It is perfectly normal for the State of Israel to be concerned about antisemitism and to organize an international conference in Jerusalem on the subject, since the Zionist project was born out of a diagnosis of Europe’s insurmountable hostility towards Jews. The mechanism known as the Law of Return is, in this sense, the institutional translation of the reciprocal link that unites this State designed for Jews and the Jews who, throughout the world, are potentially in search of shelter. But the current spokespeople of this State are taking the initiative of inviting forces whose Jews know full well that the switch to anti-antisemitism is purely opportunistic and their sincerity more than doubtful. The form taken by this initiative of the Ministry of the Diaspora sounds, let’s be clear about this, like a betrayal of the diaspora. We can try to relieve ourselves by telling ourselves that this initiative is the result of ignorance of the situation of the Jews, a hypothesis that the abysmal lack of culture of the right and the extreme right wing of the government makes plausible. But make no mistake: what the guest list for this conference reflects is nothing less than a deliberate alignment with the most reactionary and authoritarian forces already in power in certain countries, and firm support for those who aspire to it. The latter hope that the road to Jerusalem will open the doors of power to them, in a context, it must be said, where the radical left in France, Great Britain and elsewhere has…
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Can the fight against antisemitism be anything other than a parody when it is organized by the far right? By inviting members of Europe's authoritarian and xenophobic right to parade on the stage of its “International Conference on Combating Antisemitism”, the Israeli Ministry of the Diaspora has committed a serious political error, which rings like a betrayal of its mission. Here, Michael Brenner reports on the drift represented by this move and the trap into which it is locking Jews.
David Hirsh was invited, in his capacity as academic director of the London Centre for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism, to the International Conference on Combating Antisemitism organized by the Israeli Ministry of the Diaspora. In this text, he explains why he chose not to participate in this initiative which, by giving pride of place to the extreme right, discredits the fight against antisemitism and endangers Jews in the diaspora.
Who, as a child, has never dreamed of discovering a secret lineage, an obscure origin that would answer the nagging question of identity? Ubiquitous in fiction, this trope of the “family saga”, well identified by Freud, sometimes intersects with a semblance of reality. It is from this tenuous junction point that Romain Moor investigates the subject of those who discover themselves to be Marranos long after the fact.
On Sunday, January 19, the sixth edition of the “Choosing a Jewish School” fair, launched in 2019 by Elodie Marciano, was held in Paris. In 2023, K. had already devoted an article to this event, which has shaken up the institutional world and has become an unmissable meeting place for the entire ecosystem of French Jewish education and youth. One year and three months after October 7, we decided to go back, curious and concerned about the effects of the current climate on the youngest. Between the stands of the youth movements and the large school complexes, the images of the hostage release were on a loop against a background of Am Israel Chai – let’s follow the guide!
Hatred of mediation and language, abolition of differences in an all-or-nothing logic, a solipsistic dream in which the world disappears: in this aphoristic text, the philosopher Gérard Bensussan proposes a conceptual approach to nihilism. This pathology of reason appears, beyond the diversity of its manifestations, as that which threatens thought as soon as it forgets its outside – a slope on which the critical gesture easily slides, and where the old Jewish question is encountered.
Isn’t the meaning of Purim – the quintessential exile festival that reflects the issue of protecting the dispersed people – bound to fade away once the Jews have given themselves a state charged with preserving them from persecution? This is the question Danny Trom reopens in light of October 7 and its aftermath. How should we understand the circulation, for this year’s Purim, of calls for children to adopt Ariel Bibas’ Batman costume? Is it not the case that the Jewish political condition in exile remains latent in the realization of the Zionist project, merely awaiting its actualization?
For International Women’s Rights Day, K. is publishing a text that is a departure from its usual line. A young Jewish woman sent us a manuscript that, pastiching the famous SCUM Manifesto (1967) by radical feminist activist Valerie Solanas, virulently expresses her anger at the Jewish world’s deafness to the demands for women’s emancipation. This anger is the political expression we get from bottling up what’s ready to explode.
The Brutalist, which has just won three Oscars, offers a romanticized retelling of the career of a famous Hungarian-Jewish architect who survived the Shoah. A brilliant film, it nevertheless takes the risk, through its approximations and exaggerations, of missing one of the dimensions of this story – the one relating to architecture, which is at the heart of the film. An insight by architect Albert Levy.
Last March, Jean-Claude Milner delivered a disturbing diagnosis in our pages: the rapid American trusteeship of Israel, due to the loss of the illusion that made the Jewish state an “impenetrable and solitary diamond”, a representative of the democratic West in hostile lands. In his text, “Western” meant above all the recognition of American supremacy, WASP values and a doctrine where peace is the rule and war the exception. An alternative was emerging for Jews: either orientalization in a vassalized Israel, or dissolution in the new American Jerusalem. At a time when the Trump presidency seems to be reshuffling the cards by reconnecting with an imperial logic, and Europe seems increasingly marginalized, Milner revisits his diagnosis.
Who is Herbert Kickl, and what political project does he promise Austria? As the far-right FPÖ party, which won the last elections, prepares to take the helm of a coalition government and appoint Kickl as chancellor, Liam Hoare traces the trajectory of this party and its leader with Nazi sympathies.
Shiri, Ariel and Kfir were buried yesterday, Wednesday, February 26, 2025. What hope did the Bibas family represent? What was at stake in the act of tearing down the posters showing the faces of the hostages in the public space? As pain mingles with rage at the discovery of the murder of the Bibas children and their mother, Bruno Karsenti examines their fate in the context of the persistence of Jewish life, and the struggle that it entails.
What has happened to Odessa, once dubbed the “Star of Exile” by Isaac Babel, since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine? Joseph Roche gives us his account of how the Jewish community is trying to survive there, despite the war and the departures.
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