It is time to wake this research blog from its year-long state of dormancy. This is a brief update to announce that the wheels of CHACE are turning, research is ongoing, data is being collected (and published!), analyses are underway, and publications are in the pipeline.

After launching the project in mid-2020, much time was spent getting things up and running, hiring a PhD candidate, and being on paternal leave. In 2021 and so far in 2022, data collection and analysis has proceeded on several fronts, and we have begun writing papers. Some details:

Paper forthcoming in Antisemitism Studies

The project has seen its first peer-reviewed publication (in press)! The paper, which I posted as a preprint in 2021, has now been revised, re-titled, and accepted for publication in Antisemitism Studies. The updated manuscript is entitled “Accounting for Contemporary Antisemitism: A Four-Dimensional Framework and a New Dataset”. This piece has been through several iterations—earlier versions were turned down twice and pulled by me once (because of an agonizingly slow-moving editorial process)—and now, after a round of revisions, it has finally found a home.

DIMA — a new dataset!

As soon as the above-mentioned paper is published, we will launch DIMA (Dimensions of Antisemitism), a new dataset featuring cross-national and longitudinal data (currently some 2000 observations) on several dimensions of antisemitism collected from across a range of publicly available sources. We plan to maintain and regularly update DIMA in the years to come, thus creating a useful resource for researchers as well as journalists, policymakers, and others interested in tracking patterns of antisemitism.

Other activities

  • We are currently conducting interviews with current and former Jewish community representatives. About a dozen interviews have been recorded thus far, and they are proving a real treasure trove of information and insight into the question of how Jewish communities across Europe relate to the issue of antisemitism. We would like to express our gratitude to all those who have taken the time to talk to us.

  • For the in-depth case studies (Russia, Germany, Sweden, the UK, and Poland), we have been collecting and analyzing hundreds of news articles on antisemitism and Jewish life for the period 1990—2020 by searching news databases such as Factiva, Integrum, and Atekst.

  • The CHACE team recently presented ongoing research at a workshop on modern antisemitism on the left and right in Milan hosted by the Antisemitism Observatory of the CDEC (the Center for Contemporary Jewish Documentation).