In their talk, “Anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and Homeland in Germany,” Nitzan Shoshan and Sultan Doughan examine the rise of right-wing extremism in Germany to understand the relationships between heimat, or “homeland,” conceptions of race and difference, and implications of a post-Holocaust world. Shoshan discussed heimat as a central tenet to German identity that is informed by past traditions of German nationalism, and indicative of how various social groups experience and perceive difference. Doughan then analyzed how both German nationalism and a post-Holocaust understanding of anti-Semitism as the pinnacle of persecution are utilized to ignore institutional racism and inhibit the use of racial rhetoric. Ultimately, they addressed a very important question: how can the tension between the universality of rights as asserted in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UHDR) and the failure to protect said rights for non-Jewish groups in Germany be resolved? And how do nationalism, anti-Semitism, race, and racism come into play?
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