Comprehending and Confronting Antisemitism an End to Antisemitism!
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Comprehending and Confronting Antisemitism An End to Antisemitism! Edited by Armin Lange, Kerstin Mayerhofer, Dina Porat, and Lawrence H. Schiffman Volume 1 Comprehending and Confronting Antisemitism A Multi-Faceted Approach Edited by Armin Lange, Kerstin Mayerhofer, Dina Porat, and Lawrence H. Schiffman ISBN 978-3-11-063246-0 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-061859-4 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-061141-0 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 Licence. For details go to http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. Library of Congress Control Number: 2019948124 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2019 Armin Lange, Kerstin Mayerhofer, Dina Porat, Lawrence H. Schiffman, published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Cover image: Illustration by Tayler Culligan (https://dribbble.com/taylerculligan). With friendly permission of Chicago Booth Review. Printing & binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck www.degruyter.com TableofContents Preface and Acknowledgements XI Greetings XXI I Introduction to Combating Antisemitism Armin Lange, Kerstin Mayerhofer,Dina Porat, LawrenceH.Schiffman General Introduction “An End to Antisemitism!” 3 Armin Lange, Kerstin Mayerhofer,Dina Porat, LawrenceH.Schiffman ExecutiveSummary 13 II Leadership Talks Sebastian Kurz Leadership Talk by the Federal Chancellor of the Republic of Austria (2017 – 2019) 21 Heinz Faßmann Leadership Talk by the AustrianFederal Minister for Education, Science and Research (2018 – 2019) 23 Christian Kern Leadership Talk by the Federal Chancellor of the Republic of Austria (2016 – 2017); Chairman of the Social Democratic Party of Austria (2016 – 2018) 29 Raya Kalenova Leadership Talk by the ExecutiveVice-President andCEO of the European Jewish Congress 35 Katharinavon Schnurbein Leadership Talk by the European Commission Coordinator on Combating Antisemitism 41 VI TableofContents Andrew Baker Leadership Talk by the AJC Director of International Jewish Affairs; Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office on Combating Anti-Semitism 53 Irwin Cotler Leadership Talk by the Chair of the Raoul WallenbergCentrefor Human Rights 61 Natan Sharansky Leadership Talk by the Chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel (2009 –2018) 79 Ana Luiza Massot Thompson-Flores Leadership Talk by the Director of the UNESCORegional Bureau forScience and Culture in Europe, Venice 89 Michael Bünker Leadership Talk by the Bishopofthe Protestant Church of Austria (2008 –2019) 99 Arie Folger Leadership Talk by the Chief Rabbi of Vienna, Austria (2016 –2019) 103 Hassen Chalghoumi Leadership Talk by the Imam of the municipal Drancy mosque Seine-Saint-Denis 115 Abraham Skorka Leadership Talk by the Rector of the Seminario Rabínico Latinoamericano BuenosAires 123 III Religion Contributions Armin Lange and Maxine L. Grossman Jews and Judaism between Bedevilment and Source of Salvation: Christianity as aCause of and aCureagainst Antisemitism 133 TableofContents VII Esther Webman Redeeming Humanity from the Evil of the Jews: Islamist Rationalization of Antisemitism 165 LawrenceH.Schiffman Scrolls, Testament and Talmud: Issues of Antisemitism in the Study of Ancient Judaism 193 Recommendations Recommendations regarding Religious Groups and Institutions 211 IV Culture, Education, Research Contributions Julius H. Schoeps ContemporaryPhilosophical and Ethical Fights over Jews, Judaism, and the StateofIsrael 235 Eliezer Ben-Rafael Antisemitism: Sociological Perspectives 247 FloretteCohen Abady The PsychologyofModern Antisemitism: Theory, Research, and Methodology 271 Klaus S. Davidowicz The Demonization of Judaism 297 Monika Schwarz-Friesel “Antisemitism 2.0”—The Spreading of Jew-hatredonthe World Wide Web 311 Martin Rothgangel Combatting Antisemitism:AnInterdisciplinaryApproach 339 VIII TableofContents Recommendations Recommendations regarding Cultural Organizations and Institutions 363 Recommendations regarding the Internet, its Influencersand its Users 379 Recommendations regarding Academic Organizations and Institutions 387 Recommendations regarding EducationalOrganizations and Institutions 393 V Politics, Businessand Jurisprudence Contributions Benjamin Isaac Jews and Non-Jews in Ancient Cities: Alexandria, Antioch, Caesarea, Rome 413 Evyatar Friesel Jews against Zionism/Israel:Onthe Ambivalences of ContemporaryJewish Identity 427 Stephan Grigat The Fight against Antisemitism and the Iranian Regime: Challenges and Contradictionsinthe Light of Adorno’sCategorical Imperative 441 Mark Weitzman The IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism 463 Dina Porat The Working DefinitionofAntisemitism — A2018 Perception 475 Aleksandra Gliszczyńska-Grabias Counteracting Antisemitism with Tools of Law: An Effort Doomed to Failure? 489 TableofContents IX Wolfgang Wieshaider Equal Treatment, not justReligious Freedom: On the Methods of SlaughteringAnimals for Human Consumption 503 Recommendations Recommendations regarding Organizations and Institutions of the Business World 519 Recommendations regarding Governments, Political Organizations, and Institutions 529 VI IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism IHRA Working DefinitionofAntisemitism 565 VII Editorial Boardand ListofContributors Editorial Board 569 List of Contributors 571 Acknowledgements 573 Prefaceand Acknowledgements Eighty yearsafter the 1938 pogroms and more thanseventyyears after the liber- ation of the Nazi concentration and death camps, yetagain, attackingand killing Jews, regularlyslanderingand denigrating them have become asad reality in Eu- rope and in other parts of the world. This, together with calls to boycott the Jew- ish state and denying its right even to exist,can have graveimplications for both Jews and society in general. The situation is not new.World history does not lack examples of Jew-hatred and persecution either.Consider Tacitus, Augustine, and Justinian, the expulsion of the Jews from Medina at the time of Mohammed, the Crusades, the Granada massacre,Martin Luther,the expulsion of the Jews from the IberianPeninsula and the Spanish Inquisition, the pogroms, Henry Ford, the Ku Klux Klan, the 1941pogrom in Bagdad, Adolf Hitler and the Shoah. These are justafew names and events from onlyafew parts of the world. Today, Jew-hatredisnolon- gerrestricted to the extreme right and radical Islam but has spread across parts of the left and center of the political spectrum, as well as mainstream Christian and Muslim groups.Given this unacceptable reality,from February 18th through 22nd of 2018, approximately1,000 scholars, activists, decision makers and influ- encers met in Vienna at the conference “An End to Antisemitism!” The conference was jointlyorganized by the European Jewish Congress, New York University, TelAvivUniversity,and the UniversityofVienna to study antisemitism with an unprecedented interdisciplinary breadth but also with his- torical depth. Over one-hundred and fifty presentations from all over the world engaged with all forms of antisemitism from antiquity until todayfrom the per- spective of numerous fields. To each field, aseparate panel was dedicated which was organized and headed by leading experts. – Ancient History (Benjamin Isaac, TelAvivUniversity) – Medieval History (Simha Goldin,Tel Aviv University) – Modern History (KlausS.Davidowicz, Vienna University) – Contemporary History (Dina Porat, TelAvivUniversity) – Bible, Christianity,and Antisemitism (Karin Finsterbusch, Universityof Koblenz-Landauand Armin Lange, Vienna University) – Islam and Antisemitism (Esther Webman, TelAvivUniversity) – Judaism, JewishStudies, and Antisemitism (LawrenceH.Schiffman, New York University) – Israel Studies (Evyatar Friesel, Hebrew University of Jerusalem) OpenAccess. ©2019, Armin Lange, Kerstin Mayerhofer,Dina Porat, LawrenceH.Schiffman, published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the Creative CommonsAttribution-NonCommercial- NoDerivatives 4.0 License https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110618594-001 XII Prefaceand Acknowledgements – Philosophyand Ethics (Julius H. Schoeps, Moses Mendelssohn Center for Eu- ropean Jewish Studies) – Sociologyand Social Sciences (Eliezer Ben-Rafael, TelAvivUniversity) – Psychology(FloretteCohen Abady, CUNYCollegeofStaten Island) – Pedagogy(Martin Rothgangel, University of Vienna) – Media Studies, Journalism, and Visual Cultures (Frank Stern, University of Vienna) – Internet and Antisemitism (Monika Schwarz-Friesel, Technical University of Berlin) – Jurisprudence (AleksandraGliszczynska-Grabias,Institute of LawStudies Polish AcademyofSciences) – Political Studies (Karin Stögner and Stephan Grigat,University of Vienna, Hebrew University of Jerusalem) All of these scholars and two additional colleagues servethe editorial board of these proceedings, aiding the editors in their work. Fortheirwork, suggestions, and support we are indebted to all of them. The initial motivation for the conference “An End to Antisemitism!” was the need of Jewish organizations for strategic guidelinestocombat antisemitism suc- cessfully. Thisisbecause the recent staggering increase of antisemitism has pro- venthat existing strategies werelimited in their success. The approach of the conference “An End to Antisemitism!” was to combine the practical experience of decision makers and stakeholders with the input of academic specialists. Our approach might thereforebedescribed as applied humanities