Vortrag in englischer Sprache.
Since 2007 the German government allocates 19 million Euros a year to fight what they call historical and contemporary anti-Semitism in the country. The former is understood as the remnants of Nationalist-Socialist thinking whereas the latter term refers to anti-Semitism among Muslim background immigrants. This group, who gained access to German citizenship only since 2000, is now increasingly under public accusation for not showing an interest in learning about the Holocaust and hence not sharing the collective responsibility for German history. Along with sexism, homophobia, and violence, anti-Semitism is one of the most serious accusations Muslim background immigrants are defined as non-fit for being part of Germany. Based on one year-long ethnographic observations of anti-Semitism trainings organized specifically for Muslim immigrants, the lecture makes two arguments. First, it contents that in contemporary Germany Islam is increasingly used as a factor to explain things that are predominantly determined by class, education, or immigration history. This strategy extrapolates the majority of immigrants in the country as primarily religious before anything else. Second, it argues that anti-Semitism trainings can be seen as a simultaneous exclusion and invitation of immigrants for being Germans. In these trainings the very same immigrants who are pointed to as the main source of contemporary anti-Semitism in Germany are also invited to become Germans by claiming and condemning their anti-Semitism just like other Germans did after the World War II.
Esra Özyürek is an Associate Professor at the University of California, San Diego, Department of Anthropology. She currently is a Research Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Berlin.
Ort
Zentrum für Antisemitismusforschung
Raum TEL 811 (8. Stock)
Ernst-Reuter-Platz 7, 10587 Berlin
