Protecting Jewish Communities: an Interview

The war between Israel and Hamas is feared to have consequences on the European Jewish communities. Their safety is not a new issue. This is the interesting interview with the historic head of security of the Italian Jewish community, Giacomo Zarfati, at the Great Mosque of Rome produced in the framework of the SHIELD Project which aims to protect all places of worship from terrorism.

Si teme che la guerra tra Israele e Hamas possa avere conseguenze sulle comunità ebraiche europee. La loro sicurezza non è una questione nuova. Questa è l'interessante intervista allo storico responsabile della sicurezza della comunità ebraica italiana, Giacomo Zarfati, presso la Grande Moschea di Roma realizzata nell'ambito del Progetto SHIELD che mira a proteggere tutti i luoghi di culto dal terrorismo.

Conspiracy theories from René Girard to nowadays CVE challenges

Girard coins the term textes de persécution (persecutory texts) to refer to texts which are unconsciously structured by the sacrificial logic that he has uncovered. Particularly in Le Bouc émissaire, René Girard highlights how these texts are complicit with the designation and persecution of scapegoats; for example, anti-Semitic texts are written as if their authors really believed in the guilt of the Jews, so such texts actively encourage and participate in the violence of the persecutory mechanism.

Tomorrow, in the framework of THE MIMETIC TURN: Final International Conference on Homo Mimeticus , I'll present my paper on modern conspiracy theories:  scapegoats and narratives around the Great Plague of Milan (1930) and today challenges in preventing violent extremism.

Historical Context of anti-Semitic Narratives

Setting the scene of the Radicalisation Awareness Network (RAN) meeting on ‘Antisemitism as a part of almost all extremist ideologies and narratives’.