Search results
terminology and the conceptual debates. What does the term ‘ hiloni ’ mean? How do scholars use it? How do people who identify with the term use it? Scholars agree that the terminology of Western secularism does not translate for the Jewish-Israeli case. This is because Jewish tradition, a cornerstone of Jewish identity, is a powerful reference point even for those who think they are not halakhically observant. Before delving into the academic debates about who is hiloni (and who is masorti , a traditional Jew), here is a flavour of how self-identified hilonim
Relations between Europe and its Muslim minorities constitute an extensive focus for discussion both within and beyond the Continent. This book reports on the years mainly between 2005 and 2015 and focuses on the exploitation of recent European history when describing relations and the prospects for the nominally 'Christian' majority and Muslim minority. The discourse often references the Jews of Europe as a guiding precedent. The manifold references to the annals of the Jews during the 1930s, the Second World War and the Holocaust, used by both the Muslim minorities and the European 'white' (sic) majority presents an astonishing and instructive perspective. When researching Europe and its Muslim minorities, one is astonished by the alleged discrimination that the topic produces, in particular the expressions embodied in Islamophobia, Europhobia and anti-Semitism. The book focuses on the exemplary European realities surrounding the 'triangular' interactions and relations between the Europeans, Muslims and Jews. Pork soup, also known as 'identity soup', has been used as a protest in France and Belgium against multicultural life in Europe and against the Muslim migrants who allegedly enjoyed government benefits. If the majority on all sides of the triangle were to unite and marginalize the extreme points of the triangle, not by force but by goodwill, reason and patience, then in time the triangle would slowly but surely resolve itself into a circle. The Jews, Christians, Muslims and non-believers of Europe have before them a challenge.
Jews, but we want to, too. (Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl ) 2 At the time that Horkheimer and Adorno were rethinking their approach to modern antisemitism, Hannah Arendt was also embarking on her own sustained efforts to understand the phenomenon. Initially, she had shown little interest in the question of antisemitism, which she professed had previously ‘bored’ her, but with the rise of Hitler, antisemitism
2 Marx's defence of Jewish emancipation and critique of the Jewish question The Jew … must cease to be a Jew if he will not allow himself to be hindered by his law from fulfilling his duties to the State and his fellow-citizens. (Bruno Bauer, Die Judenfrage ) 1 The Jews (like the Christians) are fully politically emancipated in various states. Both Jews and Christians are far from being
September, 1872) 1 During my youth I rather leaned toward the prognosis that the Jews of different countries would be assimilated and that the Jewish question would thus disappear in a quasi-automatic fashion. The historical development of the last quarter of a century has not confirmed this perspective … .The Jewish question, I repeat, is indissolubly bound up with the complete emancipation of humanity. (Interview with Leon
Jewish emancipation’ that followed. 3 They triggered the lifting of legal barriers that restricted where Jews could live, what professions they could enter and what schools they could attend. In turn, the upshot of these legal reforms included the geographical mobility of Jews from villages and small towns to the major cities of Western and Eastern Europe – Warsaw, Vienna, Berlin, Budapest, London, Paris – and the social mobility of Jews from small traders and middlemen to the
Shlomo Papirblat, ‘Aliette doesn’t live here anymore’)1 The anti-Semitic dynamic changes between countries. In France and Belgium it is fuelled by the frustrations of young Muslims living in poor suburbs. In Germany the new anti-Semitism blends in with the old neo-Nazi elements. In Britain it feeds off parts of the radical Left who see Israeli Jews as colonialists. In Spain, Italy and Greece the Judeophobia feeds off resentment towards the global financial system, which is widely blamed for these countries’ economic woes and deep recession. In Hungary, where there are
6 The return of the Jewish question and the double life of Israel So now the Jew is mistrusted not for what he is, but for the anti-Semitism of which he is the cause. And no Jew is more the cause of anti-Semitism than the Jew who speaks of anti-Semitism. (Howard Jacobson, When Will the Jews be Forgiven for the Holocaust? ) 1 Those who have always felt that Jews were
sliding back from its anti-fascism and along with much of the Islamic world promoting a new form of anti-semitism. Its ‘newness’ allegedly resides in disguising hostility to Jews behind the pretence of siding with the Palestinians in their conflict with Israel. Among the proponents of this interpretation is a group of MPs chaired by the Labour MP, Denis MacShane, that produced, in 2006, the Report of the All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry Into Anti-Semitism. The ‘new anti-semitism’ thesis is invariably presented with the caveat that not all criticism of Israel is anti
4 In the same boat: European opposition, Muslim migrants, impact on Jews Pork soup (soupe au cochon), also known as ‘identity soup’, has been used as a protest in France and Belgium against multicultural life in Europe and against the Muslim migrants who allegedly enjoyed government benefits, so much so that very little was left for needy Europeans. Since the winter of 2003 homeless people have been served with hot pork soup made of the ears, tail and legs of the poor animals. Theoretically, the pork menu is a guarantee that Muslims (and Jews) will not frequent