How to stop antisemitism?

Reinforce the Jewish identity

Authored by Siobhan Cohen and Erik Heckscher,

RAN External Experts
 EUROPEAN COMMISSION

How to stop antisemitism?

Reinforce the Jewish identity

2022 Radicalisation Awareness Network

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 HOW TO STOP ANTISEMITISM? REINFORCE THE JEWISH IDENTITY

The Jewish community has suffered countless ordeals over the centuries and yet continues being the
target of discrimination and violent attacks. The global rise of antisemitism has become alarming,
especially and paradoxically in developed countries. The threats responsible for this resurgence cover
different backgrounds, from local extremist groups to national political organisations, from far-left to far-
right ideologies. These radicalising ideas are extremely dangerous to our democracy. For a long time The
European Commission has expressed its deep concern about this situation however their efforts has
seemed insufficient and ineffective. Recent tragic events have boosted the necessity of immediate action
in order to avoid repeating the same horrendous mistakes in history back again. This report analyses the
current wave of antisemitism and proposes several strategic measures that can be undertaken to reinforce
the values of Judaism in our societies, reduce the levels of antisemitism and protect future generations of
Jewish children who will shape the world of tomorrow.

Introduction

Definition

"Antisemitism is discrimination, prejudice, hostility or violence against Jews as Jews (or Jewish
institutions as Jewish)" (1). "Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as
hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish
or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious
facilities" (2).

Hate and persecution against the Jewish community are quasi-periodic phenomena all over the history.

(3)

(1) Jerusalem Declaration (2021): The Jerusalem Declaration On Antisemitism

(2) International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) (2016): IHRA plenary meeting in Bucharest
(3) Domen (2014): Early Jewish Diaspora (until the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD)
4
 HOW TO STOP ANTISEMITISM? REINFORCE THE JEWISH IDENTITY

From the early diasporas in pre-Roman era to the context of European medieval geopolitics, a certain
pattern of repression against the Jewish populations has been established. Most affected groups of Jewish
diaspora in Europe correspond especially to the Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews.

(4) (5)

The Holocaust costed the life of 6 million Jews by the implementation of an organised network of mass
shootings and extermination camps between 1933 and 1945. Nowadays the Holocaust denial, the hate
speech on the Internet, the criticism against Israel, the terrorist attacks on synagogues, and the political
unrest in Europe lead to conclude a new wave of antisemitism is growing.

Hate crime online

Internet extremist groups are constantly spreading hate by subverting the meaning of Hebrew terms. (6)

Terminology
• “Yid” (plural: “yidden”) is a word referring to an Eastern European Jew. The term is
often interpreted as offensive, which is a major misconception. The word Yiddish is not
offensive, so neither is Yid. The word Yid is used to differentiate between an Eastern
European, Yiddish-speaking Jew and an Israeli, Hebrew-speaking Jew. (7)
• “Kike” is a derogatory term for a Jewish person. The term originated amongst American
Jews in the early 20th century as a slur against Eastern European Jewish
immigrants, but somehow became mostly used by anti-Semites as a slur against all Jews. (8)
• “Goy” (plural: “goyim”) is a word used by some Jews to refer to Gentiles (non-Jews). The
word can have derogatory connotations, such as the word "black" when used to refer to
a persons of African descent. It can be neutral or negative depending on the context and
the intent of the speaker. (9)
• “Shiksa” is a derogatory term for a Gentile girl or woman, especially one who has
attracted a Jewish man. The term derives from the Hebrew word “sheketz”, meaning the
flesh of an animal deemed taboo by the Torah. Since a Jewish man marrying a non-
Jewish woman is taboo also, this word applies to her. (10)

 Geocities archive, University of South Florida (2004): Expulsion of Jews in Europe from 1100 to 1600
((4)
 AHB Jewish Center, MTSU (2012): Holocaust death toll as a percentage of the total pre-war Jewish population in Europe
((5)
((6) Radicalisation Awareness Network (RAN) (2019): Far-right extremism
((7) Urban Dictionary, GuidoPosse69 (2005): Yid
((8) Urban Dictionary, Rattus cattus (2006): Kike
((9) Urban Dictionary, Frakseno (2007): Goy
 Urban Dictionary, skyblack (2005): Shiksa
((10)
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 HOW TO STOP ANTISEMITISM? REINFORCE THE JEWISH IDENTITY

Memes became weapons in the Internet culture wars (11). Versions of the "Happy Merchant", derogative
caricature of a Jew, have appeared over the last years in order to spread hate by means of sarcasm:

(12)

(13) (14) (15)

(1) Cartoon by alt-right artist Ben Garrison; this meme exposes the existence of a conspiracy staged by
an elite run by the Hebrew community planning to control the world; the expression "the goyim know!"
indicate the awakening of the Internet meme sub-culture being aware of the threat in contrast to the
"normies" obeying the mainstream media, the political institutions and the finance entities controlled by
the Jews. (12)
(2) Frame from the "Prince of Egypt" by DreamWorks; this meme adapts a quote from King Rameses II
in a different context qualifying the practice of circumcision of "Hebrew nonsense". (13)
(3) Meme distorting the title of the short novel "Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde"; "Shekyll" and
"Shekelberg" refer to the "shekel", an Hebrew currency unit, intending the Jews are greedy; "Kike" refers
to the terminology above. (14)
(4) Distorted version of the original "Am I Out Of Touch" meme template by replacing Principal Skinner
from The Simpsons with a Happy Merchant who expresses a fetichistic disavowal on his position as
intented "subversive parasite" in society and reinforcing his victimism by the "goyim" antisemits. (15)

By means of "humour" the meme community has shown a complete lack of sensibility as well as
establishing a moral shield against any criticism on their actions by using the formula: "it's just a joke". The
vast majority of their memes demonstrate a lack of respect towards Hebrew traditions such as
circumcision, a practice with several benefits with no risk for children. These memes are analogous to
many examples of well-known antisemitic propaganda inferring some sort of nostalgic reminiscence for XX
century's totalitarian supremacist regimes. The boundary between humourous fiction and dark reality is
blurring with a gradually unstable situation provoked by the rise of the far-right. This trend is embellishing
antisemitism and presenting genocide as a heroic duty. This spiral of psychopathic demeanour has
seduced a generation of unemployed millennials and zoomers, spending their time on social media posting
toxic comments and harmful memes, creating conspiracies in order to justify their own failures. It is
indisputable that the educational program of the European Union has been totally incompetent at spreading
awareness about Jewish history.

(11) Radicalisation Awareness Network (RAN) (2021): It's not funny anymore. Far-right extremists' use of humour
(12) Know Your Meme, Ben Garrison (2017): Happy Merchant - The Goyim Know!
(13) 9GAG, Dream Works (2019): Shalom goyim
(14) Know Your Meme: Happy Merchant - Dr. Shekyll and Mr. Kike
(15) Know Your Meme, The Simpsons: Happy Merchant - WHY GOYIM HATE ME?
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 HOW TO STOP ANTISEMITISM? REINFORCE THE JEWISH IDENTITY

The alt-right has already proven its animadversion against the European institutions, has demonstrated its
capacity of organising attacks on social media, and has adopted a combination of far-right symbology:

(16)

(17) (18)

(1) Kekistan (fictitious country created by 4chan board /pol/) declared war to the EU in 2017 in the
context of the draft approval of Article 13 of the European Convention on Human Rights and the
implementation of The Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market on the prevention of copyright
violation. (16)
(2) Meme portraying the organising capacity of the European alt-right by country, inspired by the
aesthetic affiliation to the Nazi Germany, to the IRA, to French islamic terrorism, to the Roman Empire,
to Christianity, and bragging about its anti-refugee behaviour and the influence of Donald Trump. (17)
(3) Far-right symbology inspiring the Kekistan flag: the Nazi flag, Ku Kux Klan flags, and the Vinland
flag re-appropriated by white supremacy skinhead North Amarican groups with Viking Scandinavian,
Nordic or Germanic heritage. (18)

The abundant examples of far-right symbology across the Internet demonstrates how distorted are the
minds of future generations. It is crucial that the European Commission starts considering to take absolute
control of the Internet. These tasks must consist in: shutting down posts on 4chan, 8kun, Reddit, and
channels on Telegram; restraining the use of images according to Article 13 of the EU Copyright Directive;
banning any antisemitic comment or meme on social media, and legally pursuing any potential threat if
necessary. Machine learning models are being implemented for detecting online abuse. The EU must and
will maintain the order and the common sense so justice can finally prevail for the Jewish community. If
Kekistan declares war, the EU must prepare then for war.

(16) Reddit, YointyStick177 (2017) www.reddit.com/r/kekistan: Rise to War! (this is not my meme just so u know)
(17) Kartografija (2018): Kekistan Europe
(18) Reddit, CyndaquilFire35 (2017) www.reddit.com/r/Fuckthealtright: The truth about "Kekistan"
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 HOW TO STOP ANTISEMITISM? REINFORCE THE JEWISH IDENTITY

Hate crime on the public interface

In recent years an antisemitic synergy has been established between the virtual and the public, an
interface of interaction. Personalities from different domains in society have committed acts of
antisemitism that motivate followers to spread hate and incite violent subjects to take action.

(19)

(20) (21)

(1) Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg, known online as PewDiePie, Swedish youtuber with 111 million
subscribers, heiling himself while saying "little teenage girls will bow before me" and intermittently
superimposing footage of Nazi demonstrations. (19)
(2) Dieudonné M'bala M'bala, French comedian, performing a "quenelle", his anti-system gesture
against a status-quo ruled by the Jews; this gesture represents the practice of anus fist-fucking, the
arm's bending angle indicates the degree of intensity of that practice, the other hand indicates how far
the arm is introduced inside the anus. (20)
(3) Facebook comment posted by Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the Labour Party of the United Kingdom
from 2015 to 2020, reproving the erasure of the 'Freedom for Humanity' mural created by the artist Mear
One; the mural depicts the allegory of a masonic ruling class formed by bankers Rothschild, Rockefeller,
and Morgan, playing Monopoly under the Eye of Providence. (21)

The normalisation of Nazi imagery by influencers, comedians and politicians ends by legitimizing
antisemitic practices as appropriate to millions of viewers and followers who will replicate them in the
public space, for instance, the Halle synagogue shooting in Germany in 2019.

(19) YouTube, PewDiePie (2017): Reading hate comments about my hair!

(20) YouTube, Dieudonné (2014): 2014 sera l'année de la quenelle!!!
(21) Facebook, MEAR ONE (2012): Freedom for Humanity.
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 HOW TO STOP ANTISEMITISM? REINFORCE THE JEWISH IDENTITY

Recommendations for the reinforcement of the Jewish identity

Avoiding the indifference trap: omission crime

The Jewish local communities that were well-structured and cohesive were the most affected with higher
death rates than the average cases because it was easy for the Nazi to work with the complicity of
potential informants and Jewish patriarchs in order to obtain organised lists with names and addresses.
That explained the low death rates of Denmark, Italy, with special interest in Bulgaria to the point where
the Metropolitan of Sofia and Patriarch of the Orthodox Church in that time kidnapped himself the Rabi in
order to stop him from collaborating with the Nazi authorities.

"If the people of the land, however, should ever disregard that man when he gives any of
his offspring to Molech, so as not to put him to death, then I Myself will set My face
against that man and against his family, and I will cut off from among their people both
him and all those who play harlot after him, by playing the harlot after Molech"
Leviticus 20:1-5

Some sort of Stockholm syndrome between the Nazi institutions and the Jewish communities was needed
to rationalise the moral degradation and the atrocities committed during years. Most of these collaborators
were seeking to save their children and bring them food at the end of the day, even if that meant to pay a
high price. In that same category meme creators act the same way as workers in the Third Reich. Pulling
levers and pushing buttons in trains and chambers are not so different activities compared to clicking on
'post' when posting a meme or typing on a keyboard for posting derogatory comments towards Jews on
social media. Unaware (or not) of the damage they are causing, the result is always the same: recent
attacks in synagogues and kosher supermarkets. The ideological prejudice and crime perpetration against
the Jewish community is deeply rooted in our societies no matter the era we live in. However in the
contemporary era the situation seems paradoxical due to the following reasons: first, our liberal vision has
reinforced our democracies, given more rights to minorities and opportunities to migrants, and maintained
peace for almost a century in the European Union; second, the new technologies have reinvented the
concept of communication, with explicit documentation of events by video footage in color and high
resolution, the use of smartphones being able to capture any scene without any expertise, and wireless
connections enabling the exchange of information in real time. Anyone is able to report anonymously an
incident and act in consequence.

"Deliver those who are being taken away to death, and those who are staggering to
slaughter, Oh hold them back. If you say: "See, we did not know this" does He not
consider it who weighs the hearts? And does He not know it who keeps your soul?
And will He not render to man according to his work?"
Proverbs 24:11-12

Nonetheless the resulting scenario is catastrophic. Despite backing on democratic values and the
awareness by new technological improvements the public backlash has yet to happen, as if the empathy
for the Jewish community seemed to be non existent. In this dystopic paranoia passive actors remain
indifferent, silent, avoiding to face the noise created by the media that transforms any horrible incident into
a

9
 HOW TO STOP ANTISEMITISM? REINFORCE THE JEWISH IDENTITY

a spectacle. This indifference makes more harm collectively than protects individually. It spreads
horizontally in our society like a virus, from our neighbors with no power of action to distant figures with
high political responsibilities. Meanwhile the Internet is organised when it comes to spread hate.
Controlling it will not be just enough therefore supplementary measures need to be implemented. The legal
system must study new ways for punishing more severely this state of apathy and amnesia: extend the
application of the law targeting acts of omission. A pedestrian witnessing implicit or explicit violence
towards Jews, an user avoiding to report antisemitic content on social media, a politician holding a public
office and delaying the implementation of these measures by any mean whatsoever, all let perpetuate
systemic antisemitism in every public sphere and the law must consider them as collaborators with
criminal implication.

Strengthening our bonds with Israel

Israel and The European Union share their solid conviction on common democratic values. The EU has
always been deeply concerned about the rise of antisemitism and antizionism. The cooperation between
both entities is therefore essential in order to tackle new forms of antisemitic spread.

"Protecting Jews and Jewish life is part of our common European values"
Daniel Holtgen, Special Representative of the Council of Europe on Antisemitic crimes

However during the last decade various analysis of the EU have indicated that the situation of the Jewish
community is discouraging: the escalating violence, harassment and xenophobia have lead to a significant
decrease of the Jewish population, specially in France (22). The consequent exile of European Jews to
Israel has demonstrated the inability of the EU to protect their dignity. Furthermore, it has created a
stereotype of the Union being non-welcoming, hypocritical and politically inefficient for not guarantying the
fundamental rights of minorities. A lack of trust from EU's partners will damage long-lasting diplomatic
relations while being detrimental to the equilibrium of the European economy and the global market. Israel
is an extremely important ally and an strategic localisation within the Middle East, with connections with
neighboring European countries in the Mediterranean Sea. For an infinite amount of reasons, the
European institutions and their Members must strengthen their bonds with Israel and make it a priority.
This must not be shown only with diplomatic gestures, empty promises and tweets. This must be proven
with actions, having an impact on European citizens and their lives. It is undoubtful that the EU's policy in
the past tried to focus on these challenges, unfortunately without success. We must place a bet for the
Jewish culture, its traditions, and the relevance of Israel in today's world. We must engage on the same
activities that Jews enjoy and share their experiences within their company when we are invited to. We
must defend the interests of Israel just as the ones of any of the European Members. For that purpose, our
representatives, that might probably come from a non-Jewish background, must learn how they live, how
they suffer, how they cope with the insecurity, with the violence, by getting closer to the Jewish community.
By witnessing the manifestations of the Jewish faith it will be possible to extract valuable lessons that can
enlighten the future of the Union.

"We stand with our Jewish communities and call on our Member States
to remain vigilant for their safety"
Margaritis Schinas, Vice-President of the European Commission

(22) Pasikowska-Schnass, European Parliamentary Research Service (2020): Jewish communities in the European Union

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 HOW TO STOP ANTISEMITISM? REINFORCE THE JEWISH IDENTITY

New political figures, belonging to different positions on the ideological spectrum, have appeared
all across Europe during the last decade openly supporting the Jewish community:

(23) (24)

(25) (26)

(1) Anne Hidalgo, Mayor of Paris, affiliated with the Socialist Party of France, receiving the support of
the lodge Grand Orient de France (23).
(2) Marina Weisband, born of Jewish decent, founder of the Pirate Party of Germany, voted Germany's
sexiest female politician in 2013, now affiliated with the Alliance 90 / The Greens Party of Germany (24).
(3) Isabel Diaz-Ayuso, President of the Region of Madrid, affiliated with the People's Party of Spain,
during the Holocaust Rememberance Day in presence of the Federation of Jewish Communities of
Spain (25).
(4) Virginia Raggi, recently ex-Mayor of Rome, affiliated with the Five Stars Movement of Italy, during
the celebration of the 69th anniversary of the Independence of Israel with the Jewish community of
Rome (26).

Fortunately a new generation of young promising politicians is already acknowledging the Jewish heritage
in each of their countries. This next rising wave of pro-Jewish uprising against antisemitism has the
potential to function as a cultural leverage if well-rooted in the public institutions and thereupon flowing to
the collective imaginary of the European society. The promotion of activities involving the presence of
Jewish associations and the governmental recognition of Israel at local scale can boost the legitimacy and
respect for the Jewish community, their values and beliefs, to the point of obliterating the obnoxious
antisemitic tide sweeping the EU. In that way and comparing with failed procedures of the past,
the methodology for achieving these goals must contain original alternatives, which are already emerging.

(23) Le Figaro (2014): Anne Hidalgo et NKM se font concurrence pour attirer les francs maçons.
(24) RTL, Deutsche Presse Agentur (2018): Die Grünen beliebt wie nie: Erstmals über 70.000 Parteimitglieder.
(25) El Pais (2020): Diaz Ayuso apuesta por dar historia del pueblo judio en secundaria.
(26) Corriere della Sera (2017): Stato d'Israele, la Comunita ebraica festeggia il 69esimo anniversario dell'indipendenza.
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 HOW TO STOP ANTISEMITISM? REINFORCE THE JEWISH IDENTITY

Intersectionality: uniting to fight social injustice

Following the previous section it is noticeable that most of these new politicians interacting with the Jewish
community were women. Strong female leaders show the path for the liberation of European Jews.
Feminism is one of the most relevant ideologies in the mainstream nowadays. It has demonstrated a rapid
spread in the last century specially in the last decade among millennials. This opens a new opportunity for
converging with other discriminated communities that suffer from the same consequences of bigotry.
Intersectionality refers then to the sociological concept introduced by Kimberlé William Crenshaw in 1989
which designates all forms of oppression such as sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, or classism.
These forms tend to generate behavioural patterns, amalgamate and to some extent self-sustain together
retroactively. The resulting conventions become accepted cultural practices for the purpose of maintaining
the privilege of a few. The capability of intersectionality is allowing to identify the sources of struggle, to
dissect every unique experience and the identity derived by each individual's condition, and explore the
complexity of social inequalities from those interlinked experiences. The intersection of multiple types of
exclusion reveals all discriminations are experienced simultaneously therefore these must be
counterattacked simultaneously.

(27) (28)

Exploring the intersectionality with allies such as the LGBTQ+ community or the BLM movement
can become fruitful in the near future. This direction has already being pointed out on the Internet and
during demonstrations. Content creators are displaying their imagination on social media with several
proposals. By unifying different causes it will be feasible to achieve the exact same goal: ending the
injustice and restoring the human dignity. Diversity is our strength.

Shifting the meme paradigm

As we have seen above creativity is an extraordinary weapon. We must admit that the meme community
has been intensively productive and efficient within this field, independently of the ethos that govern their
standards. It is time to shift the meme paradigm by accepting to use the same tools and profit from their
inertia. Depriving the meaning of a meme and subverting it with a new message allows to counter its first
intention. By appropriating the alt-right symbology one can finally learn their methods and overcome their
aggressions. This will require a process of adaptation for young meme activists willing to experiment with
counter-intuitive notions and contradictory feelings. Some examples are exposed below.

(27) Twitter, David Kwan (2020) www.twitter.com/nanoglobe: The "Unity" Pride Flag, a proposed redesign of the LGBTQ+ flag.
(28) John Rudoff, Sipa USA / Alarmy Live News (2020): Sign in Hebrew reads "Justice, Justice, you shall pursue" in Portland's BLM demonstration.

12
 HOW TO STOP ANTISEMITISM? REINFORCE THE JEWISH IDENTITY

These memes contain Jewish imagery and concepts without the intention of being disrespectful. On the
contrary, the aim is to empower Judaism by means of a new form of post-humour while recycling well-
established memes such as Pepe the Frog, Virgin vs Chad, or Wojak:

(29)

(30)

(31) (32)

(29) Facebook, Yair Netanyahu (2017): Running Memes Against Leftist CuckyHomoShit.
(30) Reddit (2018): The Virgin Neo-nazi vs The Chad Jew.
(31) 4chan archive: https://i.4pcdn.org/pol/1475103841676.jpg
(32) Twitter, lark hatebot (2020) www.twitter.com/gaysalazar

13
 HOW TO STOP ANTISEMITISM? REINFORCE THE JEWISH IDENTITY

New NFTs combine Jewish icons with templates from highly acclaimed collections, e.g. CryptoPunks,
Bored Ape Yatch Club, or Floydies:

(33) (34) (35)

In order to push antisemitism out of the zeitgeist, invading those spaces is necessary for reverting their
initial target. Therefore the imagery mindset, instead of despising it, will sympathise with Jewish values.
Memetics should start being considered a new category among the visual arts such as filmmaking or
photography, as we can appreciate it as a form of modern craftsmanship. Its regularisation seems more
inevitable than ever: the skyrocketing interest and euphoria for Non Fungible Tokens (NFTs) as the modern
gold rush of digital art leads to practices of market speculation. Some content creators have already
reclaimed a Jewish space in the NFT community. The EU must find the most adequate formula to promote
these initiatives. In that way, the ownership of images and memes will restrain at some point the freedom of
content creators. Either way our perception of the Internet nowadays or the untamed nature of the Internet
itself will die sooner or later. It's only a matter of time that the Internet will be under control.

Further reading
Caiani, M., & Parenti, L. (2016). European and American Extreme Right Groups and the Internet. UK:
Routledge.
Campbell, H. A. (2015). Digital Judaism: Jewish Negotiations with Digital Media and Culture. UK:
Routledge.
Lange, A., Mayerhofer, K., Porat, D., & Schiffman, L. H. (2019). Comprehending and Confronting
Antisemitism: A Multi-Faceted Approach. Tel Aviv, Israel. New York, NY, USA: Walter de Gruyter GmbH
& Co KG
Levisohn, J. A., & Kelman, A. Y. (2019). Beyond Jewish Identity: Rethinking Concepts and Imagining
Alternatives. Brookline, MA, USA: Academic Studies Press.
Littler, M., & Lee, B. (2020). Digital Extremists: Readings in Violence, Radicalisation and Extremism in
the Online Space. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, Springer Nature

(33) Opensea, CryptoPunks Nation, David_B_France (2022): CryptoPunk - Israel

(34) Opensea, Bored Ape Yatch Club, D_Wolman (2022): 10142
(35) Mintable, Floydies, floydies (2022): Floydies #2: "One of God's chosen people!"

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 HOW TO STOP ANTISEMITISM? REINFORCE THE JEWISH IDENTITY

Resources
CARR Guide to Online Radical-Right Symbols, Slogans and Slurs: This report by the Centre for
Analysis of the Radical Right details the principal symbols, slang, coded references and terminology used
online by far-right extremists today. The first part of this survey will focus on key images, ranging from the
Celtic Cross to ancient Germanic runes, with an emphasis on frequency of use and changes over time —
such as the recent way in which ‘Pepe the Frog’ has operated as shorthand for various far-right themes.
KnowYourMeme: KnowYourMeme is the world’s largest online database researching and documenting
viral online material. KnowYourMeme includes sections for confirmed, submitted, deadpooled (rejected or
incompletely documented), researching and popular memes.
Meme War Weekly: Meme War Weekly is a newsletter addressing political messaging that comes from
the wilds of the internet, produced by the Technology and Social Change Project at the Harvard Kennedy
School's Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy. Each week, we will look closely at the
use of popular slogans and images and how they are shifting political conversations.
Urban Dictionary: Urban Dictionary is a crowdsourced online dictionary for slang words and phrases.
Originally, Urban Dictionary was intended as a dictionary of slang, or cultural words or phrases, not
typically found in standard dictionaries, but it is now used to define any word, event or phrase. Words or
phrases on Urban Dictionary may have multiple definitions, usage examples and tags.

References
Allington, W. (2020). Antisemitic Memes and Naïve Teens: Qualitative and Quantitative Impacts of the
Internet on Antisemitism, the Evolution of Antisemitism 2.0, and Developing Adaptable Research
Methodologies into Online Hate, Abuse, and Misinformation. https://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/handle/
2123/22444
Arnold-Murray, K. A. O. (2020). "There's No Pride in Antisemitism": Framing the 2019 DC Dyke March Ban
of the Jewish Pride Flag through Facebook Comments. Georgetown University, ProQuest LLC
Avishai, O. (2020). Religious queer people beyond identity conflict: Lessons from orthodox LGBT Jews in
Israel. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 59(2), 360–378. https://doi.org/10.1111/jssr.12650
Ben-Meir, O. (2018). 'Shoshke' the subversive cartoon character: Politics and gender performance in Israel.
Critical Studies in Fashion & Beauty, 9(1), 67–86. https://doi.org/10.1386/csfb.9.1.67_1
Bogerts, L., & Fielitz, M. (2020). The visual culture of far-right terrorism. Global Network on Extremism &
Technology, 31 March. https://gnet-research.org/2020/03/31/the-visual-culture-of-far-right-terrorism/
Chandra, M., Pailla, D., Bhatia, H., Sanchawala, A., Gupta, M., Shrivastava, M., & Kumaraguru, P. (2021).
"Subverting the Jewtocracy": Online Antisemitism Detection Using Multimodal Deep Learning. In 13th ACM
Web Science Conference 2021 (pp. 148–157). https://doi.org/10.1145/3447535.3462502
Crawford, B., Keen, F., & Suarez-Tangil, G. (2021). Memes, Radicalisation, and the Promotion of Violence
on Chan Sites. In The International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media (ICWSM).
Dawkins, R. (1976). The selfish gene. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
De Zeeuw, D., & Tuters, M. (2020). Teh internet is serious business: On the deep vernacular web and its
discontents. Cultural Politics, 16(2), 214–232. https://doi.org/10.1215/17432197-8233406
Ebner, J. (2019). Counter-creativity: Innovative ways to counter far-right communication tactics. In M. Fielitz
& Thurston, N. (Eds), Post-digital cultures of the far right: Online actions and offline consequences in
Europe and the US (pp. 169–181). Political Science | Volume 71. Bielefeld, Germany: transcript Verlag.
https://doi.org/10.14361/9783839446706-012

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About the authors:

Siobhan Cohen is a Doctoral Fellow at the College of Jewish Studies of the Faculty of Philosophy
at the University of Heidelberg. She has also been involved with the No Hate Speech Movement
led by the Council of Europe Youth Department. Her interests include the use of digital art, such as
memes, and new forms of humour, such as the sincere irony, in activism.

Erik Heckscher is a Researcher at the Department of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at the Faculty of
Arts of the University of Helsinki. He is specialised in Hebrew gnosiology and the impact of Jewish
traditions on the European sociology and politics.

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