Antisemitism and Jewish Life: Focusing on Youth

Our conference contribution draws on practice-based research related to the learning tool Construction Site: Antisemitism. It consists of boxes that can be piled up and serve both as containers for educational material and as seating furniture. Using it participants permanently deconstruct their understanding as they reconfigure the boxes, adopt and adapt the material contained. These materials deal with the history and present of antisemitism in Vienna and are aggregated in Vienna’s cityscape, through a participatory research process with various participants -- focusing on youth.

In this process we excavate historical layers of antisemitism – including but not limited to the Holocaust – and their interconnectedness with the city's public memory of other “traditions” of exclusion and stigmatisation, e.g. against Muslims or Slavik people. Such intersections can be found e.g. at Vienna’s Judenplatz, where the commemoration of the annihilation of the medieval Jewish community (1420/21) and the Holocaust are intertwined, but also the assimilation frame of Enlightenment is present through a Lessing statue. Or at St. Stephen's Cathedral, where a racist pulpit commorates Johannes Capistranus who was both responsible for anti-Muslim and antisemitic violence in 15th century in Austria, Serbia and Poland.

In education, connecting these dots means developing research methods and approaches that help bridge the gap between learning about antisemitism, racism, and group-related enmities and discrimination stemming from migrant experiences without emptying each of them out through equation. In both the development and application of these newly developed methods, we consider moments of friction, conflicts and contradictions to be integral and necessary in order to negotiate shared perspectives on the impact of antisemitism.

In our conference contribution we provide insights into our work process, with a focus on methodological aspects. We share observations from our work with youth and offer them for discussion and reflection with the conference participants.

The Project Construction Site Antisemitism is funded by the City of Vienna.