Backdoor Broadcasting Company

Event Date: 6 Dec 2011
The Wiener Library
29 Russell Square,
London WC1B 5DP

Making History: Archives, Artefacts and Interpreting the Past
lecture series in partnership with the Wiener Library

Professor Geoffrey Alderman (University of Buckingham):
Defending the Indefensible: Reflections on the Anglo-Jewish Reaction to Domestic Antisemitism, 1931 – 1940

During the 1930s Britain’s Jewish leadership felt itself compelled to formulate and implement a coherent, communities-wide “defence” policy. This was something that had never before been attempted. What the leadership was defending was a benign communal image, grounded in the belief that Jewish emancipation in Britain had been an unqualified success. But the reality was very different. Many communal leaders found themselves as concerned with social control as with confronting the fascist menace.

Using a variety of archival sources, including those originating from within fascist circles, Professor Alderman will trace the evolution of this idiosyncratic defence policy and attempt to judge its validity.

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The Pears Institute for the Study of Antisemitism
“The relationship between antisemitism and other forms of racism and exclusion is not only a historical question. It is an urgent issue for today.” Professor David Feldman, Director.
The Pears Institute for the Study of Antisemitism was established by the Pears Foundation and is based at Birkbeck, University of London. It is a centre of innovative research and teaching, contributing to discussion and policy formation on antisemitism as well as other forms of racial prejudice and intolerance. It is both independent and inclusive.

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Introduction by David Feldman .

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Event Date: 7th November 2011
Room 421,
Birkbeck College, University of London,
London WC1E 7HX.

The Pears Institute for the Study of Anti-Semitism
presents:

After the Holocaust: Challenging the Myth of Silence
A Round-table discussion with

• Professor David Cesarani, Royal Holloway, University of London;
• Professor Mary Fulbrook, University College London;
• Dr Eva Hoffman, Kingston University

Over the last decade scholars have begun to question the commonplace idea that the Holocaust was not talked about extensively or represented in mainstream culture until well into the 1970s. David Cesarani’s bold new book, co-edited with Eric Sundquist, After the Holocaust: Challenging the Myth of Silence mounts a full scale assault on this reading of the past and, controversially, the claims for a post-war ‘silence’ on which the idea of a ‘Holocaust industry’ rests.

The first published collection of original research into this period, international in scope and varied in terms of approach, the book opens the way for a sweeping reassessment of Jewish life in the post-war era. The authors reveal that far from lapsing into silence, individual survivors, survivor-scholars, researchers, historical commissions, theatre directors and film makers did respond to the destruction of the European Jews. Other Jews, however, did flee from Jewish identity and some, especially in the USA, simply failed to comprehend the scale of the catastrophe.

Taking David Cesarani’s book as the starting point, Mary Fulbrook, one of Britain’s foremost historians of Germany and the Nazi era, and internationally renowned writer and academic Eva Hoffman, whose writings have explored memory, history and the legacy of the Holocaust, will discuss the evidence for ‘silence’ and probe the counter-evidence.

Chaired by Professor David Feldman, Director of the Pears Institute for the study of Antisemitism.
David Cesarani and Eric J Sundquist (ed) , After the Holocaust: Challenging the Myth of Silence, Routledge, September 2011
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The Pears Institute for the Study of Antisemitism
“The relationship between antisemitism and other forms of racism and exclusion is not only a historical question. It is an urgent issue for today.” Professor David Feldman, Director.
The Pears Institute for the Study of Antisemitism is funded by the Pears Foundation and based at Birkbeck, University of London. It is a centre of innovative research and teaching, contributing to discussion and policy formation on antisemitism as well as other forms of racial prejudice and intolerance. It is both independent and inclusive.
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Introduction by Professor David Feldman (Director, Pears Institute) .

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Professor David Cesarani (Royal Holloway)

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Professor Mary Fulbrook (UCL)

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Dr Eva Hoffman (Kingston)

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questions:

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Event Date: 10 October 2011 19:00
The Jewish Museum
129 – 131 Albert Street,
London NW1 7NB

Pears Institute for the study of Antisemitism
in partnership with
the Jewish Museum and Wiener Library
presents:

Fighting Together for a Better Past: the Story of Cable Street

75 years after the event, the Battle of Cable Street maintains its mythical status. Yet it now seems to have a life of its own, interpreted according to social class, political affiliation and cultural background. Was it a Jewish victory? A working class triumph? How was it understood by following generations? And who’s using it now?

Join Professor Tony Kushner and Dr Nadia Valman, co-editors of Remembering Cable Street (Vallentine Mitchell, 2000), and historian David Rosenberg, author of Battle for the East End: Jewish Responses to Fascism in the 1930s (Five Leaves, 2011) as they debate the place Cable Street has taken in our collective memory and its relevance today.

Chaired by Professor David Feldman, Director of the Pears Institute for the study of Antisemitism.

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Introduction by Professor David Feldman (Birkbeck)

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David Rosenberg

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Dr Nadia Valman (Queen Mary)

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Professor Tony Kushner (Southampton)

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Discussion

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Event date: 11 May 2011
Council Room, Birkbeck College
University of London
Bloomsbury
London WC1

Disciplining Antisemitism Series:

Antisemitism and the Law

Round-table discussion:

• Professor Didi Herman (University of Kent)
• Professor Maleiha Malik (Kings College London)
• Dr David Seymour (University of Lancaster)

The role religion and race play in determining judicial thinking in England today will be explored in this round-table discussion. It will take as its starting point, Didi Herman’s ground-breaking new book, An Unfortunate Coincidence: Jews, Jewishness and English Law. This examines how English judges depict Jews in the 20th and 21st centuries. It highlights the part played by racial and religious understanding and addresses the place of the Jewish minority within the English cultural imagination. Opening the discussion, Didi will consider the complex and often contradictory approaches to Jews and Jewishness within judicial discourse, challenging assumptions both about any simple narrative of ‘antisemitism’ and about the tolerance and neutrality of English Law.

Didi Herman – An Unfortunate Coincidence: Jews, Jewishness and English Law (Oxford University Press)

available here

The Pears Institute for the Study of Antisemitism

“The relationship between antisemitism and other forms of racism and exclusion is not only a historical question. It is an urgent issue for today.” Professor David Feldman, Director.

The Pears Institute for the Study of Antisemitism is funded by the Pears Foundation and based at Birkbeck, University of London. It is a centre of innovative research and teaching, contributing to discussion and policy formation on antisemitism as well as other forms of racial prejudice and intolerance. It is both independent and inclusive.

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talk:

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questions:

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Event date:  17 February  2011
Room B04, Birkbeck College
Malet Street
London WC1E 7HX

PEARS INSTITUTE FOR THE STUDY OF ANTISEMITISM

Birkbeck, University of London

Disciplining Antisemitism Series: Interpreting Imaginary Jews

Round-table discussion with:

• Dr Anthony Bale (Birkbeck, University of London)
• Dr Nadia Valman (Queen Mary, University of London)
• Professor John Arnold (Birkbeck, University of London)

Many medieval Christians believed that Jews committed crimes against Christian children and were out to destroy their religion and way of life.  They retaliated with violence of their own, denying Jews theright to religious freedom and peace.  Dr Bale’s new book Feeling
Persecuted: Christians, Jews and Images of Violence in the Middle Ages (Reaktion Books, 2010) exposes how the images of Christian suffering and persecution were central to medieval ideas of love, community and home. By examining poetry, drama, visual culture, theology and philosophy, he reveals the recreational persecution of Jews as a part of medieval life and culture. The book forms the starting point for this round-table discussion.

This event is part of the Disciplining Antisemitism series organised by the Pears Institute for the Study of Antisemitism. The Institute is funded by the Pears Foundation and based at Birkbeck, University of London. It is a centre of innovative researchand teaching, contributing to discussion and policy formation on antisemitism and racism. It is both independent and inclusive. To receive information on future events contact the administrator.

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Introduction by Professor David Feldman .

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Dr Athony Bale

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Professor John Arnold

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Dr Nadia Valman

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Questions

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Event date:  25 January 2011

Kennedy Lecture Theatre

UCL Institute of Child Health

30 Guilford Street, London

WC1N 1EH

PEARS INSTITUTE FOR THE STUDY OF ANTISEMITISM

Birkbeck, University of Londonin association with the Anne Frank Trust

Public Lecture

Professor Simon Schama (University Professor of Art History and History, Columbia University)-The Fate of the Idea of Toleration

In this panoramic lecture, Simon Schama begins by considering the appeal and significance of Anne Frank and her diary for successive generations. He relates Anne’s experiences in hiding, as well as the choices and dilemmas facing the Dutch population in the face of Nazi occupation and murderous antisemitism, to the long and chequered history of toleration in Europe. In particular, he traces the idea and practice of toleration to the writings of figures such as Milton, Locke and Voltaire as well as to the politics of the Dutch Republic in the seventeenth century. Schama goes on to consider the challenges to toleration both in modern European history and in the present. He  asks what the limits to toleration are and whether we are required to show forbearance towards those who are themselves intolerant.

The Pears Institute for the Study of Antisemitism

“The relationship between antisemitism and other forms of racism and exclusion is not only a historical question. It is an urgent issue for today.”

Professor David Feldman, Director

The Pears Institute for the Study of Antisemitism is funded by the Pears Foundation and based at Birkbeck, University of London. It is a centre of innovative research and teaching, contributing to discussion and policy formation on antisemitism as well as other forms of racial prejudice and intolerance. It is both independent and inclusive.

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Welcome and Introduction by Gillian Walnes MBE

Director of the Anne Frank Trust

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Professor Simon Schama CBE

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Vote of Thanks by Professor Lord Bhiku Parekh

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Event Date: 10 November 2010
University of London
William Beveridge Hall
Senate House Malet St.
WC1E 7HU

PEARS INSTITUTE FOR THE STUDY OF ANTISEMITISM
Birkbeck, University of London

Inaugural lecture:

Equality, Race and the Jewish Problem

Speaker: Prof. David Feldman, Director of the Pears Institute for the Study of Antisemitism

Professor David Feldman launches the Pears Institute for the Study of Antisemitism with his inaugural lecture, Equality, Race and the Jewish Problem.

The lecture considers the changing debate on the Jewish presence in Britain in the 18th and 19th centuries, asking whether hostility towards Jews was marginal or central to British society.

“In 1753, just months after it passed into law, the Whig government repealed an Act of Parliament that allowed foreign-born Jews to naturalise as British subjects.” comments Professor Feldman. “Yet just over 100 years later Lionel de Rothschild became the first professing Jew to sit in Parliament. In the intervening century attitudes to Jews had changed radically. This legal transformation was underpinned by the new belief that despite superficial differences, Christians and Jews were essentially similar.”

Professor Feldman continues, “These notions of similarity were challenged over the coming decades both by the developing idea of racial difference and also by the persistence of the Jews’ distinctiveness. In this way, the historic debates on the Jews force us to consider how to reconcile equality and difference – a dilemma which remains as powerful in the present as in the past.”

The Pears Institute for the Study of Antisemitism is funded by the Pears Foundation. Professor Feldman was appointed its first director in April 2010. The Institute is founded on the principle that the study of antisemitism is vital to understanding all forms of racism, prejudice and xenophobia. It is committed to the interdisciplinary study of antisemitism, from political sciences to psychosocial studies and from history to law.

The Institute will carry out and disseminate high quality research, provide a range of undergraduate and postgraduate courses, and offer an independent source of public policy advice. It will also work closely with the Wiener library, the world’s oldest institution for the study of antisemitism and the crimes of Nazi Germany, which is relocating to the Birkbeck campus in 2011.

For more information visit: www.bbk.ac.uk/antisemitism

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Welcome by Professor David Latchman, Master of Birkbeck .

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Lecture:

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Vote of Thanks by Professor Gareth Stedman Jones .

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accompanying images: