This collaborative project will identify and analyse Christian elements of antisemitism in its historical and contemporary manifestations. Through a broad-based transfer concept, it will make an important contribution to the communication of knowledge by feeding its research findings back into the scholarly community, schools and adult education. The cooperative partners are taking an innovative theoretical approach that questions traditional categorical divisions in research into anti-Semitism and asserts a continuous mixture of ‘modern’ (racially derived) and ‘traditional’ (based in Christian theology) anti-Jewish prejudices. Three related subprojects based in fundamental historical and educational media research will research the creation of this hybrid anti-Semitism and its consequences up to the present day. As a broad-based network of researchers and practitioners, the project partners have a wide range of opportunities to transfer their findings to educational practice within schools and other educational institutions.
Subproject 1 (FU Berlin/Selma-Stern-Zentrum) investigates the spread of theological and anti-Semitic discourse in the nineteenth century and the popularisation and vulgarisation of such discourse in sermons, religious tracts and devotional practices. Project heads: Prof. Rainer Kampling/Prof. Stefanie Schüler-Springorum; research fellow: Dr Philipp Schlögl
Subproject 2 (FU Berlin/Selma-Stern-Zentrum) addresses hostility towards Jews in educational work carried out by the churches in both German states after the Holocaust. Project heads: Prof. Rainer Kampling/Prof. Stefanie Schüler-Springorum; research fellow: Sara Han, MA.
Subproject 3 (Leibniz Institute for Educational Media | Georg Eckert Institute) will examine religiously-based prejudices against Jews and Judaism in both Catholic and Protestant religious education classes, ethics classes, and in their corresponding textbooks. Project heads: Prof. Eckhardt Fuchs/Dr Dirk Sadowski; research fellow: Christine Chiriac.
Subproject 4 (Protestant Academies in Deutschland e.V. -EAD).) ensures that the research findings are communicated to the wider community, through dialogic training courses, practical workshops and academic conferences. Project head: Dr Klaus Holz/Dr Christian Staffa; coordinator: Viola Beckmann, MA.
The subproject based at the GEI
- Aims
The subproject based at the GEI takes up the theological and historical questions addressed in subprojects I and II and expands them through questions related to education and textbook research. It attempts to trace the signatures of Christian hostility towards Jews in the field of schooling and education that continue to have an effect today. Specifically, the project team will examine the depiction of Judaism in currently approved textbooks for denominational religious education and for ethics teaching, and how those books are used in practice. Textbooks for Catholic and protestant religious education and ethics textbooks not only contain informative chapters explaining the basics of Judaism and Jewish religious practice but also information on other relevant topics such as the Holocaust, Israel or the modern Jewish diaspora. The project will question how these textbooks describe a different, but closely related, religion and the culture associated with it and to what extent prejudices against Judaism based in Christian theology are detectable in these texts. If a genuinely religious and dogmatic motivation may be assumed in teaching materials for denominational religious instruction, the study of ethics textbooks promises insights into how religiously based prejudices against Judaism are expressed in secular ethics teaching that is not designed to impart faith.
- Methodology
Initially, the depiction of Judaism in textbooks for denominational Christian religious education and for ethics/practical philosophy will be examined. The second step will be to gain an insight into how these ideas are conveyed and received by observing lessons and interviewing teachers. The specific course of lessons has not yet been addressed in detail by either pedagogical or Anti-Semitism research or studies in prejudice. It has therefore only been possible to speculate on the effect that textbook depictions of Jews and Judaism have on students. This part of the project is intended to provide new knowledge leading to recommendations that can be applied to prevention work in the school sector and which can be introduced at training courses and conferences.
- Results
In June 2022 Dirk Sadowski gave a lecture on the project’s research as part of the conference on ‘Christian signatures in contemporary antisemitism. Transformations and continuities’ at the Evangelische Bildungsstätte Schwanenwerder.
Initial findings were presented at a workshop held in Berlin as part of the 2022 summer academy of the Research Network on Antisemitism in the 21st Century (FoNA21).
The joint project team held a two-day workshop in Hofgeismar in November 2022. It dealt with ‘Representations of Jews and Judaism in textbooks for religious, ethics and history education’. The discussion focused on questions of religious didactics as well as on the perspectives of educational media producers on this topic. The project’s research design was further refined as a result of the workshop.
Christine Chiriac gave a talk in June 2023 on the research design of the subproject and the preliminary results of the curricula and textbook analysis, as part of the series of lectures held at the University of Hamburg on ‘Judaism and religious diversity in religious education: Religious differences – interreligious competences’.
The results of this subproject will be published as a scholarly monograph; recommendations for textbook content and teaching practice are also planned.
