tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/jewish-affairs-5248/articlesJewish affairs – The Conversation2014-08-11T01:43:35Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/303072014-08-11T01:43:35Z2014-08-11T01:43:35ZGaza war lets the anti-Semitic genie out of its Australian bottle<p>The Israel-Hamas war in Gaza has triggered a dramatic rise in global anti-Semitism. This has significantly undermined the collective well-being of the Jewish people. While the intensity of anti-Semitism varies from country to country, it has been felt everywhere, including Australia.</p>
<p>This anti-Semitism has two dimensions: what is said about Israel and Jews, and what is not said about other regimes and Hamas.</p>
<p>In Melbourne, a man of Jewish appearance was jumped on by Arabic-speaking men who railed about Gaza as they <a href="http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/law-order/exisraeli-defence-force-soldier-beaten-up-in-alleged-racial-attack-in-melbourne/story-fni0fee2-1226987338619">attacked him</a>. It is, of course, as logical to attack Jews for Israeli policy as it is to attack Australians overseas for this country’s horrific asylum seeker policies, but anti-Semitism has never been about logic. It’s about hate.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Zachary Gomo describes being attacked in Melbourne.</span></figcaption>
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<p>At La Trobe University, the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/SocialistAlternativeAtLaTrobeUniversity">Socialist Alternative</a> put up posters with the names and photos of a Jewish student and her supporters claiming they supported “genocide”. All that was missing was the word “wanted”. The Socialist Alternative made up for that by instructing supporters to approach this Jewish student with verbal abuse.</p>
<p>After being called a “genocidal pig” and “a Zionist piece of shit”, the Jewish student has felt unable to attend class, while the Jewish student society feels incapable of holding events on campus out of fear. It doesn’t appear to have dawned on the Socialist Alternative that they are levelling accusations of genocide against Jewish students while employing the tactics of those who engaged in genocide.</p>
<p>Tragically, however, the anti-Semitism has not been limited to street thugs and students campaigners, and it gains traction not only from those who espouse hate but also those who fail to act against it. If the La Trobe University administration is anything to go by, anti-Semites can act with virtual impunity.</p>
<h2>Hateful stereotypes re-appear</h2>
<p>The Sydney Morning Herald <a href="http://forward.com/articles/203397/australian-newspaper-apologizes-for-cartoon-slamme/?">published a cartoon</a> with a hooked-nosed Jew, wearing a traditional skullcap, on a chair with a Star of David as he detonated a bomb on Gaza. It is hard to think of another community that would be portrayed in this way, so once again we see the characteristics of anti-Semitism with Jews selected for special treatment.</p>
<p>While the newspaper later apologised for publishing the cartoon, this does not mitigate the fact that it regarded this image as legitimate in the first place. It worryingly confirms that you don’t need to be rabid anti-Semites to buy into and perpetuate anti-Semitic imagery.</p>
<p>Veteran journalist <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-06/smh-columnist-mike-carlton-resigns-following-gaza-column-furore/5651470">Mike Carlton</a>, whose article the cartoon illustrated, responded to an aggrieved Jewish reader by saying:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>You’re the one full of hate and bile, sunshine. The classic example of the Jewish bigot. Now f..k off.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>That Carlton is not a member of the socialist revolutionary left or neo-Nazi far right is cause for concern, because if “mainstream” people such as Carlton regard Jews in this way, how can they be objective and fair when it comes to reporting about Israel? It’s like asking an Islamaphobe to comment on an Arab or Islamic country.</p>
<p>While criticism of Israeli policy is legitimate, the use of Holocaust imagery as seen on the streets and social media is not. This is another dimension of anti-Semitism because it <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/The-Gaza-war-and-the-new-Holocaust-revisionism-369579">debases the Holocaust of meaning</a>, desecrates the memory of its victims and appears to be more about offending Jews than conveying political facts.</p>
<h2>A double standard of condemnation and silence</h2>
<p>Anti-Semitism is thus evident in what is said about Israel and Jews, but we can also identify it in what is not said about others by Israel’s critics.</p>
<p>Two women recently stepped out of a kosher bakery in Melbourne to be verbally accosted about events in Gaza. Across the road at the Russian delicatessen, none of the shoppers were abused, establishing that it is almost exclusively the Jewish diaspora that gets vilified when people don’t like what is going on in their homeland.</p>
<p>Double standards have always been the litmus test of anti-Semitism. When human rights are only selectively advocated – as protestors rage about Israel but remain mute on Syria and Iraq – compared to which the deaths in Gaza, tragic as they are, pale in comparison – Jews are left with the feeling that many of the protests are more about a pretext to attack Jews than the application of universal rights. At a minimum, their selectivity demonstrates their bias.</p>
<p>Then there is dichotomy of those quick to condemn Israel, perhaps legitimately, but who are deafeningly silent when it comes to homophobic, misogynistic, theocratic, fascist Hamas and their anti-peace opposition to a two-state Solution, instead offering a Jew-free one-state solution. These critics utter not a word about Hamas’s openly genocidal charter, whose wording would fit in perfectly with a Nazi charter in 1930s Germany, as it officially calls for the killing of Jews everywhere.</p>
<p>Nor do they condemn vitriolic anti-Semitism espoused by Hamas. This was seen last week, for instance, at Lebanese TV network Al-Quds when Hamas spokesman Osama Hamdan spoke about Jews killing Christians to get their blood to make Passover bread. </p>
<p>Jews are left to ask whether the silence about Hamas by anti-Israel, putatively pro-peace advocates is because they don’t know, don’t care or because they agree with them. Either way, the silence undermines any sense of objectivity and fairness in the way Israel and Jews are treated, and as such reflects anti-Jewish discrimination.</p>
<h2>Ominous pattern of history repeats</h2>
<p>The nexus between the hate-filled public comments about Jews and street-level anti-Semitism became clear in Sydney last week when teenagers boarded a school bus and threatened to “kill” Jewish primary children and “slit their throats” as they made multiple references to Palestine. Unless there is a greater care in the way Israel is discussed, more Jews will inevitably be threatened in Australia.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Words of hate have escalated to direct intimidation of Jewish primary schoolchildren on a bus.</span></figcaption>
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<p>As part of this process of criticising Israel, acceptance of Jews in society is being made conditional. Jews are considered moral and legitimate if they criticise Israel, but illegitimate and unacceptable citizens if they don’t. At Monash University, Jewish students who tried to attend a talk were barred from entry on the grounds, ironically, that they weren’t “free-thinking enough”.</p>
<p>What is occurring is that those with anti-Jewish prejudice, or in some cases profound ignorance, fail to appreciate the centrality of the State of Israel to Jewish identity.</p>
<p>It is one thing to criticise Israeli policy, but it is another to define what Judaism is and what Jews are allowed to believe in relation to their ancestral homeland and its contemporary manifestation in the State of Israel. That’s anti-Semitism. It would be like asking someone to stay Catholic but disaffiliate from Rome and the Pope, or to be a Muslim and have no identification with Mecca (say because of all the human rights abuses in the Arab world).</p>
<p>This conditional acceptance rings warning bells for Jews, as it is an ominous pattern that they have experienced throughout history.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/30307/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Danny Ben-Moshe receives funding from - None presently, previously held an ARC Linkage
I am the founder and leader of <a href="http://www.seventyyearsdecalaration.org">www.seventyyearsdecalaration.org</a> .</span></em></p>The Israel-Hamas war in Gaza has triggered a dramatic rise in global anti-Semitism. This has significantly undermined the collective well-being of the Jewish people. While the intensity of anti-Semitism…Danny Ben-Moshe, Associate Professor and Principal Research Fellow, Centre for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/206382013-11-25T18:58:30Z2013-11-25T18:58:30ZArt seized by the Nazis should go to Holocaust victims’ families<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/36032/original/6539cwgx-1385356757.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Who owns the 1,400 'degenerate' works found in the Munich flat of Cornelius Gurlitt?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Marc Mueller/EPA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The large collection of paintings and drawings found in the Munich flat of the 80-year-old recluse, Cornelius Gurlitt, which came to wide public attention earlier this month, raises serious moral and legal questions.</p>
<p>How should governments and representatives of families of Jewish Holocaust victims deal with the legacy of the Nazi period?</p>
<p>Gurlitt is the son of an art dealer who sold works of art for the Nazis. Many of the works that passed through his hands had been classified by the Nazis as “<a href="http://www.dw.de/gurlitt-may-have-part-of-seized-art-trove-returned-to-him/a-17240526">degenerate art</a>” and confiscated from museums and private collections. </p>
<p>Other artworks came from forced sales by Jewish families at bargain basement prices. In the 1930s, the Nazis made a tidy sum by selling these acquisitions in the world art market. The elder Gurlitt helped them do it.</p>
<p>By means not yet explained, Gurlitt ended up with a personal collection of more than 1,000 <a href="http://www.dw.de/lost-art-works-from-the-gurlitt-collection/g-17226201">paintings and drawings</a>, including works by Matisse, Picasso, Chagall, Gauguin, Liebermann, Beckmann and Kretschmar. </p>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Edvard Munch’s work August Strindberg, 1896, was confiscated from the home of Cornelius Gurlitt.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Staatsanwaltschaft Augsburg/EPA</span></span>
</figcaption>
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<p>A special task-force set up by the German Government <a href="http://www.dw.de/gurlitt-may-have-part-of-seized-art-trove-returned-to-him/a-17240526">estimates at least 970</a> of these were originally stolen by the Nazis. The origin of some may never be discovered.</p>
<p>These works of art eventually passed into the hands of Cornelius Gurlitt, who kept them hidden in his flat. Gurlitt zealously protected his horde, allowing no visitors and giving no hint to anyone about the existence of his vast collection.</p>
<p>The collection was discovered by accident when he came under suspicion for tax fraud. Almost two years have passed since tax officials raided his flat. News of what they found was only made public when the German magazine <a href="http://www.focus.de/kultur/kunst/nazi-raubkunst-meisterwerke-zwischen-muell-fahnder-entdecken-kunstschatz-in-milliardenhoehe_aid_1147066.html">Focus reported on the trove</a> on November 3. </p>
<p>Gurlitt has not given up his struggle to get his whole collection back. In <a href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/spiegel-interview-with-cornelius-gurlitt-about-munich-art-find-a-933953.html">a recent interview</a> with the German news magazine Der Spiegel, he insists he and his father did nothing wrong. </p>
<p>Indeed, he claims his father saved works of art that would otherwise have been destroyed, lost or taken away by Soviet invaders. The paintings rightfully belong to him, he said, adding: “there is nothing I have loved more in my life than my pictures.”</p>
<h2>Ownership rights</h2>
<p>The legal issues are tangled. A lot of time has passed. Most of the owners of works taken by the Nazis are now dead. In any case, there is no proof the elder Gurlitt stole any of the pictures. </p>
<p>On the other hand, public opinion since the 1990s has come to favour claims of heirs for the return of art works stolen by the Nazi regime from their parents or grandparents. Some museums have been required to give back pictures that were originally stolen.</p>
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<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Barbara Gindl/EPA </span></span>
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<p>Does Gurlitt have a moral case for having the pictures returned to him? Does his apparent innocence, his long possession and his obvious love for the pictures give him a right to possession?</p>
<p>There are two reasons for objecting to his attempt to defend his ownership rights.</p>
<p>The first is that he is not really innocent. He did not steal the pictures, but the fact he kept them a secret suggests he knew that the dark cloud of Nazi crimes overshadowed his right to possession. Despite this, he made no attempt in all the years that he had the pictures to enquire about their origin, to contact those who might have owned them or get help in finding them.</p>
<p>The second reason against his continued ownership is the nature of the crimes that Nazis committed when they robbed Jews of their possessions. The Nazis did not merely persecute individuals. They wanted to destroy Jewish families. </p>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Max Liebermann’s work Ruderer Szenen’(Rowing Scene) from 1920 was another of the works confiscated from Gurlitt’s home.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Staatsanwaltschaft Augsburg/EPA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Genocide is not just a matter of killing a lot of people. Its aim is to wipe out family lines and thus the future of a whole people. Robbing families of their possessions was just the beginning.</p>
<p>The crimes Nazis committed when they robbed, persecuted and killed Jews were crimes against families as well as individuals. That means restitution can be owed to surviving members of these families.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.lootedart.com/anne-webber">Anne Webber</a>, co-chair of a commission that helps families retrieve artwork stolen by the Nazis, <a href="http://www.dw.de/nazi-looted-art-is-germanys-achilles-heel/a-17241341">thinks that</a> restitution of lost possessions is a matter of justice:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Hitler’s project was to erase Jews from history. So to treat claimants as if history and circumstances of loss were of no consequence can be like a re-run of that history.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The German task-force investigating the Gurlitt case recognises the obligation of returning paintings to the heirs of owners. But it also intends to return some of the pictures to Gurlitt. It should not do so without a thorough attempt to find original owners. </p>
<p>But perhaps these officials are right to assume that Gurlitt is entitled to keep pictures when original owners cannot be found. </p>
<p>If so, he can live out the rest of his lonely life with some of the things he loves.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/20638/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Janna Thompson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The large collection of paintings and drawings found in the Munich flat of the 80-year-old recluse, Cornelius Gurlitt, which came to wide public attention earlier this month, raises serious moral and legal…Janna Thompson, Professor of Philosophy, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/184862013-09-30T17:06:45Z2013-09-30T17:06:45ZStory of the Jews: Schama got it in the neck, but got it right<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/32165/original/9rcqfgnr-1380534577.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Schama's controlled emotion made for gripping viewing.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Financial Times photos</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In nearly 40 years of teaching Jewish Studies at university the course I found hardest to deliver was my first-year “Introduction to Judaism”. It didn’t get any easier: the more I learned, the more I agonised over what to say. It was not just the facts and figures I had to master. It was the selection: what to put in, what to leave out. How to make generalisations that would stand up to scrutiny. How to convey the big patterns of history in language that would grab the students’ attention, and yet be historically robust. </p>
<p>Only someone who has tried to do this can have the faintest idea how difficult it is. Simon Schama made a remarkably good fist of it in <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0392pzx">The Story of the Jews</a>. There were few howlers, and this in itself is an achievement for someone who is not an academic specialist in the field. The big picture he painted was pretty standard, though nicely illustrated by arresting and unusual materials – hardly surprising since, as the footnotes of his book show, it rests on solid scholarship. In broad outline it didn’t differ much from what I offered to my classes, and certainly if I were still teaching my “Introduction” I would urge my students to watch these programmes and read the book. </p>
<p>There were times when I would have differed in my judgement. For example, he projected too much the lachrymose view of Jewish history and drew too sharp a contrast between the experience of Jews under medieval Islam (generally good), and their experience in Christendom (horribly bad). His understanding of the role of the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/history/paul_1.shtml">Apostle Paul</a> in the parting of the ways between Christianity and Judaism was clichéd and outdated, his grasp of Jewish messianism questionable. </p>
<p>I’m not sure he was clear in his own mind what story he was trying to tell. Was it the traditional Jewish myth of salvation which Jews tell to make sense of their world, or that story critiqued from the standpoint of scholarship, or his own very personal take on Jewish history? He oscillated confusingly. But these were all points on which we can agree to differ.</p>
<h2>Engaged emotions</h2>
<p>The presentation was superb: Schama’s emotions were engaged, and sometimes barely under control, but this made for gripping television. The photography and graphics were stunning. And his command of vivid speech, the arresting phrase, the big idea, allowed him to carry off a mode of delivery which had him for long stretches talking alone to camera. </p>
<p>But what about balance? Even before the series finished some were <a href="http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/111371/simon-schama-and-bbc-attacked-over-story-jews">protesting</a> that he was being allowed to present propaganda for the State of Israel, that room should be given to challenge his claims. Certainly, I would regard a narrative such as this as only a starting point, a first-order exposition. In second and third year classes I took my first-year story of the Jews and deconstructed it, challenging it, presenting counter-evidence, complicating the picture. But to expect this of a television series is unreasonable. </p>
<p>So long as a well-informed, well-argued case is advanced with honesty and integrity (as Schama did) it should be allowed to stand on its own two feet. Give people time to ponder and digest it. No-one who followed this series could fail to be educated by it. If you disagree, have the courtesy to sit back and feel the force of the opposition case. It may do you good to be reminded that the opposition too has arguments, and don’t be so patronisingly worried that Joe Public will be led astray. Joe Public is remarkably shrewd, and can usually sniff out bias and special pleading: I doubt if he will get much of a whiff of it here.</p>
<h2>Hawks watching</h2>
<p>The final programme was the most impressive of all: the tone was nearly pitch-perfect, the sensitive issues treated with knowledge, balance and humanity. The problem is that discourse about the Israel-Palestine conflict has reached such a low that each side is watching like a hawk to stop the other getting an “unfair” advantage. Each wants the other’s views, if not stifled, at least immediately shouted down. </p>
<p>The founding of the State of Israel is integral to the Story of the Jews, and a moral and historical case can be made for Zionism. It is timely that some on the Left have been reminded of this. It is the BBC’s responsibility to try to balance things out over the longer term, and doubtless, as in the past, so in the future, they will air programmes and opinions that put other points of view. The BBC is accused of bias by both the pro-Israel and the anti-Israel lobbies. The fact they are getting it in the neck from both sides suggests they are getting it roughly right.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/18486/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Philip Alexander has held major AHRC grants in the field of Jewish Studies.</span></em></p>In nearly 40 years of teaching Jewish Studies at university the course I found hardest to deliver was my first-year “Introduction to Judaism”. It didn’t get any easier: the more I learned, the more I agonised…Philip Alexander, Professor of Post-Biblical Jewish Literature, University of ManchesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/184912013-09-20T13:49:48Z2013-09-20T13:49:48ZTackle antisemitism, not the ‘Yid Army’ chants<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/31730/original/hhfhznd9-1379681457.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Spurs fans: language reclaimers?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Peter Byrne/PA </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Is it always wrong to use racial epithets, regardless of the context? It’s an old debate, recently revived and applied to football fans. The Football Association (FA), anti-racism campaigners and Jewish groups all say such terms should have no place in football. But Tottenham’s “Yid Army” would disagree.</p>
<p>It’s a hot topic right now as The FA has <a href="http://www.thefa.com/news/governance/equality/2013/sep/football-association-position-on-y-word">issued a statement</a> warning fans that those caught using the term “Yid” are liable for criminal prosecution and a Football Banning Order.</p>
<p>The word “Yid” (literally meaning “Jew”) emerged from the Eastern European language, Yiddish. It originally had no pejorative connotation and was used as a term of endearment and familiarity. The word only became a derogatory epithet employed by antisemites when the Nazis started to abbreviate Yiddish speakers to “Yids”.</p>
<p>The FA’s warning was aimed at the fans of Tottenham Hotspur, a football club with an historically complicated relationship with the term “Yid” for over 40 years. This stems from Tottenham traditionally attracting Jewish fans as a result of its location in north London, near Hasidic Jewish communities that settled there in the 1930s as they fled persecution in Europe. This relationship has been perpetuated by Tottenham historically having Jewish players, coaches and especially owners, including the last three chairmen: Irving Scholar (1982-1991), Alan Sugar (1991-2001) and Daniel Levy (2001-present).</p>
<p>However, this Jewish connection led to Tottenham fans being targeted as “Yids”. Songs about the Holocaust are often aimed at them, together with hissing sounds simulating the noise of Nazi gas chambers, particularly from sections of London rivals <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/the-nazi-chanting-of-west-ham-fans-is-no-resurgence-of-antisemitism-in-football-truth-is-it-never-went-away-8364775.html">Chelsea and West Ham United</a>’s fans. </p>
<p>In response to this bigotry in the 1970s, many Tottenham supporters – both Gentiles and Jews – appropriated “Yid” and variations such as “Yiddo” in their own chants as a badge of honour. This apparent attempt to deflect the antisemitic abuse and defuse its power as an insult is now a cornerstone of Tottenham fan culture. Some Tottenham fans (like those of AFC Ajax in Amsterdam) have even adopted the Star of David on flags, clothing and tattoos even though the sign is not permitted by the club on official merchandise.</p>
<h2>Reclaiming language</h2>
<p>This use of “Yid” can be understood as a form of “linguistic reclamation”, that is, the appropriation of a pejorative epithet by its target to challenge and expunge the stigma associated with the word. There are parallels here with the reclamation of other slurs by feminists, gays and lesbians, and the black community. </p>
<p>Looking at the word “queer”, Robin Brontsema argues that there are at least <a href="http://www.colorado.edu/ling/CRIL/Volume17_Issue1/paper_BRONTSEMA.pdf">three identifiable goals</a> to this reclamation: 1) value reversal to transform the negative meaning into a positive one; 2) neutralisation to nullify the force of the word; 3) stigma exploitation whereby the stigma is purposefully retained as a confrontational, revolutionary call. </p>
<p>These goals can also be understood – but are often overlooked – as driving factors behind the use of “Yid” by Tottenham fans. Another oversight is that many rival fans innocently refer to Spurs fans as “Yids” in the same way that fans of Arsenal are referred to as “Gooners” or fans of Liverpool and Everton as “Scousers”. For many fans today, the word “Yid” has become disconnected from its original Jewish meaning and is now synonymous with Tottenham Hotspur.</p>
<p>The FA’s statement has reignited a major debate in the national press, on radio phone-ins and via social media between football fans, Jewish groups, social commentators and the <a href="http://www1.skysports.com/football/news/11675/8926946/peter-herbert-hits-out-at-pm-david-cameron-for-stance-on-y-word-chants">Society of Black Lawyers</a>. </p>
<p>Even David Cameron <a href="http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/111511/david-cameron-yid-not-hate-speech-when-it%E2%80%99s-spurs">has had his say</a>, attempting to highlight the potential different uses and contextual meanings of the word.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There’s a difference between Spurs fans self-describing themselves as Yids and someone calling someone a Yid as an insult… Hate speech should be prosecuted - but only when it’s motivated by hate.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Cameron was accused of hypocrisy by Jewish comedian, David Baddiel, on the grounds that the Prime Minister would not have had the same reaction if the chants had <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2013/sep/19/david-baddiel-cameron-spurs-yid-video">been about other ethnic minorities</a>. Baddiel has long fought against antisemitism in football. He and his brother Ivor, both Chelsea fans, made a short film in 2011 campaigning against <a href="http://www.kickitout.org/1307.php">use of the “Y-word”</a> for football’s equality and inclusion organisation Kick It Out. The film caused resentment among the Tottenham fan base, who believed that they were misguidedly the focus of the film, rather than their abusers from West Ham and Chelsea.</p>
<p>Many Tottenham fans resent The FA’s warning, pointing to the context in which they use “Yid” – as a term of endearment – in contrast to its use by some of their opponents as an epithet. Last weekend, many Tottenham fans <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/football/2013/sep/14/tottenham-fa-yid-army?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487">voiced their disapproval</a> with defiant choruses of “We’re Tottenham Hotspur! We’ll sing what we want!” followed by their chant of “Yid Army!”</p>
<p>Tottenham have announced that they will <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/football/2013/sep/15/tottenham-yid-army-chants">canvass fans</a> on their opinions on “whether now is the time to stop using this [Jewish] identity”. But despite this many fans are concerned that their voices are not being heard.</p>
<p>One way to progress this sensitive and complex debate would be through achieving a greater understanding of antisemitism in football and of Tottenham Hotspur’s relationship with Judaism. We must recognise the complexity of language: that the use of once-racist terms can have different meanings and effects in different contexts. </p>
<p>A more sophisticated and comprehensive understanding of the uses of “Yid” in football fandom would acknowledge the fluidity of linguistic reclamation and “ownership”. This is something The FA, the “Y-Word” filmmakers and the Society of Black Lawyers have failed to do thus far through their “zero tolerance” approach.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/18491/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emma Poulton has been a Tottenham fan since the late 1970s.</span></em></p>Is it always wrong to use racial epithets, regardless of the context? It’s an old debate, recently revived and applied to football fans. The Football Association (FA), anti-racism campaigners and Jewish…Emma Poulton, Lecturer in Sociology of Sport, Durham UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/134122013-04-13T23:46:58Z2013-04-13T23:46:58ZGlobal anti-Semitism: making sure ‘Never Again’ is not a hollow slogan<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/22327/original/bgxnyp7y-1365643578.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Anti-Semitic attacks have risen 30% worldwide over the past year, and we’ve seen incidents double in Australia.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/David Crosling</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Jewish-World/Jewish-News/Study-Global-anti-Semitism-rises-by-30-percent-308991">recent report</a> shows that anti-Semitic attacks worldwide were up by 30% last year, and that the number of anti-Semitic incidents in Australia in that time almost doubled.</p>
<p>The report - released by the Tel-Aviv University’s <a href="http://www.kantorcenter.tau.ac.il/">Kantor Center</a> for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry - <a href="http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/164588#.UWYNrispYh4">noted that 2012 saw</a> “an alarming rise in the number of terrorist attacks and attempted attacks against Jewish targets, and an escalation in violent incidents against Jews worldwide”.</p>
<p>The head of the Kantor Center, Dr Moshe Kantor, said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>As a Jewish leader, I can say that the [Jewish communities] in Europe are in danger. People are afraid to go to synagogue, to go to Jewish school — this is a new phenomenon and it is joined by several other trends we haven’t seen before, like the fact that neo-Nazi [parties] have not only become legal in Europe, they’re already holding parliament seats in Hungary, Ukraine and Greece.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This news came as communities around the world observed <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/08/holocaust-memorial-day_n_3036650.html?utm_hp_ref=world">Holocaust Memorial Day</a>, honouring the six million Jews who were murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators simply because they were Jews. The solemn occasion also honoured those who survived, and the courageous rescuers and liberators of the death camps.</p>
<p>In Europe, anti-Semitism is rearing its ugly head again to frightening levels. In France last year there was a disturbing <a href="http://www.algemeiner.com/2013/02/20/french-jewish-leader-the-number-of-anti-semitic-acts-has-exploded/">82% rise</a> in physical and verbal assaults against Jews; in Hungary, the neo-Nazi <a href="http://www.jobbik.com/">Jobbik party</a> is now the third-largest political party in the country. Marton Gyöngyösi, one of its members, has argued for the establishment of a “<a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/27/us-hungary-antisemitism-idUSBRE8AQ0L920121127">registry</a>” of Jewish MPs and government officials in Hungary since they constitute a “national security threat”.</p>
<p>There are daily reports of Jewish cemeteries and memorials being vandalised and desecrated, and the <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Jewish-World/Jewish-News/UK-report-Slight-rise-in-anti-Semitic-incidents">UK</a> and <a href="http://www.jspace.com/news/articles/complaints-of-anti-semitic-incidents-up-30-percent-in-belgium-video/13070">Belgium</a> recorded one of their worst years for anti-Semitic incidents and complaints.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, a <a href="http://ohpi.org.au/reports/IR13-1_Recognizing_hate_speech_antisemitism_on_Facebook.pdf">report released last month</a> by the Australian Online Hate Prevention Institute notes that anti-Semitic activity on social media like Facebook is a growing phenomenon.</p>
<p>Worryingly, the report also found that while some Facebook “hate sites” are taken down almost immediately, others remain online, some for more than six months. The report identifies what Facebook removes and what sort of content Facebook does not consider hate speech and refuses to remove.</p>
<p>And this month, in an interview with a Polish historical magazine to mark the 70th anniversary of the <a href="http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005188">Warsaw Ghetto Uprising</a>, Polish professor Krzysztof Jasiewicz <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/holocaust-remembrance-day/leading-polish-professor-blames-holocaust-on-the-jews.premium-1.514137">stated that</a>: “the dimensions of the German crimes were only possible due to the active cooperation of the Jews in the process of the slaughter of their people”. </p>
<p>Jasiewicz went on to say that he was not willing to debate these issues, since:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>it’s a waste of the time we would devote to a dialogue with the Jews, whose sense of superiority and confidence that they are the chosen people are leading them to oblivion.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Holocaust is unique in human history. For the first time, a war of industrialised, institutionalised extermination against an entire population of men, women and children became state policy.</p>
<p>The Final Solution was planned in the 1942 infamous <a href="http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005477">Wannsee Conference</a>. In a polite atmosphere and setting, 15 Nazi politicians and administrators - in just two hours - planned the total eradication of the Jews of Europe and endorsed their murder by poison gas.</p>
<p>The Holocaust was conscious, it was deliberate, and it was funded and carried out as a top priority by a government elected by its citizens in a country renowned for its contribution to science, literature, music and philosophy.</p>
<p>Hell bent on destroying every single Jew in Europe, Nazi Germany executed the Final Solution using its modern industry and military. Their national project of liquidation slaughtered one and a half million Jewish children, as well as millions of Poles, Soviets, the Roma, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, the handicapped and mentally disabled: anyone deemed less desirable.</p>
<p>As Jewish philosopher <a href="http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0009_0_08873.html">Abraham Heschel</a> once said, his problem was not so much where was God, but where was man during the Holocaust.</p>
<p>The Holocaust was the darkest instance of man’s inhumanity to its fellow man. It still serves as a stark reminder about the deadly consequences of intolerance.</p>
<p>The Holocaust teaches us that “Never Again” means standing firm and taking decisive action to fight prejudice, bigotry and hatred whenever and wherever it happens.</p>
<p>The Holocaust also teaches us that it happened because of the inaction of bystanders who were complicit by their silence. We learn that indifference is the final element for mass murder to prevail.</p>
<p>All Australians must actively rededicate themselves to make certain that hatred and bigotry against a Jew, a Christian, a Muslim - against any race, creed or colour - is never left unchecked or unchallenged.</p>
<p>There will be those who will say that the Nazi atrocities happened so long ago, that they happened in Europe, that it happened to Jews and others but not to us.</p>
<p>So why should we care about the suffering there and then, or about Darfur now? What does this have do with us here in Australia?</p>
<p>The answer is that if we remember the Holocaust, we can prevent such horrendous acts occurring in the future by reflecting on our own moral responsibility.</p>
<p>Over the last few weeks, MTV has been airing a range of commercials. One of them, titled <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTOuq4pY10o">Subway Roundup</a>, is set on a NY underground train. Suddenly, the lights go out; the passengers are frightened, unsure of what is happening. The car moves from side to side, evoking memories of the trains that took Jewish people to the Nazi death camps. When the train arrives at its destination, officers with machine guns and dogs are waiting outside. They order and push the riders to form an orderly line. The final image of the modern day passengers dissolves into that of the Jews in Nazi Germany. </p>
<p>As the commercial ends, the message across the screen is: “The Holocaust happened to people like us”.</p>
<p>We must choose to act. Inaction is not an option.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/13412/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dvir Abramovich does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A recent report shows that anti-Semitic attacks worldwide were up by 30% last year, and that the number of anti-Semitic incidents in Australia in that time almost doubled. The report - released by the…Dvir Abramovich, Director of Hebrew and Jewish Studies, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.