Seeing Antisemitism Through Law: Justice Through Experience

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Benjamin Lahusen; Professor Dr. Thilo Marauhn; Dr. Reut Yael Paz
• Subject Area: Principles of Law and Jurisprudence ; Public Law ; Political Science
• Term: since 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 446952759

Since its initiation in 2021, our comparative legal research project, "Seeing Antisemitism Through Law: High Promises or Indeterminacies?" (SATL), funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), has aimed to unravel the ways in which law confronts, tames, and at times even reinforces antisemitism. The project has addressed both general academic gaps and ambiguities by establishing a safe scholarly space for an interdisciplinary approach that connects "seeing," "antisemitism," and "law." Additionally, it has examined the complex relationship between antisemitism and law through the concrete juridical practices of courts in four European countries since 1945: Germany, the United Kingdom, Poland, and France.This "phase-two" application seeks to achieve a dual objective. First, we propose extending the original three-year framework of the SATL project to accommodate the substantial material, geographical, archival and linguistic barriers of this pioneering initiative. Second, we aim to address emerging research inquiries that have directly arisen from the accumulated results thus far. Indeed, over the past two years, our understanding of examining antisemitism through a legal lens has deepened, revealing the extent to which antisemitism has been marginalized within legal academia and the judiciary. An extension to this project is therefore imperative for the completion and expansion of the agenda of our original research to shift the focus to include additional material and investigative methodologies. It is equally important to continue this project as to enable the inclusion of the Ukraine into our existing sample of four European countries. And lastly, a "phase-two" to this project will assist in leveraging the knowledge and insights gained in developing substantive recommendations on how the law can more effectively ensure the security of European Jewry.In summary, the successes, complexities, and challenges encountered in our research approach necessitate a "phase-two" application. The overarching goal is twofold: to expand our SATL-DATABASE and to shift our focus toward exploring the legal system through the lens of antisemitic experiences among Jewish individuals and communities.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants