Jewish–Muslim Encounters in Urban Europe: Under Pressure

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Muslim–Jewish encounters in urban Europe are shaped by different narratives, histories and policies as well as patterns of diversity on a municipal and national level. They are also influenced by geopolitical tensions and affiliations. Between 2021 and 2023, research conducted in Berlin, Frankfurt, London, Manchester, Paris and Strasbourg by sociologists, anthropologists, urbanists and migration policy experts found a wide range of structured and serendipitous encounters. In neighbourhoods where Jews and Muslims dwell, relations are most frequently marked by living “together apart” – side by side but not bonding. Relations between individuals and groups are constantly in flux, shifting between spontaneous fleeting encounters and interpersonal intimacy, durable and temporary staged encounters, and cyclical outbreaks of conflict. We have also seen that neighbourhood-specific narratives can emerge which promote mixing, and that intimate and mutually productive engagement occurs on the street, in commercial contexts and in the cultural sphere. Figures of Jewish and Muslim Otherness are shaped by mainstream media and discourse; community media plays a role in sometimes reinforcing and sometimes challenging these representations. Entrepreneurs of encounter able to navigate tensions across lines of difference play a vital role in this story. In the period in which our research took place, the political context shifted and intensified, culminating with the Hamas attack on October 7th, 2023 and the ensuing war. In this conference, the research findings of the Encounters project set the stage for an exploration by leading academics, activists, and entrepreneurs of encounter from the UK, France and Germany of the shifts in encounter dynamics post-October 7th.

10:00 ◼ Opening: Steve Vertovec (Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity), Matthias Koenig (Heidelberg University)

10:15-11:30 ◼ Session 1: Interfaith encounters

• Alyaa Ebbiary (Lancaster University)
• Dekel Peretz (Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity)
• Samia Hathroubi (Heidelberg University)
• Chair: Matthias Koenig (Heidelberg University)

11:30-11:45 ◼ Coffee break

11:45-13:00 ◼ Session 2: Representing the Other: media and cultural activism

• Anne-Sophie Lamine (Strasbourg University)
• Daniella Shaw (Birkbeck University of London)
• Yasemin El-Menouar (Bertelsmann Stiftung)
• Chair: Yulia Egorova (Durham University)

13:00-14:00 ◼ Lunch break

14:00-15:15 ◼ Session 3: Everyday spaces of encounters and community bridge building

• Nonna Mayer (Science Po)
• Vanessa Rau (Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity)
• Ali Amla (Solutions Not Sides)
• Chair: Alexander-Kenneth Nagel (Göttingen University)

15:15-15:30 ◼ Coffee break

15:30-18:30 ◼ Workshop: Shifts in encounter dynamics since the October 7th War (moderated by Shai Hoffmann and Ahmad Dakhnous with entrepreneurs of encounters from the UK, France and Germany)