Solidarität im Minenfeld: Werden wir zu „Frenemies“?

Open anti-Semitism is on the rise, synagogues are being attacked, anti-Muslim racism and other forms of racist exclusion are intensifying, while migration policy and the discourse on migration are becoming increasingly dehumanizing. At the same time, we are confronted with the suffering in Gaza, Israel, and the Near and Middle East. How can we talk about these different experiences of suffering without pitting them against one another or weighing them against each other, while giving every voice the space it needs? October 7, 2023, has turned the public debate into a minefield. Instead of a united front against hate, we are witnessing a deep division. This often affects precisely those who are actually fighting for an open society.

Together with our panelists Rachel Spicker (Mobile Victim Counseling), Sina Arnold (Center for Research on Anti-Semitism at the Technical University of Berlin), and Anna Sabel (Association of Binational Families and Partnerships), we will analyze the specific logic underlying both forms of discrimination. Where do the mechanisms of exclusion overlap, and where are the clear differences in their ideological roots? We seek an approach that can withstand contradictions rather than pitting the pain of one side against that of the other. Moderator: Eva Josephine Weber

The event is part of the “BETWEEN THE LINES” series and is held in cooperation with the association “Transformative Bildung und Kultur e.V.”

Rachel Spicker, M.A. in Social Sciences, systemic counselor and process facilitator, as well as a supporter of the survivors of the anti-Semitic, racist, and misogynistic attack in Halle and Wiedersdorf on Yom Kippur 5780, October 9, 2019. She is a member of the “9 October” solidarity group, a co-organizer of the Festival of Resilience, and works with survivors and activists to implement educational and artistic projects focused on commemoration and remembrance. Among other roles, she works for the Mobile Victim Counseling Service of Saxony-Anhalt.

Sina Arnold is a social scientist and currently a research associate at the Center for Research on Anti-Semitism at the Technical University of Berlin. As part of the Research Institute for Social Cohesion, she leads research projects on anti-Semitism and the politics of memory in post-migrant society, as well as on institutional racism. She studied ethnology, political science, and education in Berlin and Manchester and earned her Ph.D. with a dissertation on discourses of antisemitism within the U.S. left. In addition to her academic work, she is active as a writer, in politics, and in educational initiatives against racism and antisemitism.

Anna Sabel is a media scholar and political educator specializing in anti-Muslim racism and the critique of racism. At the Association of Binational Families and Partnerships in Leipzig, she leads the project “Invisibilities in Migration Society” as well as the “Competence Network on Islamophobia and Anti-Muslim Sentiment.” In this capacity, she develops educational materials critical of racism; she is the director of the documentary film “Treat Me to a Çay and I’ll Tell You Everything,” curator of the exhibitions “Re:Orient” and “A Muslim Man—Not a Muslim Man,” and author and co-editor of the essay collection “The Invention of the Muslim Other—20 Questions and Answers That Reveal Nothing About Being Muslim.”