In this talk, Sina Arnold proposes that the term ‘institutional antisemitism’ can serve as an analytic lens for the study of contemporary antisemitism. Adapted from the well-established concept of ‘institutional racism’, she suggests it can be used to examine how antisemitism is reproduced through organisational norms and practices.
Using a qualitative review of studies on German primary and secondary schools (1990-2024), she finds that curricula confine antisemitism to National Socialism and portray Jews chiefly as victims, or associate them with the Israel-Palestinian conflicts. Teachers also lack the required knowledge to address antisemitism and trivialise alleged antisemitic incidents, while Jewish students report non-intervention from school staff. The talk identifies several parallels with institutional racism such as othering, omissions, indifference and Christian normativity. It further argues that there are unique specificities to institutional antisemitism in German schools such as Holocaust-related taunts and conspiracy tropes.
The talk concludes by pointing to the need to reconnect the study of racism and antisemitism. The concept of institutional antisemitism, Sina Arnold argues, can serve such a project.
Sina Arnold is a senior lecturer and principal investigator at the Research Institute for Social Cohesion and the Center for Research on Antisemitism at Technische Universität Berlin, where she received her PhD in Sociology. Her research focuses on contemporary antisemitism in Germany and the United States, (institutional) racism, memory politics and social movements. She is the author of From Occupation to Occupy: Antisemitism and the Contemporary American Left (Indiana University Press, 2022). In 2025/2026, she was a visiting professor for “Interdisciplinary Critique of Antisemitism and Racism” at Bielefeld University.