{"title":"Antisemitism in the UK Labour","authors":"Lesley D. Klaff","doi":"10.26613/jca/3.2.54","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26613/jca/3.2.54","url":null,"abstract":"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. It confirmed many of the claims made by Jewish Party members and community organisations during Corbyn's leadership of the party, namely that the disciplinary system was not fit for purpose and cases of alleged antisemitism were ignored or delayed and punishments were too weak. When it was leaked the report caused a scandal because it claimed that Corbyn's efforts to deal with antisemitism were sabotaged by his own Party staff, who were mostly drawn from factions opposed to his left wing project. Furthermore, the report claimed that this was part of a broader conspiracy against Corbyn that even extended to Labour Party staff trying to prevent a Labour victory in the 2017 General Election. 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. Nor does it address the reasons why people with antisemitic views were attracted to Labour under his leadership. It is most likely that it was written to allow Corbyn and his supporters to continue to claim that their project did not fail on its own merits, but was betrayed by internal saboteur","PeriodicalId":283546,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Antisemitism","volume":"241 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114161375","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}
{"title":"“Now the World Knows”: Christian Conspiracist Texe Marrs on Jewish Genetics and the Khazarian Hypothesis","authors":"Matthew H. Brittingham","doi":"10.26613/jca/3.2.59","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26613/jca/3.2.59","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":283546,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Antisemitism","volume":"17 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115412470","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}
{"title":"The Uproar over “Word Crimes”: A Political Not Scholarly Agenda","authors":"D. Divine","doi":"10.26613/jca/3.2.64","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26613/jca/3.2.64","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":283546,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Antisemitism","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129252416","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}
{"title":"How to Fight Anti-Semitism By Bari Weiss. New York: Crown, 2019. 224 pp. £14.99","authors":"Alexander Traum","doi":"10.26613/jca/3.1.52","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26613/jca/3.1.52","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":283546,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Antisemitism","volume":"40 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114711589","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}
{"title":"Assessing the Threat of Antisemitic Harassment and Attack in France—Paris in Focus","authors":"Günther Jikeli","doi":"10.26613/jca/3.1.45","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26613/jca/3.1.45","url":null,"abstract":"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? Are certain community members especially targeted? How likely is it that a Jewish visitor to France is attacked? How threatened do Jews feel and what is the impact of the perceived threat? This paper reviews official statistics on antisemitic incidents (1), attitude surveys of the general population in France (2), and surveys among Jews (3). All three indicators have their weaknesses but taken together they can help to assess the threat that Jews in France face today of becoming victim of antisemitic harassment or attacks. Keywords: France, antisemitism, physical attacks, Orthodox Jews, Paris","PeriodicalId":283546,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Antisemitism","volume":"43 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127365993","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}
{"title":"From Antisemitism to Anti-Zionism: The Past and Present of a Lethal Ideology Edited by Eunice G. Pollack. Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2017. 426 pp","authors":"Colin Shindler","doi":"10.26613/jca/3.1.51","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26613/jca/3.1.51","url":null,"abstract":"From Antisemitism to Anti-Zionism: The Past and Present of a Lethal Ideology. Edited by Eunice G. Pollack. Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2017. 426 pp.","PeriodicalId":283546,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Antisemitism","volume":"840 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116423958","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}
{"title":"Antisemitism on College Campuses: A Phenomenological Study of Jewish Students’ Lived Experiences","authors":"Paulina Flasch","doi":"10.26613/jca/3.1.44","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26613/jca/3.1.44","url":null,"abstract":"Antisemitism has increased significantly across the world in recent years. From 2016 to 2017, hate crimes against Jews increased by fifty-seven percent in the United States. 1 Further, US college campuses experienced an all-time high in antisemitic incidents, with a sixty-seven percent rise from 2016 to 2017. 2, 3 Because of the escalation of antisemitism in the United States, especially on college campuses, the present study used a phenomenological research design to investigate college students’ (N = 6) experiences of being Jewish on college campuses in the United States. Keywords: antisemitism, college students, college campus, university students","PeriodicalId":283546,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Antisemitism","volume":"29 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134390050","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}
{"title":"“What Others Dare Not Say”: An Antisemitic Conspiracy Fantasy and Its YouTube Audience","authors":"D. Allington, Tanvi Joshi","doi":"10.26613/3.1.42","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26613/3.1.42","url":null,"abstract":"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. First, historical discourse analysis is used to situate Icke’s fantasy within the antisemitic tradition of the extreme right. Then, the reception of Icke’s fantasy is studied through quantitative content analysis of YouTube user comments (n = 1123). Comments supportive of the video and its creator are found to outnumber comments that challenge them, as are comments expressing hostility to Jews or extending the video’s accusations against “Rothschild Zionists” to real-world Jewish collectivities. Moreover, the most popular comments are found to be disproportionately likely to be supportive of Icke or his video or otherwise anti-Jewish. These findings provide evidence that at least the active portion of the video’s YouTube audience may have had a tendency not only towards support of Icke’s ideas but also towards linkage of those ideas with an overtly antisemitic worldview. It is argued that YouTube’s ranking of comments by popularity may be serving to insulate harmful fantasies such as Icke’s from rational challenge by rendering genuinely critical responses invisible. This illustrates the dangers of outsourcing the evaluation of content to an online user community. But it also suggests that YouTube’s user interface design may be actively contributing to the spread of misinformation and bigotry by placing those who try to oppose them at a disadvantage.\u0000\u0000Keywords: antizionism, audience, conspiracism, conspiracy fantasy, conspiracy theory, content analysis, David Icke, discourse analysis, reception, right-wing extremism, YouTube","PeriodicalId":283546,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Antisemitism","volume":"6 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127726496","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}
{"title":"Likes for Antisemitism: The Alternative für Deutschland and Its Posts on Facebook","authors":"Monika Hübscher","doi":"10.26613/jca/3.1.41","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26613/jca/3.1.41","url":null,"abstract":"The Alternative fur Deutschland ’s (AfD) entry into the German Bundestag in September 2017 represented a shift in post-1945 German political tradition and the social acceptance of a party from the far right. During the election campaign, the AfD relied heavily on the social media mostly using Facebook to spread its agenda. This research on the AfD’s attitude toward National Socialism, the Holocaust and antisemitism on Facebook shows that the party utilizes antisemitic stereotypes to defame political opponents and that further, the AfD instrumentalizes events from the Third Reich to elevate perceived positive aspects and strives to rehabilitate certain facets of National Socialism. The article first shows how the AfD uses Facebook to spread its unfiltered political views. Then, three case studies posted by the AfD will be analyzed. Additionally, the comments under the Facebook posts are taken into account to show how their followers perceive antisemitic posts made by AfD officials. Keywords: antisemitism, social media, Alternative fur Deutschland, German politics","PeriodicalId":283546,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Antisemitism","volume":"14 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129013443","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}
{"title":"Antisemitism in the Urban Dictionary and the Responsibilities of Online Publishers","authors":"D. Allington","doi":"10.26613/jca/3.1.40","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26613/jca/3.1.40","url":null,"abstract":"This article focuses on antisemitic and racist content in the Urban Dictionary: a global top-1000 website built upon user-generated content. It argues that the Urban Dictionary’s founding principles have directly facilitated the site’s exploitation as a platform for the dissemination of antisemitic hate speech and white supremacist ideology. These principles can be seen as typifying the free speech absolutism that became dominant within the US tech industry during the 1990s. However, the right to free expression cannot reasonably be taken to exempt internet companies from responsibility for content whose publication they facilitate. The article concludes by arguing that websites such as the Urban Dictionary are essentially publishers, and that the solution to the problem of their indulgence of bigots may be for those who do not wish to be associated with bigotry to refrain from doing business with institutions that publish content that they consider abhorrent. Keywords: alt-right, antizionism, brand contamination, definitions, dictionaries, free speech, Urban Dictionary, user-generated content, Web 2.0","PeriodicalId":283546,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Antisemitism","volume":"17 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132592113","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}