Short description:

?Decoding Antisemitism is an essential resource to specialists who seek to understand the dynamics by which antisemitism is spread in online forums.?

-Dr Robert J. Williams, Finci-Viterbi Executive Director, USC Shoah Foundation; Advisor, International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance; UNESCO Chair on Genocide Education, USA

?This book provides outstanding guidance for deciphering the antisemitic codes and communication patterns that have spread in unprecedented fashion throughout the social media era.?

-Dr Juliane Wetzel, Centre for Research on Antisemitism, TU Berlin.

This Open Access book is the first comprehensive guide to identifying antisemitism online, in both its explicit and implicit forms. Developed through years of on-the-ground analysis of tens of thousands of authentic web comments the book maps out and deconstructs, with concrete examples, more than 45 key antisemitic concepts. The guide was assembled by researchers working on the Decoding Antisemitism project at the Centre for Research on Antisemitism at Technische Universität Berlin, building on and extending existing definitions of antisemitism, and drawing on expertise in varied fields. This book will be an invaluable tool for researchers, students, practitioners in education, police, justice, NGOs and politics, and social media moderators to learn to recognise contemporary antisemitism in all its breadth and diversity.

Matthias J. Becker is the Project Lead on the ?Decoding Antisemitism? research project (TU Berlin, Germany).

Hagen Troschke is an interdisciplinary researcher focusing on current developments of antisemitism.

Matthew Bolton is Co-Lead on the UK team of the ?Decoding Antisemitism? project. He is the co-author of Corbynism: A Critical Approach (2018).

Long description:

This open access book is the first comprehensive guide to identifying antisemitism online today, in both its explicit and implicit (or coded) forms. Developed through years of on-the-ground analysis of over 100,000 authentic comments posted by social media users in the UK, France, Germany and beyond, the book introduces and explains the central historical, conceptual and linguistic-semiotic elements of 46 antisemitic concepts, stereotypes and speech acts. The guide was assembled by researchers working on the Decoding Antisemitism project at the Centre for Research on Antisemitism at Technische Universität Berlin, building on existing basic definitions of antisemitism, and drawing on expertise in various fields. Using authentic examples taken from social media over the past four years, it sets out a pioneering step-by-step approach to identifying and categorising antisemitic content, providing guidance on how to recognise a statement as antisemitic or not. This book will be an invaluable tool through which researchers, students, practitioners and social media moderators can learn to recognise contemporary antisemitism online ? and the structural aspects of hate speech more generally ? in all its breadth and diversity.

Table of Contents:

EDITORS' INTRODUCTION.- TAXONOMY OF KEY LINGUISTIC TERMS.- 1. Tropes (classic/canonical).- 1.1. Jews as foreign/the other (Laura Ascone).- 1.2. Evil/Devil (Matthew Bolton).- 1.3. Child murder/Blood libel (Karolina Placzynta).- 1.4. Racist tropes/Dehumanisation.- 1.5. Immorality/Amorality (Jan Krasni).- 1.6. Lie (Hypocrisy/Mendacity) / Deceit (Matthias J Becker).- 1.7. Vengefulness (Jan Krasni).- 1.8. Disloyalty/Dual Loyalty (Hagen Troschke).- 2. Tropes of (political or financial) power.- 2.1 Greed/Exploitation/Identification with capitalism (Matthew Bolton, Chloe Vincent, Alexis Chapelan).- 2.2 Influence on public opinion, politics, economy (& servility) (Matthias J Becker).- 2.3 Conspiracy (Alexis Chapelan).- 2.4 Disintegration (Marcus Scheiber).- 2.5 Self-victimisation (Alexis Chapelan).- 3. Secondary Antisemitism.- 3.1 Clean break (Hagen Troschke).- 3.2 Rejection of guilt (Hagen Troschke).- 3.3 Relativisation/Distortion/ Denial of the Holocaust (Hagen Troschke).- 3.4 Relativisation & Denial of Antisemitism (Marcus Scheiber).- 3.5 Instrumentalisation of the Holocaust (Matthias J Becker).- 3.6 Instrumentalisation of Antisemitism (Matthias J Becker).- 3.7 Nazi-Jewish collaboration (Jan Krasni).- 3.8 Admonisher (Marcus Scheiber).- 3.9 Taboo of Criticism (Alexis Chapelan).- 3.10 Victim-Perpetrator reversal (Hagen Troschke).- 3.11 Jews have not learned from the past (Karolina Placzynta).- 4. Further Post-Holocaust concepts.- 4.1 Blame for Antisemitism (Marcus Scheiber).- 4.2 Holding Jews collectively responsible for IL?s actions (Karolina Placzynta).- 4.3 Privilege & Free Pass (Karolina Placzynta).- 4.4 Affirmation of Hitler/Nazis/Holocaust (Jan Krasni).- 5. Attacks on Israel?s legitimacy/statehood.- 5.1 Nazi Analogy (Matthias J Becker).- 5.2 Apartheid Analogy/ Racist state (Matthew Bolton).- 5.3 Colonialism Analogies (Laura Ascone).- 5.4 Terrorist state (Matthew Bolton).- 5.5 Genocide (Matthew Bolton).- 5.6 Double Standards (Chloe Vincent).- 5.7 Denial of IL?s right to exist (Chloe Vincent).- 5.8 BDS/Boycott (Matthew Bolton/Hagen Troschke).- 5.9 Israel?s sole guilt in the conflict (Chloe Vincent).- 6. Self-positioning in speech acts.- 6.1 Insults (Laura Ascone).- 6.2 Threats (Laura Ascone).- 6.3 Curses (Marcus Scheiber).- 6.4 Death wishes (Karolina Placzynta).- 6.5 Affirming, calling for, desiring violence (Laura Ascone).