In soliciting contributions to the collection, JPR aimed not to promote any one particular perspective in the debate about hate crime laws, but to provide a plurality of opinion and analysis to inform public policy debate on both sides of the Atlantic. Professor Barry Kosmin said 'We want to involve the Jewish community in national debate. Given the current climate, it is even more important to bring together disparate groups for rational and informed dialogue.' This collection offers some new thinking to take the debate forward. It also aims to generate much-needed discussion in Britain, where there has mostly been silence about the question of punishing hate.

The contributors to The Hate Debate are:

Elizabeth Burney, Senior Research Associate at Cambridge University Institute of Criminology, who argues that prosecution should be part of a varied, holistic and vigorous policy of confronting bigotry that 'is appropriate to the situation and feelings of the victim'. While acknowledging the social context in which hate crimes are committed, it is important to ask whether the courts are always the right place for dealing with hate crimes.

Paul Iganski, lecturer in sociology and criminology at the University of Essex, and JPR Civil Society Fellow examines how hate crimes might hurt more and exactly what is the nature of the harms inflicted.

Jeff Jacoby, award-winning columnist for The Boston Globe, claims that hate crime laws create an 'indefensible double-standard' by proclaiming that hurting some 'kinds of people' is not quite as bad as hurting others.

Valerie Jenness, Chair of the Department of Criminology, Law and Society and Associate Professor at the University of California, Irvine, describes how the enactment of hate crime laws is not only contingent upon arguments for social justice, but subject to the interplay between social movement activism, political expediency, and prevailing legal culture.

Frederick M. Lawrence, Law Alumni Scholar and Professor of Law at the Boston University School of Law, argues that hate crimes hurt more than parallel, but otherwise motivated, crimes.

Jack Levin, Brudnick Professor of Sociology and Criminology at Northeastern University, and Director of the Brudnick Center on Violence and Conflict, observes that the great majority of hate crimes are committed not by members of organized hate groups, but by 'dabblers in hate'. He argues that the actions of perpetrators are sanctioned by others in the wider community who sympathize with bigotry, and also by those who are passive bystanders. This raises questions about the appropriate ways of tackling hate.

Melanie Phillips, a social commentator whose column has appeared in the Guardian, Observer, Sunday Times and now The Daily Mail. In her essay she describes hate crime laws as 'an exercise in censorship' which proscribes 'certain attitudes of mind'.

Larry Ray, Professor of Sociology at the University of Kent and David Smith, Professor of Social Work at Lancaster University, argue in their essay, which draws on research with convicted offenders of racist crimes, that such crimes are best understood not by focusing on the intent or the motives of offenders, but by examining the cultures of racism and violence within which racist offending takes place.

Planning for the social needs of London's Jews:
update on London and South East Jewish Community Study

Science and the media
She deeply regretted the scientific community's poor relations with the media; scientists are all too often represented as dysfunctional nerds in ivory towers and scientific discoveries are deemed neither glamorous nor earth-shattering. Whereas scientists are naturally cautious and may take many weeks to write articles, the media is concerned to meet immediate deadlines. The reactions of the scientific community to a crisis such as BSE are inevitably too slow, and skilled activists and campaigners have far better media skills than scientists.

In order to remedy this situation, the Royal Institution was establishing a Science Media Centre to act as an intermediary between the media and scientists. Since it will have multiple funding streams, no one organization or faction will be able to set its agenda.

Need to engage women and the young
Susan Greenfield deplored the fact that nepotism and sexism are still pervasive in the scientific world. The system is 'riddled with prejudice'; women still have difficulty in obtaining grants, and are perceived as less competent than men. Susan Greenfield was commissioned by Patricia Hewitt MP (Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and Minister for Women) to explore what could be done to improve this situation. The Greenfield Report, which will be published in June, will come up with clear legislative recommendations, including the need for engaging young people, women and entrepreneurs in the work of the scientific community.

Baroness Greenfield called for a merger of public and private sectors, to enable scientists to mesh with local society and deliver science that helps peoples' lives.

New technologies in DNA, or in Pharmacogenomics—the exploitation of genes to develop better pharmacology, will mean that in the future, no one should be trapped in the tyranny of their genes. The eventual eradication of certain genetic disorders, such as cystic fibrosis and Huntingdon's Chorea, seems very positive, she said, but what about genetic screening and eugenics? Where should one draw the line?

With advances in microscience and nanoscience, and with increased computer power, she predicted that it would become possible to monitor bodily processes, and even to anticipate heart attacks. It is vital to address these new technologies now, she said, to ensure that everyone is informed about this debate.

Learning for the future
Baroness Greenfield described young people as already living in cyberspace; while their parents remain 'the people of the book', they are 'the people of the screen'.

Susan Greenfield wondered whether reading and writing would become obsolete, with the advent of voice- interface with computers. More importantly, if all facts will be instantly accessible to everyone, what will future generations need to learn? Humans are learning creatures, but in the future we shall need to learn knowledge, not information. We must place greater value on originality, morality and imagination, and appreciate the individual.

She recommended that the role of teachers in helping students cross boundaries should be re-examined. In her view, a good scientist requires the full complement of emotions: humanity, compassion, excitement and a sense of thrill, in order to make leaps of intuition that defy human faith.

Science and religion are not mutually exclusive
For Professor Greenfield, there is no contradiction between science and religion, but she stressed that beliefs should not be inflicted on others and not be used to harm others. Religious beliefs should be respected, she said, but emotions and beliefs are not tractable and cannot be scientifically proven.

Baroness Greenfield predicted an increased monitoring of our lives, and a greater application of genetic screening and engineering, scanning, and nanotechnology. This could lead either to more manipulation (eugenics), or greater insight into the human condition. She saw this as a huge challenge for society—and she felt that it should be a mandatory one.

Susan Greenfield called for the 'democratization of science' and a science-literate society. 'The biggest threat to the twenty-first century is a scientifically illiterate society, since it would mean a dead society.'

To launch The Hate Debate in April, JPR held a panel discussion in Chatham House, which was chaired by JPR Director Professor Barry Kosmin. Panelists included leading human rights lawyer Geoffrey Bindman, Peter Fahy, Deputy Chief Constable of Surrey Police, Dr Paul Iganski, Lecturer in Sociology and Criminology, University of Essex and JPR Civil Society Fellow and Gary Younge, columnist at The Guardian.

At the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, a new report has just been published, conducted by Egon Mayer, Director of the Center for Jewish Studies, Ariela Keysar and myself. The American Jewish Identification Survey 2001 (AJIS) was based on a large, sweeping, national representative sample of 50,000 households, and it sought to answer, among other things, how many American Jews there are.

From left: Geoffrey Bindman, Dr Paul Iganski,
Peter Fahy, Professor Barry Kosmin and Gary Younge

In his introduction, Dr Paul Iganski, editor of the collection of essays, reported that every year thousands of crimes were committed involving some kind of bigotry against the victim.

The term 'hate crime' has been coined from the United States to describe such crimes, although the term has no legal status in Britain. But what has not been imported, according to Dr Iganski, is the longstanding debate in the United States about the justification of hate crime laws. Such laws enable harsher punishment of hate crime offenders compared with offenders in parallel crimes when motivated by other reasons.

Opponents of hate crime laws in the United States argue that offenders are given extra punishment for their bad values, and they are therefore essentially punished for 'thought crimes'.

One contributor to The Hate Debate, Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby, argues that 'one of the worst defects of hate crime laws is that they punish not just deeds, but opinions—not just what the criminal did, but what he believed. This amounts to an assault on _freedom of speech and belief, and ought to have no part in the criminal justice system of a liberal democracy.'

There has so far been little dissent about hate crime laws in Britain, but a British contributor to The Hate Debate, Melanie Phillips, argues that the laws are an 'Orwellian response to prejudice'.

According to Dr Iganski, 'it is important to engage with such arguments because the right to freedom of expression, and the thought behind expression, is a cherished right in Britain, as evidenced by the opposition to recent government proposals to establish an offence of incitement to religious hatred. Also, although this might not be a popular opinion to express, perpetrators of crimes have rights too, and arguably a measure of our civilisation is the degree to which criminals are treated justly.'

In echoing the views of supporters of hate crime laws in the United States, Geoffrey Bindman argued that the present hate crime legislation in Britain did not attempt to punish hate. The primary role of law was to bring to justice those who have committed violence. Where racism was involved, he said, society expresses its particular concern and it was justifiable for the penalty to be higher. He argued that it would be nonsense to label that punishing thought. It was a very proper restraint.

Human rights activist Peter Tatchell, one of the contributors to the book, spoke from the audience to underline the distinction between hate actions and hate speech. Hate speech was a grey area which was difficult to counterbalance with freedom of speech, he said. He warned against going down the road to criminalize hate speech without first giving it serious thought.

Guardian columnist Gary Younge described hate crime laws as largely symbolic: sending a message to society. 'They are a marker of what we would not stand for, and of the society we want to include, as well as the society we wish to create.'

He recalled that when he was a small boy, his mother complained to the police about racial harassment by their neighbours. The police merely responded that they would have to put up with it because of 'who they were'.

Dr Iganski thought that one of the aims behind legislating against racially aggravated offences in Britain was to provide an impetus to the criminal justice system to deal more effectively with incidents. There had been some well-documented inadequacies in the police response to racially aggravated incidents. Dissatisfaction on the part of victims with the police handling of incidents has also been well documented. A major expectation behind the legislation, according to Dr Iganski, was that it would lead to more effective policing of racist crimes.

According to Peter Fahy, the police now invested far more resources and time in hate crimes than in other crimes. The detection rate for hate crimes was significantly higher than those for general crimes. The situation had changed largely due to the impact of the Lawrence Report, as well as the growing realization that hate crimes had a far more pernicious effect on the victims. Victims were unable to change that aspect of their identity that provoked the hatred.

Good community relations were now considered essential, he said. September 11 had also affected the situation, as it posed a particular threat to community relations, as well as a huge challenge. He felt that the police received insufficient credit for the good community relations in this country.

Whilst agreeing with Geoffrey Bindman that hate crime legislation did not run counter to freedom of speech, Peter Fahy did not think that the criminal law was the best strategy to deal with hate crimes; there were many other strategies. The criminal law was 'a blunt instrument that offered little comfort to the victims'.

Critics of hate crime laws in the United States, according to Valerie Jenness, Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Irvine, and one of the contributors to The Hate Debate, argue that 'identity politics' have driven hate crime as a social and legal concept. The critics claim that 'hate crime laws are a vivid example of legislators ceding the policymaking process to interest groups.' In the panel discussion, Gary Younge said that identity politics are 'a great place to start, but a bad place to finish'. He remembered the 'As-ers' of his student days, who began every speech with the words: 'As a black person….' or 'As a Jew......'. One's primary identity should be used to embrace, not exclude, the other, he said.

But Younge regretted that existing legislation drew the line at racial and religious incitement and did not also include sexual orientation. Paul Iganski similarly argued that in view of the evidence of crimes in which victims are singled out because of their sexual orientation, the restriction of hate crime law in Britain to only racially and religiously aggravated offences is an 'indefensible double standard.'

Gary Younge concluded that all laws were totally subjective, and that hate crime laws were as subjective as any other. All juries had their prejudices, he said. One can no more legislate for love than one can against hate, but one can try to create a framework in which love can thrive.

Rounding off the discussion, Paul Iganski said that subjectivity, and the potential for discretion, were behind the past failure of the criminal justice system to deal adequately with racist offenders. Since the early 1990s, courts had been permitted to enhance the penalties upon conviction of offenders in cases of racially motivated crimes. However, studies by the Crown Prosecution Service showed that in only approximately one-fifth of convictions was the opportunity for penalty enhancement taken. Since the establishment of racially aggravated offences under the 1998 Crime and Disorder Act, which removed some of the earlier discretion on the part of the courts, there have been thousands of cases in which offenders have received harsher punishment in racially aggravated crimes.

In what is now an annual spring fixture in the JPR calendar, Lord Haskel hosted a lunch in March in the Attlee Room of the House of Lords in honour of JPR's Patrons. It was an enjoyable opportunity to show the appreciation of the Institute's lay leaders and staff for the continued generous support of their benefactors and to present JPR's research plans for the year ahead.	Dr Michael Harding with Peter L Levi OBE, JPR Chairman
Felix Posen and Guy Naggar	Peter L Levy with JPR President, Lord Haskel
From left: JPR Board Member David J Lewis, Guy Naggar and William Nagel

Marriage and 'just living together': Some insights for Britain from the findings of The American Jewish Identity Survey 2001

In the Winter 2001/2 issue of jpr/news, Professor Barry Kosmin wrote an article about The American Jewish Identity Survey (AJIS) 2001, which he conducted together with Professor Egon Mayer and Dr Ariela Keysar of the Center for Jewish Studies of The Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

Findings from the Survey throw new light on marriage patterns among America's Jewish adults. For example, the incidence of _intermarriage among America's Jewish adults stabilized in the 1990s and stands at 51% for the period of 1990-2001. In addition to the 51% of Jews who married non-Jews in the past decade, another 9% married someone who converted to Judaism. Just 40% of Jews, or persons of Jewish parentage or upbringing, married someone from the same background in this period. It should be noted that the 51% of born Jews who intermarried includes 6% of the total marrying Jewish population for whom intermarriage was associated with a switch to the religion of their spouse.

While the incidence of intermarriage with non-Jews appears to have stabilized, the overall proportion of intermarried American Jewish adults has risen substantially as the high numbers of interfaith couples married in recent decades have replaced the older in-married (ie. both spouses Jewish) generations who were married before 1970. The study also found 276,000 Jewish adults, or about 7% of the total adult population, living in a relationship without marriage. In this group 81% are living with a partner who is not Jewish.

'Taken together, the incidences of intermarriage and of cohabitation without marriage suggest a continuing long-range trend away from the traditional form of Jewish family formation,' observed Egon Mayer. 'One hopeful sign for the long-term future of the Jewish population,' noted Ariela Keysar, 'is the apparent increase in the percentage of intermarriages that result in conversion to Judaism.'

In the 1990 US National Jewish Population Survey, directed by Barry Kosmin, Jews-by-choice were just 5% of the married population. Their proportion has grown to 9%. Barry Kosmin concluded that the 2001 Survey shows that 'communal efforts in the States to address the intermarriage rate during the 1990s appear to have had some success. However, the growing trend towards non-marital relationships and the high incidence of inter-faith relationships in that population poses a new type of challenge to religious bodies and communal agencies.

The results of the intermarriage rate of recent decades are already evident in American society. The AJIS estimate is that today there are 1.5 million American adults with only one Jewish parent. Many of these people identify as Jews, but it appears that there are half a million people born to a Jewish mother, and therefore Jewish in terms of halachah, who currently practise another religion.

Barry Kosmin commented that, 'Somewhat surprisingly, American Jews remain more traditional in their attitude towards the institution of marriage per se than British Jews. Perhaps this is because Americans generally are much more religious. Whatever the reasons, British Jewry has a higher proportion of unmarried partners—couples just living together—than does American Jewry. So the American finding that unmarried partners are much more likely to be living with non-Jews than are married people probably presents a more serious social and religious challenge to Jewish communities in the United Kingdom. Couples living together—most of whom are interfaith—is therefore becoming more of a social issue here than is interfaith marriage. This is because the British middle classes are more likely to have a baby outside of marriage than are similar Americans.'

The community rarely addresses the issue of the growing number of children with only one Jewish parent, and that, moreover, this parent is unlikely to be married. It is becoming a more common occurrence than Jewish children with divorced parents. This new trend poses a whole host of moral, halachic, social and economic issues for the future.

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Out and about

JPR's senior research staff frequently receive invitations to address seminars and conferences in the UK and abroad. In the past few months, JPR Director Professor Barry Kosmin has addressed a session on European developments at the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, which was held in London; gave a seminar on philanthropic trends at the UJIA Management Retreat; spoke about JPR's research on education at the Jewish Agency Education Department European Think Tank in Brussels; gave presentations on Jewish day schools and general social trends and key sociological issues at the joint UJIA and Hebrew University Identity Conference; he gave a lecture to the Jewish Historical Society on the historical demography of Anglo-Jewry and a talk at a joint Spiro Ark/Refugee Council film showing of Hester Street on US Immigration. In April he gave a talk on The Personal and the Political: Antisemitism Old and New post 9/11 at a seminar at The University of Kent Criminal Justice Centre which was organized jointly with the Economic and Social Research Council on The Impact of September 11 on Racism and Ethnic Relations.

JPR's Research Director Professor Stanley Waterman gave a graduate seminar on sampling Jewish population in London at the Geography department of Queen Mary College, University of London; a graduate seminar at Bartlett School of Architecture & Town Planning, University College London, on migration and residential mobility and appeared as a panelist for Spiro Ark at a screening at the Everyman Cinema of an Israeli film on immigrants. 

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World Directory of Think Tanks 2002

For the first time a detailed profile of JPR has been included in this year's World Directory of Think Tanks, which is published every three years by The National Institute for Research Advancement, Japan. The directory includes listings of 320 institutions from 77 countries, with the aim of helping to lay the groundwork for a future global network of policy-oriented research institutes.

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Lord Rothschild becomes Honorary President after decade of service

Lord Rothschild

Following ten years of distinguished service as President of JPR, Lord Rothschild has assumed the post of Honorary President. A history of involvement Jacob Rothschild is the fourth Baron of the English branch of the Rothschild family. Currently chairman of J. Rothschild Capital Management, RIT Capital Partners plc and Five Arrows Ltd, he has a long history of involvement in cultural, philanthropic and Jewish affairs. During his tenure at JPR, Lord Rothschild presided over its transition in 1996 from the former Institute of Jewish Affairs to its re-launch as the Institute for Jewish Policy Research. In the UK and abroad, Lord Rothschild has played a leading role in the field of arts and heritage, serving as Chairman of the National Gallery, the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Heritage Lottery Fund. Most recently he has been active in the renaissance of Somerset House, where he serves as Chairman of the Gilbert Collection Trust and the Hermitage Development Trust.

He was awarded the honour of Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire in 1997.

Lord Rothschild is chairman of Yad Hanadiv, the Rothschild Foundation, which donated both the Knesset building and the Supreme Court to the State of Israel and which supports numerous projects throughout Israel and Europe.

JPR Chairman, Peter L Levy OBE, paid tribute to Lord Rothschild, saying that he 'performed an invaluable service to JPR during the last ten years, during which he has continued his family's exemplary tradition of devotion to and leadership in the Jewish _community. It is a vote of confidence in JPR that Lord Rothschild feels he can now step back and take a less active role.'

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Lord Haskel takes over as President

Lord Haskel of Higher Broughton, who has served as Deputy Chairman of JPR for the past five years, has been appointed President of the Institute. A businessman by profession, Simon Haskel was made a Life Peer and took the Labour Whip in 1993. He was one of three Life Peers created while John Smith was leader of the Labour Party, and served on the Labour front bench of the House of Lords for five years. Lord Haskel was a spokesman on Trade and Industry, Treasury and Pensions, both in opposition and for the first two years of the first Blair government.

Lord Haskel

A Whip for five years and a Lord-in-Waiting for two years from May 1997, Lord Haskel has twice served as a member of the Select Committee for Science and Technology. He has served on numerous other committees both in the House of Lords and jointly with the House of Commons.

Born in Kaunas, Lithuania, Simon Haskel came to the UK in 1937 with his parents, who settled in Higher Broughton, Manchester. He studied textile technology at The Salford College of Advanced Technology (now Salford University) and went on to build up his own national and international textile business, The Perrotts Group plc, where he started as a technician. He acquired the business through a form of management buyout, becoming its chief executive in 1970.

In 1972 Lord Haskel was a founding member of the Labour Finance and Industry Group, which provides a major link between the Labour Party, its MPs and the business community. From 1976 to 1995 he first served as the group's secretary, and later its chairman.

He is currently the International President-elect of the Textile Institute, President of the Environmental Industries Commission, Patron of the Society of Operations Engineers, Chairman of Trustees of the Smith Institute and Patron of the Chronic Disease Research Foundation.

Lord Haskel has been very closely associated with JPR for a number of years and is well known and greatly respected by staff, Members and Patrons. 

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Forthcoming events

Monday 27 May, 6.30 pm
Jews in Cyberspace: from the Shtetl to the Global Village
Professor Vivian Z Klaff,
Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice and Director, Center for Jewish Studies, University of Delaware, Newark, USA.

This illustrated lecture will take the audience on a multicultural tour of the internet from a Jewish perspective.

In the Chair: Lord Mitchell

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Forthcoming publications