|
From 'extremism' to 'yob
culture':
In absolute terms, antisemitic incidents are very few in number when compared with the number of racist incidents recorded by police forces. Yet it is well known that official data understate the real extent of the problem of crime. A conservative estimate based on the British Crime Survey is that police records capture just less than one in four incidents. It is likely, too, that the number of antisemitic incidents - as recorded by the Community Security Trust - also grossly understate the true extent of the problem. Recorded incidents are also a very weak indicator of the prevailing climate of antisemitism, as the relative invisibility of Jews compared with black and Asian communities, for instance, provides comparatively fewer opportunities for victimization. It is not surprising, therefore, that antisemitic incidents - judging from the detail reported in the press - are invariably directed against exposed targets. The Newcastle Evening Chronicle (30/7/2002), for instance, reported a vicious attack against a 63-year-old man and his 16-year-old son as they walked home from prayers at 10 p.m. on Friday, 30, July this year. According to the report: 'Four youths aged between 14 and 16, hurled racial abuse as one of the gang attacked the father, an orthodox Jew, who has lived in the Gateshead area all his life, leaving him with injuries to his face, eyes and body.' The man's son was attacked also. A police spokesman reportedly said: 'Although we do get incidents of racial abuse reported, this is the first time we have had an assault on a member of the Jewish community reported to us.' The Jewish Chronicle (24/5/2002) reported an incident in May this year when a 'fist- sized rock was thrown through the window of a car containing a woman and four children outside the Avigdor Hirsch Torah Temimah Primary School in Cricklewood, London. The same issue of the Jewish Chronicle reported an incident involving a rabbi in Mill Hill, London. When walking home from synagogue with his three young sons after Friday night service, a car drew alongside and they were subjected to some 'pretty nasty racial abuse'. According to the report: The incident prompted him to deliver a sermon on Shabbat calling for Jews to stand up to anti-Semitism and telling the congregation not to "swap kipot for baseball caps…Many have opted to not look overtly Jewish in the street. If one who wore a yarmulke now replaces it with a baseball cap, then he is yielding to the treacherous arm of racial prejudice"'.(2) The obvious point about visibility indicates that we need to apply a particularly critical eye to the recorded data if we are to make inferences about the contemporary climate of antIsemitism in Britain. But, bearing that advice in mind, what does the latest increase in incidents tell us about that climate? Are they a barometer of a pervasive hostility towards Jews? Or might the opposite actually be the case? Uncivil Society Antony Lerman argues in his essay on this website that 'we live in a period in which extremists are readier to express their views in violent ways. It may be that they do so precisely because their ideas have become so marginalized'. In other words, the apparent rise in antisemitic incidents may paradoxically reveal a receding climate of antisemitism. However, such a thesis might be more credible if antisemitic incidents are mostly committed by 'extremists'. But that is unlikely to be the case. Data on offenders are severely limited. Perpetrators commonly don't leave a calling card - especially in the most serious offences. But to extrapolate from the limited research evidence that there is on hate crime offenders, it is arguable that bigotry plays only a minor part in many antisemitic incidents, as is the case for hate crimes in general. Whilst the term 'hate crime' perhaps evokes an image of a committed bigot instrumentally acting out their hatred to a violent conclusion, the reality often does not match the image. Perhaps more chillingly, many incidents are committed just for the fun of it. Such 'thrill hate crimes' - as Levin and McDevitt called them - are, in their words, 'likely to be committed by a group of youthful offenders, outside their neighborhood. They may go out on Saturday nights, the way other teenagers get together to steal street signs or hubcaps. But these offenders bash members of minority groups they see as vulnerable. Surprisingly, the offenders in thrill hate crimes are not particularly committed to prejudice'. Often offenders just go along to get along, to 'please or be accepted by their friends'. In a 'pick and mix' of bigotry the victims of thrill hate crimes are often interchangeable. According to Levin and McDevitt, 'When the first choice of victim to be attacked is unavailable, another will be substituted in their place'.(3) A deep-seated bigotry arguably plays only a minor role in the motivations of many of the perpetrators of such incidents. Where it does come into play, rather than acting out marginalized extremist ideas, offenders are drawing on an 'everyday' bigotry to decide who, and who is not, an appropriate victim. A recent incident on a London street clearly exemplifies these aspects of 'thrill hate crimes'. The Jewish Chronicle in late June reported a serious assault at about 9 p.m. on a Friday evening against an Orthodox Jewish teenager which resulted in his hospitalization. His assailants, two white youths, were first witnessed by the victim attacking an Asian man. The Jewish victim reported: 'They were making monkey noises and slapping him on the head…Then they saw me and said: "Now here's a Yiddo." Having just come back from Israel, I was on a high and told them: "I'm Jewish and proud of it." After that, they just went mad…They started pushing me and spinning me around. They smashed my glasses and punched me on the nose. I could feel blood on my face and it ran on to my jumper. Then they got me on the ground and kept on kicking me in the head and neck. I didn't pass out but felt detached. I could hear them shouting: "You f***ing Jew; give me tuppence, Jew boy," the usual things'.(4) In another incident in early August, a group of teenagers reportedly threw stones and shouted racial abuse for two consecutive nights at a hall of residence in Swansea occupied by holidaying Orthodox Jewish families. The events followed the desecration of the Swansea Synagogue in July by suspected far-right attackers. One member of the Swansea Jewish community – interviewed for the report - believed that the two events were not directly connected, stating that the residence was 'in "a rough part of town" where kids threw stones at visiting groups'….'"if it had been a Chinese group the kids would have done the same thing."'(5) There is little evidence to suggest that either of these attacks were carried out by 'extremists' - either from the far-right or, alternatively, from radical Islamist groups - hunting for Jewish victims on the streets. Instead, the attacks might be seen as forms of recreation: carried out not as expressive acts of disaffection, alienation, or marginalization, but played out for the fun of it. For the buzz. Many incidents occur at the weekend, and particularly on Fridays: this should come as no surprise. This is a time when potential Jewish targets are most visible. But the weekend is also the time to let off steam, wind down, let go and escape from the rationalization and regulation of the ordered weekday routines of work or school. A person's cultural and material capital influences the site and the form of their leisure. For some it's the golf club, the sports field, the cinema, the theatre, the concert hall. For others it's the pub and the streets. Some play with the children, watch TV, go out for a meal, have a dance, listen to music. Others have a laugh, some take drugs, others get drunk, some have a fight. Delinquency, as playwright Arthur Miller suggested forty years ago in his essay 'The Bored and the Violent' is 'a flight from nothingness', from an existence bereft of intrinsic purpose. In this context, according to Miller, 'the good life itself is not the life of struggle for meaning, not the quest for union with the past, with God, with man that it traditionally was. The good life is the life of ceaseless entertainment, effortless joys…The good life is basically an amused one'.(6) From this perspective, for some people, delinquency, antisocial behaviour, and violence are means of amusement providing sensual rewards. 'Cultural criminologists' have drawn attention to the sensual attractions of crime (7) , and antisemitic incidents, as is the case for hate crimes more generally, arguably have their appeal too. That is why 'hate' is such a poor descriptive label for the crimes carried out, even though it has been institutionalized in legislation in the United States and adopted by police services across Britain. It does not sufficiently capture the lived experience of crime, either for the offender or the victim. In particular, 'hate' does not accurately convey the meaning behind the offender's action. It does not adequately evoke the affective dynamics of wrongdoing as frequently hate has got little to do with it. It would be misleading, of course, to suggest that committed bigots have not been involved in carrying out some of the recent antisemitic incidents, not least because the evidence from the Community Security Trust shows otherwise. An extreme right- wing group is thought to have been responsible for the desecration of the Swansea Synagogue in July when swastikas and antisemitic graffiti were daubed on the synagogue walls, windows and furnishings smashed, and Torah scrolls burned. But even incidents such as this are not devoid of sensual remuneration. The vehemence of the destruction frequently carried out, which in the desecration of the Finsbury Park Synagogue on a Saturday night in April involved the smearing of faeces on the floor, as well as the smashing of windows and the pouring of paint and ceremonial wine over religious artefacts, suggests that the perpetrators may have drawn carnal satisfaction from their transgressions. They were not just acting out a visceral hatred. In a less serious, but nevertheless offensive incident on a Jewish Sabbath in January four 'skinheads' gave drive-by Nazi salutes and shouted 'Seig Heil' from their car at security guards outside a North Manchester synagogue. Such an act might be viewed – from a safe distance - as a comic self-parody on the part of the offenders worthy of inclusion in the script of Mel Brooks' The Producers. It is also reminiscent of the children's game 'knock down ginger' in which the excitement is derived from the act of transgression, and maybe even the adrenaline of the chase, rather than the irritation inflicted upon the elderly resident who answers the knock on their door only to discover no one there. It is instructive to deconstruct the meaning behind antisemitic incidents in this way, as it illuminates the significance of bigotry at work, or as is the case in many incidents, the insignificance of bigotry relative to other motivations. In particular, looking for 'extremism' at work behind incidents may impede sensitivity to the role that bigotry does play. In some instances, incidents directed at Jewish targets may seemingly be devoid of bigotry. The Community Security Trust only records antisemitic incidents when there is a proven antisemitic motive. Incidents such as criminal damage, for instance, which are not accompanied by evidence such as antisemitic graffiti, would not be classified as antisemitic. This was the case with the vandalism of the cemetery at Chatham Memorial Synagogue reported in the Jewish Chronicle in February. According to the synagogue chairman the intruders 'managed to smash one grave to pieces, turn over four others including an ancient plot built before the synagogue and pull away surrounds and break posts…[but] there were no graffiti so we are not even sure if it was an anti-Semitic attack'.(8) Similarly, in June this year, around thirty gravestones were damaged in an attack on the Federation of Synagogues cemetery in Edmonton, London. According to the report in the Jewish Chronicle: 'Police believe the damage was the work of young hooligans, and was not motivated by anti-Semitism'.(9) In these two cases, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, amusement, rather than bigotry, appears to have been the motivating factor. Such incidents prompted a columnist in the Jewish Telegraph recently to ask: 'What type of person attacks a cemetery?' I have just seen the handiwork of heartless thugs who broke into an ohel and left the place in a revolting mess. Glass was strewn around from a broken window, washbasins were stuffed with wet paper towels, a toilet was broken and the place smelled disgusting. When this happens at Jewish cemeteries in other European countries we regard it as just one more instance of antisemitism. But recently I have been surprised to read about the number of incidents in this country where graves of non-Jewish people have also been vandalised. It now seems that such attacks don't always have anything to do with antagonism towards Jews. Any graves of any denomination seem to be regarded as fair game if a vandal happens to feel like wreaking havoc. He probably regards it as a bit of sport…People like this don't have any finer feelings. They get a buzz from having the power to destroy.(10) Whilst some incidents such as this might seem to be carried out purely for the 'buzz of it', there are arguably also other motivations at work. The targeting of a Jewish cemetery reflects an everyday bigotry that legitimizes particular targets along with others. Antisemitic incidents, as is the case for so-called 'hate-crimes' in general, don't occur in a vacuum. They occur in cultural contexts in which bigotry, and, in some instances, the use of violence as a social resource, are norms that serve as a social basis for offenders' actions (11) by determining who is, and who is not, an appropriate target. Findings from a recent JPR survey of London's Jewish communities (12) provide some quantitative indicators of the cultural context of antisemitic incidents. When asked about a number of forms of antisemitism experienced in the last twelve months, 7.4 per cent of the 2,665 respondents reported that they definitely had been called a Jew in an insulting way (Figure 1). Men appeared more likely to be on the receiving end of insults than women (8.9% compared 5.7%).
The sample is skewed towards older respondents, distorting the generalization of the findings to the Jewish community at large. One way around this is to evaluate experience of antisemitism within age groups. That shows that age is clearly associated with being the target of insults. Approximately 18 per cent of male respondents aged over eighteen and under thirty-five reported definitely being called a Jew as an insult within the last year, compared with 9 per cent of the male sample overall. Visibility as a Jew is clearly a factor in being on the receiving end of insults. It is notable that thirteen of the twenty-one Haredi (ultra-Orthodox Hasidic) Jews in the sample reported definitely being called a Jew in an insulting way. Respondents were also asked whether they had heard someone making derogatory remarks about Jews generally in the last twelve months. Approximately one in five reported that they definitely had heard derogatory remarks (Figure 2), with little difference between men (21.6% n1452) and women (20.9% n1334).
The findings from the JPR survey arguably suggest that there is a not insignificant cultural context of everyday antisemitism that provides a resource for antisemitism on the streets to the extent that Gurbux Singh, former Chair of Britain's Commission for Racial Equality recently warned that antisemitism is "becoming the acceptable face of racism".(13) It may be less unnerving to believe that extremists are mostly responsible for antisemitic attacks, that they are an aberration, than it is to accept that such incidents are part of the repertoire of routine incivilities and antisocial behaviour prevalent in the streets, shopping malls, cinemas, public transport, sporting facilities, and other public space: what some have called 'a yob culture'.
Notes 1 This essay is an edited version of the paper 'Interpreting antisemitism on the streets in Britain' presented to the second annual conference of the European Society of Criminology, Toledo, Spain, 4-7 September 2002. The author would like thank the Sociology Department at the University of Essex for financial support for the paper. 2 Leon Symons (2002) 'Brutal assault' Jewish Chronicle, June 14, pp. 1 & 3. 3 Levin, J. and McDevitt, J. (1995). Landmark Study reveals Hate Crimes Vary Significantly by Offender Motivation, Klanwatch Intelligence Report. August, Southern Poverty Law Center. 4 Leon Symons (2002) 'Brutal assault' Jewish Chronicle, June 14, pp. 1 & 3. 5 Lorraine Kirk (2002) 'Stones and racial abuse in Swansea', Jewish Chronicle, August 9, pp. 2-3. 6 Miller, A. (1962) 'The Bored and the Violent', Harper's, vol. 25, November 1962. 7 Katz, J. (1988) The Seductions of Crime, New York: Basic Books; O'Malley, P. and Mugford, S. (1994) 'Crime, Excitement, and Modernity', in Gregg Barak (ed.) Varieties of Criminology. Readings from a Dynamic Discipline, Westport, Ct: Praeger, pp. 189-211; Presdee, M. (1994) 'Young People, Culture, and the Construction of Crime: Doing Wrong versus Doing Crime', in Gregg Barak (ed.) Varieties of Criminology. Readings from a Dynamic Discipline, Westport, Ct: Praeger, pp. 179-187. 8 Jacqui Kohn 'Graves hit by vandals', Jewish Chronicle, February 22, 2002. 9 Lee Lixenberg 'Cemetery vandalised' Jewish Chronicle, June 28, 2002. 10 Leita Donn 'What type of person attacks a cemetery?' Jewish Telegraph, August 16, 2002. 11 Hewitt, R. (1996) Routes of Racism: the Social Bases of Racist Action Amongst Adolescents, London: Trentham Books. 12 The data are drawn from the London and South East Jewish Community Survey commissioned by the Institute for Jewish Policy Research, London, with fieldwork carried out by the National Centre for Social Research between February and April 2002. A mail questionnaire was sent to a random sample of 20,000 addresses in Northwest, and Northeast and South London, selected from a sampling frame compiled from people with surnames that are distinctively, or likely to be, Jewish. After follow-up reminders, the survey produced 2,965 cases of individuals who identified themselves as Jewish. Excluding households that returned questionnaires coded 'not Jewish', those returned coded 'deceased', and those returned by the post office as incorrect addresses, the worst estimate and minimum response rate was 18.7%. However, as a number of non-respondent households were likely to be ineligible due to the residents not being Jewish, the best estimated response rate is 31.3%. 13 'CRE anti-Semitism fear' Jewish Chronicle, May 24, 2002. Paul Iganski is a lecturer in sociology and criminology at the University of Essex, England, and Civil Society Fellow at the Institute for Jewish Policy Research, London. He is editor of, and contributor to, The Hate Debate (2002), and co-author (with David Mason) of Ethnicity and Equality of Opportunity in the British National Health Service (2002). © Institute for Jewish Policy Research 2002 Home/Country
reports/About this site/ JPR
home/ |
HE
DATA on antisemitic incidents provided by Michael Whine in his paper 'Antisemitism on the Streets' show episodes of a rise and then decline in the number
of incidents recorded by the Community Security Trust. From the late 1990s we have
been experiencing another rise in incidents. According to some observers this is one
indicator of a 'new antisemitism' in Britain. But how serious is the problem of
antisemitism on the streets? How might we understand why incidents occur? What
role does 'extremism' play, as against other motivations? And overall, what do the
data suggest about the contemporary climate of antisemitism in Britain today? These
are fundamental questions that need to be wrestled with in analysing the so-called
'new antisemitism'. 
