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We Need to Invest in Academic Research on Antisemitism Now

Anti-Israel protesters outside Columbia University in Manhattan, New York City, April 22, 2024. Photo: USA TODAY NETWORK via Reuters Connect

We live in a world of escalating antisemitism — and understanding this hatred is a necessity, not a luxury.

From Hamas’ brutal actions to the resurgence of anti-Jewish hostility on college campuses, we face a complex web of hatred fueled by ignorance, prejudice, and dangerous worldviews. To effectively combat the threats before us, we must build and strengthen an indispensable tool for the long run — powerful academic research.

Almost a decade ago, I came to the United States to study European antisemitism from a serene place in the Midwest — at Indiana University’s Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism. I’m proud to still be working there, albeit increasingly on the issue of antisemitism in the US and on social media. The explosion of antisemitism that I saw in Europe 20 years ago, is what I see in the United States today. To combat it, we must fight on many fronts, and we cannot afford to neglect the intellectual battle.

 

Knowledge is Power

Without a deep understanding of the ideological underpinnings of groups like Hamas, which are rooted in genocidal and redemptive antisemitism, we cannot fully grasp the motivations behind their actions, let alone predict their next steps and those of their enablers.

The misconception of antisemitic terror groups is one of the reasons why some people still believe that Hamas is a “resistance” movement.

Without understanding the dynamics that are at play when Jews are violently attacked, we cannot properly see why antisemites are now doubling down instead of showing empathy for Jews, especially after October 7.

Antisemites are emboldened by antisemitic violence unless they face strong opposition, which is not the case at present. Without a well-developed knowledge of antisemitism, it’s hard to understand why seemingly progressive, albeit simplistic, ideologies feed into antisemitism and then become self-destructive.

Without knowledge of the history of antisemitism, we might think that the anti-Zionist slogans we hear today are the spontaneous expression of grassroots organizations and misguided reactions to the suffering of the Palestinians — when in fact almost all of them were cooked up in the Soviet propaganda machine decades ago and deliberately disseminated after the 1967 Six-Day War to hurt not only Israel, but the West in general.

Now this old antisemitism and anti-Israel ideologies are being reintroduced by well-funded organizations and spreading rapidly. Without such knowledge about these efforts in the past, we’re fighting shadows in the present and the future.

 

Academia Must Become Our Long-Term Ally Again

Jewish advocacy groups do important work, but they’re largely focused on immediate responses. For long-term solutions, we need the in-depth research that academic centers can offer, if they do it right and if they get the funding they need.

We need answers to these questions:

What best practices have proven to yield measurable results in the fight against antisemitism?
What are the main sources of antisemitism today, and what are the specific threats posed by each of these sources?
What are the mechanisms that can stop or reverse the normalization of antisemitism?
How can we identify potential allies who have a vested interest in combating the destructive mindset of antisemitism?

Academic centers researching antisemitism are still few and far between, and the ones that exist are severely understaffed and underfunded. A prime example is our Institute. It has a robust academic program, including an extensive and high-quality webinar series, an outstanding book series, a research lab on online antisemitism that attracts many students, and it offers a wide variety of courses on the Holocaust, antisemitism, and related topics.

However, the Institute, one of the largest of its kind in the US, currently has only two academic positions. Important research projects are put on hold, including the expansion of its research lab on antisemitism on social media, sources of anti-Jewish violence in the New York area, the evaluation of best practices for combating antisemitism in universities and high schools, the weaponization of the Holocaust against Jews across the political spectrum, the role of Islamist antisemitism in America, and many others.

While many junior and senior scholars would be eager to do some of the much-needed research, as of now, there are very few postdoctoral positions, visiting fellowships, and professorships available in the country. This needs to change quickly if meaningful research is to get off the ground.

Academic centers can bridge the partisan divide in which the fight against antisemitism is used to attack political opponents instead of addressing the issues at hand. And if these centers are robust and don’t depend on the good will of administrators for funding, they are better able to use academic freedom to produce knowledge and take positions that disrupt some of the Holocaust distortions and attacks on Jews. This is important within academia, where some of these attacks are made in the name of progressive academics — but it’s also important outside academia and in the fight against antisemitism across the political spectrum.

 

A Call to Action

More support for research and programs that fully understand and challenge antisemitic ideologies is vitally needed. Many alumni and donors are rightly shocked by what they have been seeing on campus after October 7. The lack of condemnation of the Hamas atrocities, calls for genocide against the Jewish people in the name of freedom and resistance, and the proliferation of antisemitic activities across the country are outrageous.

But giving up on universities is not the right strategy. Universities are too important to the future of our societies. Donors should use their leverage to remind universities that boycotts of Israel are fundamentally opposed to academic freedom, that antisemitic theories are the antithesis of the seeking of truth, and that calls for the genocide of Jews and the destruction of an entire country are morally so reprehensible that they should have no place on campus.

Donors, both large and small, should support research and programs that oppose antisemitic thinking and behavior.

By investing in serious and effective academic research, we equip ourselves with the knowledge and tools needed to effectively combat antisemitism, not only today but for generations to come. We need a vision for a future in which all individuals are respected and taken seriously, including open and frank discussions. If this cannot be done in academia, where can it be done?

Günther Jikeli holds the Erna B. Rosenfeld Professorship at the Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism in the Borns Jewish Studies Program at Indiana University. He heads the research lab “Social Media & Hate.”

The post We Need to Invest in Academic Research on Antisemitism Now first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Trump Nominates Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee as US Ambassador to Israel

Mike Huckabee looks on as Donald Trump reacts during a campaign event at the Drexelbrook Catering and Event Center, in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, US, Oct. 29, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

US President-elect Donald Trump has nominated former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee to serve as the next US ambassador to Israel, adding another staunch ally of the Jewish state to a senior role in his incoming administration.  

“I am pleased to announce that the highly respected former Governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee, has been nominated to be the United States Ambassador to Israel,” Trump wrote in a statement on Tuesday.

“Mike has been a great public servant, governor, and leader in faith for many years. He loves Israel, and the people of Israel, and likewise, the people of Israel love him. Mike will work tirelessly to bring about peace in the Middle East!” Trump continued. 

Huckabee, an evangelical Christian, has long been a stalwart ally of the Jewish state. He has repudiated the anti-Israel protests that erupted in the wake of Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7 and criticized incumbent US President Joe Biden for sympathizing with anti-Israel protesters during his speech at the 2024 Democratic National Convention (DNC). The incoming ambassador also lambasted the anti-Israel encampments at elite universities, stating that there should be “outrage” over the targeting and mistreatment of Jewish college students. 

Huckabee has defended Israel’s right to build settlements in the West Bank, acknowledging the Jewish people’s ties to the land dating back to the ancient world.

There is no such thing as the West Bank — it’s Judea and Samaria,” Huckabee has said, referring to the biblical names for the area. “There is no such thing as settlements — they’re communities, they’re neighborhoods, they’re cities. There is no such thing as an occupation.”

During Huckabee’s 2008 US presidential campaign, he stated that “there’s really no such thing as a Palestinian,” and that land for a potential Palestinian state should be taken from other Arab states and not Israel.

Huckabee will replace the current ambassador to Israel, Jack Lew.

Trump’s pick for ambassador to Israel during his first term, David Friedman, praised the president-elect’s selection of Huckabee.

“I am thrilled by President Trump’s nomination of Governor Mike Huckabee as the next Ambassador to Israel. He is a dear friend and he will have my full support. Congrats Mike on getting the best job in the world!” Friedman wrote on X/Twitter.

During Trump’s first term in office, his administration helped foster the Abraham Accords, a series of landmark normalization agreements between Israel and its Arab neighbors. Trump also recognized Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, a strategic region on Israel’s northern border previously controlled by Syria, and moved the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, recognizing the city as the Jewish state’s capital.

Over the course of his campaign, Trump promised to resume efforts to strengthen the Abraham Accords upon his return to the White House. He has also urged Israel to move faster with its military campaign to eradicate the Hamas terrorist group from the Gaza Strip.

The post Trump Nominates Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee as US Ambassador to Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Suspect Remanded Without Bail for Attempted Kidnapping of Jewish Boy in New York City

Masked male attempts to abduct Orthodox Jewish child in broad daylight in New York City on Nov. 9, 2024. Photo: Shomrim Crown Heights Rescue Patrol/Screenshot from social media

The man who was charged for attempting to abduct an Orthodox Jewish child in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, New York City this past weekend will remain in jail until he faces a judge again next month.

Stephan Stowe, 28, reportedly a gang member with 33 prior arrests, was arrested early Sunday and subsequently charged with attempted kidnapping and endangering the welfare of a child. Citing court documents released on Monday, CrownHeights.info reported that a judge refused bail for Stowe and ordered him to be remanded to Rikers Island prison until his next court date on Dec. 9.

The legal action came after a masked man was caught on video approaching a visibly Jewish father walking with his two sons and grabbing one of the children on Saturday afternoon, in broad daylight. He was unable to secure possession of the child, whose father fought back immediately and did not let go of his son. The assailant put the child down.

The video was widely circulated online and fueled concern about a wave of violent crimes targeting Jews in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn.

Following news of the arrest, a local Jewish leader praised what, for now, appears to be a victory for law and order advocates and a Jewish Brooklyn community reeling from a spate of hate crimes in recent weeks.

“The perpetrator has been arrested,” Yaacov Behrman, a liaison for Chabad Headquarters — the main New York base of the Hasidic movement — posted on X/Twitter. “Known to police, the perpetrator has allegedly been arrested over 30 times. He is under 30 years old and has also been arrested in [the] past for criminal possession of a weapon. What is wrong with our legal system? What is wrong with our society? How is this possible?”

Behrman also noted on Sunday that he spoke to the father, who expressed his appreciation for local police and Crown Heights Shomrim, a Jewish organization that monitors antisemitism and also serves as a neighborhood watch group. According to Behrman, the father also said that his kids were doing well.

Saturday’s attack was the fourth time in less than two weeks that an Orthodox resident of Crown Heights was targeted for violence and humiliation. In each case, the assailant was allegedly a Black male, a pattern of conduct which continues to strain Black-Jewish relations across the Five Boroughs.

Last Wednesday, a middle-aged Hasidic man was chased and beaten by two assailants after he refused to surrender his cell phone.

Earlier that week, an African American male smacked a 13-year-old Jewish boy who was commuting to school on his bike in the neighborhood, which is heavily Jewish.

Less than a week earlier, an assailant slashed a visibly Jewish man in the face as he was walking in Brooklyn.

Black-on-Jewish crime is a social issue which has been studied before. In 2022, a report published by Americans Against Antisemitism (AAA) showed that Orthodox Jews were the minority group most victimized by hate crimes in New York City and that 69 percent of their assailants were African American. Seventy-seven percent of the incidents took place taking in predominantly Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods in Brooklyn. Of all assaults that prompted criminal proceedings, just two resulted in convictions.

“We’ve never seen anything like this,” AAA founder and former New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind (D) told The Algemeiner at the time. “Shouldn’t there be a plan for how we’re going to deal with it? What’s the answer? Education? We’ve been educating everybody forever for God’s sake, and things are just getting worse.”

The problem has become acute in recent years. In July 2023, for example, a 22-year-old Israeli Yeshiva student, who was identifiably Orthodox and visiting New York City for the summer holiday, was stabbed with a screwdriver by one of two men who attacked him after asking whether he was Jewish and had any money. The other punched him in the face. Earlier that year, 10- and 12-year-olds were attacked on Albany Avenue by four African American teens.

According to a report issued in August by New York state comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, antisemitic incidents accounted for a striking 65 percent of all felony hate crimes in New York City last year. The report added that throughout the state, nearly 44 percent of all recorded hate crime incidents and 88 percent of religious-based hate crimes targeted Jewish victims.

Meanwhile, according to a recent Algemeiner review of New York City Police Department (NYPD) hate crimes data, 385 antisemitic hate crimes have struck the New York City Jewish community since last October, when the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas perpetrated its Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel, unleashing a wave of anti-Jewish hatred unlike any seen in the post-World War II era.

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

The post Suspect Remanded Without Bail for Attempted Kidnapping of Jewish Boy in New York City first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Renowned Figurative Painter Frank Auerbach, Jewish Refugee Who Fled Nazi Germany, Dies at Age 93

A painting by Frank Auerbach, J.Y.M. Seated II, 1992, estimate £600,000 – 800,000 during a photocall at Christie’s auction house showcasing the highlights of 20th/21st Century Evening Sale in London, United Kingdom on October 06, 2023. Photo: WIktor Szymanowicz via Reuters Connect

German-born British artist Frank Auerbach, who was sent to England as a child fleeing Nazi-occupied Germany and became a leading figurative painter, died on Monday at the age of 93.

The gallery Frankie Rossi Art Projects, which focuses on post-war artists like Auerbach, said the Jewish painter “died peacefully” early Monday at his home in London. “We have lost a dear friend and remarkable artist but take comfort knowing his voice will resonate for generations to come,” said Geoffrey Parton, the gallery’s director.

Auerbach was born in Berlin in April 1931 and came to England in 1939. He was an only child and arrived in London as a refugee from Nazi Germany as one of six children sponsored by the writer Iris Origo. Auerbach’s father, a patent lawyer, and mother, an artist, were both killed in a Nazi concentration camp in 1942.

“[I was] at no point shocked or overwhelmed [when] it was gradually leaked to me [that] they’d been killed, taken to a camp and killed,” Auerbach said years later about the murder of his parents, according to The Art Newspaper. “I don’t know which one, Auschwitz probably.”

Auerbach attended Bunce Court in Kent, a boarding school for Jewish refugee children, and then studied at London’s St Martin’s School of Art and the Royal College of Art from 1948-1955. He lived and worked in the same studio in North London from 1954 until his death. His career spanned seven decades, his work has been shown around the world, and he was awarded the prestigous Golden Lion prize at the 1986 Venice Biennale.

Auerbach’s signature style was having an excessive amount of paint on his works, which was created by him repeatedly scraping off paint from previous versions he was unhappy with, and then starting again until the finished work was loaded with layers of paint. He was known for his portraits and city scenes in North London. He once told The Guardian that he estimated that 95 percent of his paint ended up in the garbage. “I’m trying to find a new way to express something… So I rehearse all the other ways until I surprise myself with something I haven’t previously considered,” he explained.

Auerbach is survived by his son, filmmaker Jacob Auerbach.

The post Renowned Figurative Painter Frank Auerbach, Jewish Refugee Who Fled Nazi Germany, Dies at Age 93 first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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