“This Is Just Where We Are in History”

Abstract

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Classifying Muslims: Contextualizing Religion and Race in the United Kingdom and Germany

“…Gidley and Everett (2022) and Egorova (2022) have pointed toward the similarities and differences in the racialization processes faced by Jews and Muslims in the British context (and beyond), and the role of both state and society in this process. Egorova (2022), for instance, argues that Muslims experience less protection against discrimination vis-àvis the law because they have not been recognized as a racial or ethnic group. She connects this difference to the longer historical trajectory of Jewish communities in the United Kingdom, and their integration into British collective memory, as well as the specificity of how anti-Semitism has been coded and addressed since World War II.…”

“…Once dominantly understood as a faith‐group, Jews have been explicitly protected by law from “racial hatred” since 1983 (Grillo 2010; UK Parliament 2002). Unlike Jews and also Sikhs, Muslims have not been recognized as an ethnic group in the United Kingdom, effectively leading to weaker protection against discrimination under British law (Egorova 2022; Modood 2016).…”

“…Scholars have looked, in particular, to the shift from the 20th‐century designation of Jews in the United Kingdom as a religious group to their designation as an ethnic/racial group in antidiscrimination law (Kahn‐Harris and Gidley 2010; Modood 2016). Gidley and Everett (2022) and Egorova (2022) have pointed toward the similarities and differences in the racialization processes faced by Jews and Muslims in the British context (and beyond), and the role of both state and society in this process. Egorova (2022), for instance, argues that Muslims experience less protection against discrimination vis‐à‐vis the law because they have not been recognized as a racial or ethnic group.…”

Common difference: Conceptualising simultaneity and racial sincerity in Jewish-Muslim relations in the United Kingdom

“…This equation has found expression in public policy interventions aimed at managing Muslim citizens in the aftermath of the attacks on 11 September 2001 and 7 July 2005 (Kasstan, 2022: 253). At the same time, the Jewish population has been portrayed as a ‘model minority’ (Kasstan, 2022; Sheldon, 2016; Meer and Noorani, 2008), though, importantly, narratives of the perceived ‘success’ that Jewish communities had achieved in integrating into British society have contained clear anti-Semitic tropes (Egorova, 2022).…”