:“有些人反对我是犹太人;别人原谅我;还有人因此称赞我;但每个人都记得。正是这种对犹太人或过去犹太人的特殊看法，才有资格被称为反犹主义。这个词本身是由威廉·马尔(Wilhelm Marr)提出的，他于1879年创立了“反犹主义联盟”，并在同年出版的《日耳曼主义对犹太教的胜利之路》(Der Weg zum Siege des Germanenthums ber das Judenthum)中阐述了他的意图这个词在许多语言中被普遍使用。根据马尔的说法，犹太人在身体上和道德上都是一个明显的劣等种族，倾向于成为“奴隶种族”。他追随那些和他一样憎恨犹太人的臭名昭著的人物，其中理查德·瓦格纳(Richard Wagner)在1850年出版的《音乐中的犹太人》(Das Judenthum in der Musik)中脱颖而出。瓦格纳
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Pub Date : 2019-11-05DOI: 10.1515/9783110618594-032
B. Isaac
The investigation of hostility towards Jews in antiquity remains limited in scope by the nature and quantity of the sources. Research has focused most of all on the opinions expressed by ancient Greek and Latin authors in various periods. There is much material here that has been interpreted along different lines by numerous scholars. The disadvantage is that such information is restricted to opinions expressed by upper-class authors. We cannot know what people in pubs in Rome or Antioch were saying about minorities in general and Jews in particular. It is true that a different type of information is conveyed by policy and measures of the authorities with regard to Jews. However, this has the same disadvantage, for it shows what upper-class rulers and administrators did, rather than what they thought. The present paper will focus on a specific phenomenon that is instructive in a somewhat different manner. Several major urban centers had a substantial Jewish population in the Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine periods. There was a good deal of tension between Jews and other groups in cities, tension that at times led to minor or major outbursts of violence as reported by various authors. These also describe measures taken by the local and imperial authorities on those occasions. This paper will offer a brief survey of such events in an attempt to show that we may gain an extra perspective on the position of the Jews in the ancient world. The topic, in other words, is the interaction between authorities and urban population in times of stress between Jews and non-Jews in cities.
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Pub Date : 2019-11-05DOI: 10.1515/9783110618594-020
L. Schiffman
The study of ancient Judaism raises numerous issues regarding antisemitism such as: Greco-Roman antisemitism and early antisemitic (or anti-Judaic) literature,1 early Jewish-Christian relations,2 and antagonism to the Jews in Babylonia.3 These phenomena continue to be studied by numerous scholars. What has been lacking in research is a meta-analysis that seeks to show how antisemitism has affected the study not only of ancient anti-Judaism but of ancient Judaism and Jewish history in Late Antiquity as a whole. Aspects of this problem include the effects of antisemitism on descriptive terms for Judaism in Antiquity and Late Antiquity; approaches to periodization within the larger ancient historical framework; construal of Jews and Judaism in light of New Testament images and later anti-Jewish material in the Church Fathers; effects of the Reformation and Protestantism on views of the Jews and Judaism; and numerous such topics. More recently, there has been fundamental questioning of the basic geographical and historical facts of ancient Jewish history as a result of modern Middle Eastern issues, to name just a few of the most prominent problems. Some might wonder why one would consider the field of Judaic Studies at a conference devoted to antisemitism. At first glance, it would appear that Judaic Studies is itself a strong antidote to anti-Jewish/Judaic prejudice. Indeed such a notion lay behind the rise of the Wissenschaft des Judentums, the scientific study of Judaism, as it developed in Germany and elsewhere in the nineteenth century.4 Its earliest advocates thought it could be utilized as a strategy for combating
对古代犹太教的研究提出了许多关于反犹主义的问题，如:希腊-罗马反犹主义和早期反犹主义(或反犹太主义)文学，1早期犹太-基督教关系，2以及对巴比伦犹太人的对抗。3这些现象继续被许多学者研究。研究中缺乏的是一项荟萃分析，旨在表明反犹主义不仅影响了古代反犹太教的研究，而且影响了古代犹太教和上古晚期整个犹太历史的研究。这个问题的各个方面包括反犹主义对古代和古代晚期犹太教描述性术语的影响;在更大的古代历史框架内的分期方法;根据《新约》中的形象和后来《教父》中的反犹太材料来解释犹太人和犹太教;宗教改革和新教对犹太人和犹太教观念的影响;还有很多这样的话题。最近，由于现代中东问题，人们对古代犹太历史的基本地理和历史事实提出了根本性的质疑，这里仅列举几个最突出的问题。有些人可能会奇怪，为什么有人会在一个专门讨论反犹主义的会议上考虑犹太研究领域。乍一看，犹太研究本身似乎是反犹太人/犹太人偏见的有力解毒剂。事实上，这种观念是19世纪在德国和其他地方发展起来的犹太教科学研究Wissenschaft des Judentums兴起的原因最早的倡导者认为它可以作为一种战斗策略
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Pub Date : 2019-11-05DOI: 10.1515/9783110618594-014
Michael Bünker
Antisemitism is not in accordance with the Christian faith or the values of the Protestant Church. Today, we see this as a generally accepted fact. However, a couple of decades ago, this sentiment would have not been so certain. The Protestant Church of Austria was inflicted by German nationalism and Antisemitism during the first half of the twentieth century. Anti-Jewish pamphlets by Martin Luther and other reformers had a particularly adverse impact, too. The Protestant Church only began reconsidering the issue after the war in 1945.While the Roman Catholic Church as a whole committed to a strong opposition against antisemitism in their Conciliar Declaration Nostra Aetate in 1965, within the Protestant Church, each regional church had to go its own way.1 Some regional churches progressed faster than others. The Evangelical Church in the Rhineland, for example, issued the important Synod decision “On the Renewal of the Relationship between Christians and Jews” in 1980.2 Other regional churches followed, some with considerable delay. With their declaration “A Time for Change,” the Protestant Church of Austria accepted its joint guilt and responsibility only in 1998 and made way for a new relationship with Judaism.3 All Protestant declarations clearly and roundly condemn and oppose antisemitism. What was new about the declarations from the 1980’s and 1990’s was the Church’s understanding of the consequences these declarations should and must have both for the Church and within the Church. These consequences first and foremost concern the joint guilt and responsibility of the Churches concerning antisemitism, a phenomenon also stemming from a Christian Jew-hatred that is hundreds of years old. Second came the need to examine our own doctrines and practices to rid them of antisemitic elements. These ele-
{"title":"Leadership Talk by the Bishop of the Protestant Church of Austria (2008–2019)","authors":"Michael Bünker","doi":"10.1515/9783110618594-014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110618594-014","url":null,"abstract":"Antisemitism is not in accordance with the Christian faith or the values of the Protestant Church. Today, we see this as a generally accepted fact. However, a couple of decades ago, this sentiment would have not been so certain. The Protestant Church of Austria was inflicted by German nationalism and Antisemitism during the first half of the twentieth century. Anti-Jewish pamphlets by Martin Luther and other reformers had a particularly adverse impact, too. The Protestant Church only began reconsidering the issue after the war in 1945.While the Roman Catholic Church as a whole committed to a strong opposition against antisemitism in their Conciliar Declaration Nostra Aetate in 1965, within the Protestant Church, each regional church had to go its own way.1 Some regional churches progressed faster than others. The Evangelical Church in the Rhineland, for example, issued the important Synod decision “On the Renewal of the Relationship between Christians and Jews” in 1980.2 Other regional churches followed, some with considerable delay. With their declaration “A Time for Change,” the Protestant Church of Austria accepted its joint guilt and responsibility only in 1998 and made way for a new relationship with Judaism.3 All Protestant declarations clearly and roundly condemn and oppose antisemitism. What was new about the declarations from the 1980’s and 1990’s was the Church’s understanding of the consequences these declarations should and must have both for the Church and within the Church. These consequences first and foremost concern the joint guilt and responsibility of the Churches concerning antisemitism, a phenomenon also stemming from a Christian Jew-hatred that is hundreds of years old. Second came the need to examine our own doctrines and practices to rid them of antisemitic elements. These ele-","PeriodicalId":418945,"journal":{"name":"Comprehending and Confronting Antisemitism","volume":"10 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-11-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128624183","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-11-05DOI: 10.1515/9783110618594-007
Christian M. Kern
Dealing with antisemitism is a very specific and sensitive issue in our country, and that is because of two main reasons. The first one is because I strongly believe that human dignity is absolutely untouchable. And the second is that we have to take care in a very sensitive way because of our heritage. This heritage imposes three main duties for a representative of Austrian society. The first one, perhaps, is that we are obliged to run a zero ‐ tolerance policy as far as antisemitism is concerned. The second is that this heritage constitutes a very specific, special, and solidary relation to the State of Israel. And the third duty is to remember, not only with regards to the victims and their relatives, but it is also an important aspect as I strongly believe that the way how we deal with our past constitutes in what type of future we are going to live. And there is another specific issue — and I was totally impressed by one of the quotes and sayings of Noah Klieger. He is a survivor of the concentration camp in Auschwitz, and he was a member of the boxing squad, he was a sportsman, an active sportsman, and his resume after all the years was to say that “ some fights, ” he learned, “ you can win, but they are never over. ” ¹ And that is exactly my position as far as antisemitism is concerned. It is a permanent task we have to undertake. And I would like to tell you a short personal story which is very important in order to understand my way of thinking. It is a story which happened in my family. My mother was born in the year 1928, and my grandmother was serving a housekeeper for an old Jewish couple in the late 30s, early 40s. After the Nazis took over, the old Jewish couple had to at the garret. My mother ’ s task was to provide the old couple with food and drinking water. One day, re-ceived at the doorstep of the house of the old couple by Gestapo officers. They chased away and from that day the old
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Pub Date : 2019-11-05DOI: 10.1515/9783110618594-021
Especially important in this context are interfaith prayer events between Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Their shared emotional experiences are best suited to overcome religious hatred or immunize against it. A good practice example is the Kehilat Tzion congregation of Rabbi Tamar Elad-Appelbaum who regularly prays together with Christian and Muslim congregations in Jerusalem, thus creating mutual religious respect and acceptance among the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim members of these congregations. ⁴ As far as their religious convictions allow for this, Jewish communities should participate in interfaith prayers.
{"title":"Recommendations regarding Religious Groups and Institutions","authors":"","doi":"10.1515/9783110618594-021","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110618594-021","url":null,"abstract":"Especially important in this context are interfaith prayer events between Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Their shared emotional experiences are best suited to overcome religious hatred or immunize against it. A good practice example is the Kehilat Tzion congregation of Rabbi Tamar Elad-Appelbaum who regularly prays together with Christian and Muslim congregations in Jerusalem, thus creating mutual religious respect and acceptance among the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim members of these congregations. ⁴ As far as their religious convictions allow for this, Jewish communities should participate in interfaith prayers.","PeriodicalId":418945,"journal":{"name":"Comprehending and Confronting Antisemitism","volume":"68 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-11-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114240448","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-11-05DOI: 10.1515/9783110618594-034
Stephan Grigat
The purpose of a critique of antisemitism is to disable it and to decipher it through a critique of ideology. Any reconstruction of the mentality of the antisemite, however trenchant, and any account of the history of antisemitism, however comprehensive, ends up in stunned amazement at the projective madness of the Jew-hatred that one is committed to countering at the practical level. As Maximilian Gottschlich put it: “when all is said and done, there is only one serious motive for concerning oneself with antisemitism: to resist it.”1 However, if we wish to resist it without illusions, a critical reconstruction of the antisemitic mentality is essential. In some established academic schools of thought, the impression is given that antisemitism is a result of a lack of knowledge about Jews, Judaism, or the Jewish state. I think that this idea is not only wrong but also underestimates the problem.Were it correct, the situation would not be nearly so bad and could be easily addressed, for example, through meetings between Jewish and nonJewish young people, synagogue open days, and study trips to Israel. Of course, all these things should be done; however, they will not banish antisemitism, because it is a comprehensive worldview of a delusional-projective kind. Instead of downplaying antisemitism as mere prejudice, we have to decipher it through a critique of the “antisemitic society,” as Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer put it in their Dialectic of Enlightenment.2 Anti-Jewish hatred must be viewed in the light of the basic constitution of this society. Antisemitism is not an anthropological constant but an ever-changing, delusional reaction to the historically existing society. A developed critique of antisemitism must, unlike a traditional theoretical approach, feel itself ob-
{"title":"The Fight against Antisemitism and the Iranian Regime: Challenges and Contradictions in the Light of Adorno’s Categorical Imperative","authors":"Stephan Grigat","doi":"10.1515/9783110618594-034","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110618594-034","url":null,"abstract":"The purpose of a critique of antisemitism is to disable it and to decipher it through a critique of ideology. Any reconstruction of the mentality of the antisemite, however trenchant, and any account of the history of antisemitism, however comprehensive, ends up in stunned amazement at the projective madness of the Jew-hatred that one is committed to countering at the practical level. As Maximilian Gottschlich put it: “when all is said and done, there is only one serious motive for concerning oneself with antisemitism: to resist it.”1 However, if we wish to resist it without illusions, a critical reconstruction of the antisemitic mentality is essential. In some established academic schools of thought, the impression is given that antisemitism is a result of a lack of knowledge about Jews, Judaism, or the Jewish state. I think that this idea is not only wrong but also underestimates the problem.Were it correct, the situation would not be nearly so bad and could be easily addressed, for example, through meetings between Jewish and nonJewish young people, synagogue open days, and study trips to Israel. Of course, all these things should be done; however, they will not banish antisemitism, because it is a comprehensive worldview of a delusional-projective kind. Instead of downplaying antisemitism as mere prejudice, we have to decipher it through a critique of the “antisemitic society,” as Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer put it in their Dialectic of Enlightenment.2 Anti-Jewish hatred must be viewed in the light of the basic constitution of this society. Antisemitism is not an anthropological constant but an ever-changing, delusional reaction to the historically existing society. A developed critique of antisemitism must, unlike a traditional theoretical approach, feel itself ob-","PeriodicalId":418945,"journal":{"name":"Comprehending and Confronting Antisemitism","volume":"887 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-11-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116171990","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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