Research on antisemitism in Europe is booming, but is research on Jews declining?

Research on antisemitism more than doubled in numbers

As one would expect in research on such a disparate field, the findings are complex and multi-layered. But one conclusion that came through loud and clear is that there has been rapid growth in antisemitism and Holocaust research in recent years.

All research publications included in EJRA are tagged with one of seven ‘main topic’ tags, and ‘antisemitism’ alone accounts for nearly a quarter of all items:

What is even more striking is that the proportion of research items with antisemitism as their main topic has more than doubled since the 1990s:

While opinions will differ on the ‘ideal’ balance of research topics in the field, it is striking that some of the most critical aspects of Jewish life are of interest only to a limited number of researchers. For example, Jewish education (other than antisemitism and Holocaust education) has become a ‘niche’ interest despite the growth of Jewish schools and other educational projects in the last few decades. Indeed, no research on Jewish education exists for 13 European countries, including countries with Jewish populations large enough to support Jewish schools, such as Denmark, Italy and Greece.

A call for a better-balanced research

Our research also examined the most active researchers on contemporary antisemitism and Jewish life in Europe. We identified the 181 most productive researchers in each European country, for which there is some research in this field. One of the most striking findings was that, of researchers with PhDs who specialised in antisemitism, the majority had completed their PhD research on a topic unrelated to antisemitism or Jewish life. Further, compared to other topics in the field, researchers who specialised in antisemitism were less likely to have also published on different topics concerning contemporary Jewish life.

These and other findings suggest that antisemitism research attracts researchers from other disciplines and is the pre-eminent concern amongst researchers in the field. The proliferation of ‘new entrants’ into the antisemitism research field not only leaves other essential aspects of Judaism under-researched but may also risk duplication of efforts and lack of coordination.

This conclusion has implications that we discuss in detail within the report. I certainly don’t argue that there is ‘too much’ research on antisemitism; however, the relative imbalance between this topic and other aspects of Jewish life suggests that one possible task for the proposed hub is to nurture a better balance between research topics.

The possibilities are exciting regardless of how the European Commission decides to form such a research hub. Yet for such a hub to succeed in fostering Jewish life, not ‘just’ fighting antisemitism, we must divert some of the research efforts across Europe towards topics such as education, migration, identity and culture. Simply put, we need to encourage researchers of contemporary Judaism to focus on underrepresented – yet just as important -  topics within the field.