In some German schoolyards the word “Jew” has become an insult again. As part of the project “Living Equality”, a new work group has met for the first time in Berlin in order to discuss effective strategies against anti-Semitism among Muslims living in Germany.

by Ruti Ungar

In some German schoolyards the word “Jew” has become an insult again. A 14 year old Jewish girl learning at a high school in the Kreuzberg district of Berlin was being abused for weeks on her way home by Muslim classmates. The girl had to receive police protection and has now moved to the highly-secured Jewish school in Berlin’s Mitte district. The story is not a unique incident, and while it does not reflect the views of a majority of Muslims in , studies show that there is a noteworthy rise in anti-Semitism in the Muslim population. A recent study in schoolchildren has shown that 15.7% of youngsters with a Muslim background agreed with the statement “Jews are greedy and arrogant”, while 21.8% showed general anti-democratic tendencies.

This rise has been the occasion for an establishment of a work group called “Migrant anti-Semitism and Islamism”. The work group is part of the project “Living Equality” which is funded by the Ford Foundation (New York) and the Freudenberg Foundation. Under the auspices of the Amadeu Antonio Foundation the few projects who are working on the subject of anti-Semitism in migrant communities have met on February 1, 2008 to discuss the phenomenon. The emphasis of the work group was practical in its orientation, concentrating on problems and experiences of projects which are already working. As the issue has been raised in the public debate only a few years ago, most projects working in this field are newly established and have not run long enough to draw final conclusions.

One of the participants in the workshop was the “Kreuzberger Musikalische Aktion”, situated in Kreuzberg, a Berlin district with a high percentage of migrants. The project, which has already been running for over ten years, uses multimedia to develop social and cultural competences against xenophobia and violence in youngsters. Walter Gramming und Uschi Frank, two video artists working in the project have lately developed a new course which is aimed directly at combating anti-Semitic stereotypes. The idea evolved after an incident in one of their workshops against violence. While passing the Jewish Museum, some of the teenagers in the workshop spat vehemently. After a few similar incidents, the video project was established. Aiming to gain the participant’s trust, Gramming and Frank will then educate them, organize meetings with Jewish youth, and will animate them to initiate similar discussions in their communities. The course, which is funded by the Amadeu Antonio Foundation, is intended to end in March 2008 but continues to receive many requests from young people who want to take part.

Other projects participating in the work group were for example: the Centre for Democratic Culture (ZDK), which works together with local authorities to develop strategies against group-focused enmity, the Anne-Frank-Zentrum, which specialises in Holocaust education for young people, and the Mobile Beratung gegen Rechtsextremismus (MBR), which offers advice on violence of right-wing extremists. A project which concentrates on monitoring Arabic speaking media is the ufuq.de which develops concepts and advanced training for professionals working in the field.

With almost no empirical data at hand about anti-Semitism in migrants of Islamic background the participants tread in a largely uncharted terrain, and many questions remain unanswered. The primary one is how to fight anti-Semitism without reproducing racism and alienating social groups who are, in many cases, already on the edge of society. The participants agreed that it is important not to homogenize, as is often being done in media and politics, with broad generalizations like “Muslims are anti-Semitic”, “Islam is the problem”, or blaming all anti-Semitism on the conflict in the Middle East. It is also vital to understand that anti-Semitism is closely connected with the positioning of young people of minority background towards the majority society on the one hand, and with a certain ideological basis on the other. Thus it is imperative to perceive anti-Semitism as a complex phenomenon which will have to be dealt with through different strategies.

The work group has decided to concentrate on two main areas. The first session will deal with education, and the second with local administration, local politics and civil society. The emphasis in both cases would be on grass-roots work. The aims of the work group are to understand the problems, create a network, learn from successful projects, consolidate findings and develop strategies which will be published in a book due autumn 2008.

www.mut-gegen-rechte-gewalt.de / photo by H. Kulick, seen in Berlin 2007
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