Politics

At the University of Paris Nanterre, the anti-Zionist mobilization is producing a widespread unease among Jewish students, and raising issues of qualification. While these students are not targeted as Jews, they do feel threatened as such. Valérie Broussard, professor of sociology, investigated their experiences.

Emmanuel Macron’s quip about Israel’s original debt to the international community demonstrates the persistence of an outdated image of Jews and their relationship with nations. Gabriel Abensour reminds us in this text of the history of Zionism, and how this presidential statement seems medieval.

In the West we tend to see the fall of communism as ushering in greater freedom for religious and other minorities. It’s true that after decades of post-war silence, Poland’s Jewish heritage industry, which includes a gleaming museum in the center of Warsaw, an annual Jewish culture festival in Krakow, and thousands of local efforts to excavate history, is flowering. But does this mean that Poland is overcoming its Jewish problem? Arlene Stein spoke to Anna Zawadzka, Polish sociologist, who examines the changing forms of antisemitism in Polish culture in a new book More than a Stereotype , cautioning us against such facile conclusions. 

While the immediate focus is on the ground incursion into Lebanon, military operations and targeted assassinations, and the regional and even global balance, Noémie Issan-Benchimol, in this letter from Jerusalem, wants to bring us back to the more modest scale of the political emotions and wounds of Israeli society, starting with the still-open wound of the hostages, which is not without drawing a deep fault line between the advocates of the citizen’s social contract and the supporters of deterrence. Taking the opportunity of a political micro-event, she offers us here a meditation on power and an insight into that part of the Israeli people that opposes the Netanyahu government and its way of waging war without preparing for peace.

After the sad period of Bolsonarism, Brazilian Jews, most of whom are progressive, were looking forward to a new term under Lula. But the new president’s virulent anti-Zionism seems to have disappointed them. Renan Antônio da Silva and Eric Heinze guide us through this affair, from the long history of Brazilian Jewry to the open secret of the elites’ longstanding antisemitic wanderings.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stands out for his systematic opposition to the EU’s dominant values and policies. So it’s hardly surprising that, since October 7, he has stepped up his support for the Israeli state, not hesitating to label the slightest criticism from his European partners as antisemitic. Here, János Gadó lucidly analyzes the paradoxes of a government which, while trying to pass itself off as a friend of the Jews, traffics in the memory of the Holocaust and recycles the most hackneyed antisemitic tropes.

Did you know that Israel was responsible for the climate crisis, and Hamas an inspiration for environmental activism? In this article, sociologist Sylvaine Bulle describes the strange juxtaposition of anti-Zionism and political ecology by Andreas Malm, the charming intellectual of radical ecological criticism.

Every week this summer, K. brings you a selection of six texts that have already appeared in our pages, but have been brought together for the occasion around a few key themes. This week, we invite you to (re)discover texts on the relationship between Jews and the political left with Avishag Zafrani, Gérard Bensussan, Ivan Segré, Mitchell Abidor, Constance Pâris de Bollardiere, Elisheva Gottfarstein and Sylvaine Bulle.

Each week this summer, K. brings you a selection of six texts that have already appeared in our pages, and have been brought together for the occasion around a few key themes. This week, we invite you to (re)discover K. ‘s work about the realities of and stories to be told from life in Eastern Europe. With texts by Benny Ziffer, Gabriel Rom, Romano Bolkovic, Yeshaya Dalsace, Emmy Barouh and János Gadó.