Jewish Studies Group
The Centre for Jewish Studies is part of CREA. It is the most recently established group, after CEG and Alhiwar, Arab Muslim Studies Group. Keeping with the same dynamic as in the other two groups, the team is made up of Jews and non-Jews. The diverse identities and the interdisciplinariety of the group is considered to be enriching for fostering an exchange that leads us to make contributions that truly take into account the proposals and realities of Jewish people.
The initiation of the group is based on a process of dialogue within the group and with the other members of CREA. In this process we also looked at points in common with the other groups and ways to collaborate jointly among the centres and groups:
- Between CEG and CEJ: to work on education about the Holocaust.
- Between Alhiwar, Arab Muslim Studies Group and CEJ: to work on interreligious dialogue (Judaism and Islam) and/or the Arab-Israeli conflict (between Jews and Muslims, Palestinians and Israelis).
Our priority lines of research are:
- Education about the Shoah (the Holocaust).
- New antisemitism or new judeophobia.
- Judeophobic prejudices and anti-Jewish stereotypes.
- New focus on the reality in Israel.
- Intervention about Jewish culture.
Objetives:
- To identify stereotypes or the image there is about Jews.
- To analyse the new anti-Semitism.
- To analyse the Shoah/Holocaust, particularly how to introduce it into the educational field.
- To elaborate proposals to combat judeophobia.
- To highlight positive contributions of the Jewish community.
- To make the community visible so that people can participate in public from the Jewish identity.
- To create and promote spaces for dialogue, especially between people from different cultures and religions.
- Jewish women and gender: to identify the image there is about Jewish women, the barriers that they encounter, their claims, and their proposals and actions to transform these barriers.
The activities during 2005:
We organised movie forums about the Holocaust based on the movie “The Last Days”, in the Faculty of Pedagogy and the Faculty of Economics at the University of Barcelona.
Talks:
The Centre for Jewish Studies participated in the Intercultural Round Table with CEG and Alhiwar, Arab Muslim Studies Group at La Verneda-Sant Martí School for Adults during their cultural week in April.
In addition, CEJ participated, along with the two other groups, in a round table: Diálogo entre gitanos, árabes musulmanes y judíos; tres pueblos, tres religiones, tres discriminaciones, tres compromises [Dialogue between Romà, Arab Muslims and Jews; three people, three religions, three discriminations, three commitments] presented in the Catalan Parliament of Religions in 2005, Barcelona.
