"On Wednesday 26 February, a circle of European JLA members hosted the second of a series of hybrid workshops on Antisemitism and Jewish Law. Kicked off by a keynote lecture on the impact of rabbinic conceptual models of thought about self-other, hatred, law and theology by Dr. Orit Malka (Hebrew Univesity), 10 additional speakers from Europe, the USA and Israel explored the conceptual and legal framings of antisemitism in Jewish thought and in legal practice, from rabbinic times until today, and addressed stereotypes about the Talmud and Jewish Law which are again gaining traction in the public sphere. The call for a forum for fresh thinking about the place of antisemitism in Jewish legal research was underlined by the organizers, Noémie Benchimol (Paris/Jerusalem), George Wilkes (Edinburgh/KCL) and Stephan Wendehorst (Vienna), and this workshop provided an emblem of the need to address gaps between research fields, between historians and practitioners countering the impact of antisemitism, and between scholars working in very different national contexts. Campaigners against antisemitism foreground well the process of stigmatization and discrimination at stake in this and similar forms of prejudice—and yet the prejudicial effects of antagonism to Jews because of conceptions and misconceptions about Jewish law can be very unevenly treated in the work of specialist educators and public campaigners, and participants underlined where gaps may be seen and where they need to be tackled. The discriminatory nature of objectifying discourses about Jewish law is also an area with new challenges for Jewish Law scholarship, addressed through a diversity of disciplinary approaches at the workshop—historical, conceptual, practitioner. The University of Vienna hosted the workshop as part of its Winter School on Jewish Law, combining historical work with a high-level seminar on Hans Kelsen, whose approach to legal theory and to international law continues to draw interest from Jewish Law specialists - not least keynote speaker Israeli Supreme Court Judge Itzhak Englard. Our thanks are due to the whole University of Vienna team which supported this week of events, and above all to the workshop speakers who delivered excellent quality, an extremely collegial event, and promise of future follow-on events and publications."
The program can be found here.
