Research output: Contribution in Book/Report/Proceedings - With ISBN/ISSN › Chapter (peer-reviewed)
Research output: Contribution in Book/Report/Proceedings - With ISBN/ISSN › Chapter (peer-reviewed)
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TY - CHAP
T1 - The Banality of Anti-Jewish "Hate Crime"
AU - Iganski, Paul
PY - 2009
Y1 - 2009
N2 - The problem of incidents against Jews, although acknowledged in the international policy literature, has largely to date escaped the attention of scholars concerned with racist violence and hate crime more generally. Given this lack of attention to the problem this chapter uses police data on anti-Jewish incidents to argue against what has been the accepted wisdom in the policy literature that many incidents are committed by 'extremists' of one political shade or another. In taking the accepted wisdom to task the chapter argues that many anti-Jewish incidents are committed by 'ordinary' people in the context of their 'everyday' lives. It concludes that much anti-Jewish hate crime is an indicator of the banality of antisemitism, in that many offenders are not prompted by a particular ideological conviction or volition, but instead unthinkingly manifest a common-sense antisemitism.
AB - The problem of incidents against Jews, although acknowledged in the international policy literature, has largely to date escaped the attention of scholars concerned with racist violence and hate crime more generally. Given this lack of attention to the problem this chapter uses police data on anti-Jewish incidents to argue against what has been the accepted wisdom in the policy literature that many incidents are committed by 'extremists' of one political shade or another. In taking the accepted wisdom to task the chapter argues that many anti-Jewish incidents are committed by 'ordinary' people in the context of their 'everyday' lives. It concludes that much anti-Jewish hate crime is an indicator of the banality of antisemitism, in that many offenders are not prompted by a particular ideological conviction or volition, but instead unthinkingly manifest a common-sense antisemitism.
KW - Antisemitism
KW - banality
KW - anti-Jewish hate crime
M3 - Chapter (peer-reviewed)
SN - 978-0-275-99577-5
T3 - Hate Crimes
SP - 137
EP - 150
BT - Hate Crime Offenders
A2 - Blazak, Randy
A2 - Perry, Barbara
PB - Praeger Publishers
CY - Westport, Connecticut
ER -