All time references are in CEST
Sources, consequences and measurement of antisemitism |
|
| Session Organisers | Dr Marcus Eisentraut (University of Cologne) Dr Christian Czymara (Goethe University Frankfurt/Main) Mr Pascal Kolkwitz-Anstötz (GESIS - Leibniz Institute of Social Sciences) Professor Eldad Davidov (University of Cologne) Professor Peter Schmidt (Justus Liebig University Giessen) |
| Time | Tuesday 18 July, 09:00 - 10:30 |
| Room | |
The 7th of October Massacre has been referred to by the anti-defamation league as the most murderous attack against Jews since the holocaust. Since then, antisemitism and verbal or physical antisemitic attacks have been on the rise in Europe and around the world. However, antisemitism is by no means new and has been widespread all over the world since centuries. Furthermore, its expressions vary over time and across countries.
Antisemitism takes different forms and expresses itself verbally, physically and institutionally. Classic antisemitism has been a major dimension of antisemitism, tapping into the belief of respondents that Jews have too much influence or that they are to be blamed for their persecution, reversing the roles of perpetrators and victims. As classic antisemitism has become increasingly socially undesirable, antisemites have targeted their sentiments toward the state of Israel instead, representing the ultimate Jewishness. Israel-related antisemitism reflects the demonization, delegitimization and the application of double standards toward the state of Israel. This dimension can be empirically and theoretically clearly differentiated from non-antisemitic critical attitudes toward Israel. Finally, in some societies, particularly in Germany, antisemitism can also take the form of the relativization of the holocaust (“secondary antisemitism”). Various data sources allow the measurement, monitoring, explanation, and critical evaluation of antisemitism in Europe and around the world.
In this session we invite papers that (1) identify sources and consequences of antisemitism, and (2) explore its different dimensions, both theoretically and empirically, in Europe and beyond.
Keywords: antisemitism, prejudice, cross-cultural comparisons
Mrs Katharina Soemer (Goethe University Frankfurt) - Presenting Author
Antisemitism has risen significantly in recent years, with social media platforms playing a central role in its dissemination. In the aftermath of the October 7, 2023, massacre, TikTok became a central platform for the propagation of hate: terrorism was both celebrated and denied, antisemitic conspiracy theories were widely disseminated, and offline events such as violent campus protests were clearly influenced by antisemitic online rhetoric. This underscores the need to analyze TikTok as a source of antisemitism and to systematically collect and analyze data from the platform.
Sampling TikTok data, which can be manually labeled to create gold-standard corpora or to monitor the prevalence of antisemitism over time, presents unique methodological challenges. Unlike traditional text-based platforms, TikTok posts are multimodal, integrating audio, video, and text. The TikTok API primarily allows for querying at the text level, which means that elements of the population with potentially antisemitic content that convey such content at the audio or video level, but not at the text level, have zero probability of being included in the sample—a problem known in traditional survey sampling as 'noncoverage'. This raises the question of which sampling methods can include such content.
To address these challenges, this study explores sampling strategies that combine keyword-based sampling with 'random route' analogs through user comments and profiles, as well as non-keyword-based collection. Similarity measures, such as cosine similarity, and tools like CLIP help assess whether data collected via keyword-based methods is comparable to data from other sampling approaches. A qualitative assessment ensures the identification of antisemitic tropes' latent and context-dependent nature. By addressing these methodological challenges, this research provides a framework to explore potential sources and dimensions of antisemitism on social media.
Dr Eva Zeglovits (Institut für empirische Sozialforschung IFES) - Presenting Author
Dr Julian Aichholzer (Institut für empirische Sozialforschung IFES)
In 2018, the Austrian Parliament launched a comprehensive study on antisemitism in Austria, which has been repeated in 2020 and 2022 and 2024. The core questions cover several dimensions of antisemitism, that have been developed theoretically, but adapted empirically. These questions can be compared over time, but there are also varying modules, to get a bigger picture. These modules encompassed amongst others right wing authoritarianism in 2018 and conspiracy beliefs and media consumption in 2020. In 2022 young people were oversampled to describe and analyze measures in schools. The 2024 study takes a closer look at the current conflict in Gaza, and will be able to compare various attitudes before and after October 7th 2023. There is also data on perceiving and recognizing antisemitism.
All four studies include an at least n=2.000 sample representative for the Austrian population (mixed mode online and telephone). Additionally, we attempted to sample people who themselves or whose parents were born in one of the countries that ranked highly in antisemitic attitudes in international studies.
The authors will present their approach on dimensions of antisemitism, as well as their empirical findings on sources of antisemitism, as well as recent developments in Austria, using the four studies conducted on behalf of the Austrian Parliament.
Nota bene: The 2024 study will by then be published and recent date can be used for the presentation.
Dr Marcus Eisentraut (University of Cologne) - Presenting Author
Dr Christian Czymara (Goethe University Frankfurt)
Professor Eldad Davidov (University of Cologne)
Mr Pascal Kolkwitz-Anstötz (GESIS – Leibniz-Institute for the Social Sciences)
Professor Peter Schmidt (University of Giessen)
Antisemitism manifests in various forms, with two being particularly significant: classical and Israel-related antisemitism. Classical antisemitism is rooted in history, driven by religious or racial prejudices, and portrays Jews through negative stereotypes. In contrast, Israel-related antisemitism is a more modern phenomenon, focusing on the state of Israel, often demonizing and delegitimizing it, and applying double standards when comparing Israel to other nations. The distinction between legitimate criticism of Israel and Israel-related antisemitism is often blurred, making it a topic of debate in both research and public discourse. Additionally, the empirical differentiation between classical and Israel-related antisemitism remains unclear.
The recent rise in antisemitic incidents linked to Muslim communities in Germany following the October 7th massacre underscores the need for a more nuanced understanding of these dimensions. This paper explores whether classical and Israel-related antisemitism are similarly prevalent among Muslim and non-Muslim groups in Germany and examines the potential influence of migration backgrounds on these views.
Using data from the “Selected Groups of Migrants in Germany” survey (RAM 2015) conducted by the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF), this study analyzes the prevalence and association between different forms of antisemitism across various religious denominations and migration backgrounds. The data focuses on major immigrant groups whose countries of origin have different socio-cultural contexts regarding antisemitism.
Our findings reveal that classical and Israel-related antisemitism, especially among Muslims in Germany, are empirically difficult to separate, suggesting that Israel-related antisemitism may be a modern variant of classical antisemitism. However, criticism of Israel can still be distinguished, though it remains highly correlated with antisemitism. Additionally, people of Turkish origin, those of Muslim faith, and particularly those with strong religious beliefs, display the highest levels of antisemitism.
Dr Christian Czymara (Goethe University Frankfurt) - Presenting Author
Dr Marcus Eisentraut (University of Cologne)
Professor Eldad Davidov (University of Cologne)
Mr Pascal Kolkwitz-Anstötz (GESIS – Leibniz-Institute for the Social Sciences)
Professor Peter Schmidt (University of Giessen)
Antisemitism is a long-standing, yet recently escalating threat to Jews and social cohesion in general. While there are intense public debates on Muslim antisemitism, there is very little systematic research based on large-scale, representative data. We fill this gap by analyzing approximately 8,500 respondents included in the German Integrationsbarometer 2020 survey. Based on religious roots, the influence of antisemitic Nazi propaganda in the Arab world in the 19th century, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we expect “classic” antisemitism to be high among Muslims, also in Western countries. Our results indeed demonstrate that antisemitism is significantly higher among Muslims compared to Christian or religiously unaffiliated respondents in Germany, and among immigrants from Turkey and the Middle East and North Africa compared to other immigrant groups. About 35 percent of Muslims strongly agreed to statements of either “Jews have too much influence in the world” or “Jews are not entirely innocent of their persecution”. Linear probability models show that these relationships remain substantively and statistically significant when controlling for socioeconomic variables. Deeper analyses reveal that strong antisemitism is particularly high among Muslims who are very religious or less educated. On the other hand, antisemitism is much lower among Muslims who are less religious or highly educated. While the time since migration significantly reduced the probability of strong antisemitism among Christian immigrants, we find only limited impact for Muslim immigrants. The findings are robust to various operationalizations of antisemitism and modeling choices.
Thus, while the devaluation of Jews exists in both Christianity and Islam, we show that it is particularly high among Muslims and immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa and Turkey. We argue that group-specific approaches are needed to combat antisemitic attitudes and expressions.