In connection with the ongoing European Practitioners Network against Antisemitism project, the Terezín Initiative Institute has prepared an informative survey to determine how the attitudes of pupils, students and teachers toward minorities have changed over the past year. We would like to find out how major geopolitical events have affected the thinking and behavior of your students, especially their attitude towards Jews after 7 October 2023 and the subsequent Israeli-Palestinian conflict. However, we are also interested in other minorities and changes in how your pupils and students perceive them compared to the previous period.
Because you interact with pupils and students on a daily basis, you may notice how their attitudes are changing, how much their attitudes are influenced by social events and how the media, including social media, report on events at home and around the world.
In addition to what prejudiced expressions you have observed among pupils and students, we are interested in knowing which activities you think help to foster respect and tolerance and whether you consider some educational activities to be more risky than others.
By Antisemitism we mean (for short, as defined by the IHRA):
"Antisemitism is a way of seeing Jews that can be expressed as hatred towards them. Verbal and physical manifestations of Antisemitism may be directed against Jewish or non-Jewish persons or property, against institutions of the Jewish community and against religious institutions." They are Antisemitic when the State of Israel is attacked as the representative of the Jewish community. Other criticism of the State of Israel, like criticism of any other state, should not be considered Antisemitic. Rhetoric common to Antisemitism accuses Jews of conspiring to harm humanity and is often used to blame Jews for current problems. Antisemitism appears in the spoken word, in texts, in images, and in other activities, using vicious stereotypes and supposedly negative characteristics of Jews.
The questionnaire consists of four parts:
1) General anonymous information about you
2) Questions about your experiences with expressions of antisemitism, antigypsyism, racism and xenophobia
3) We ask about some of the statements we have repeatedly seen on social media, in discussions of articles, in the press or on television
4) We ask how you deal with prejudicial behaviour in your teaching practice.
It will take you less than 10 minutes to complete the tick-box part of the questionnaire. The text part of the questionnaire is not compulsory, but we would appreciate your answers - it will help us understand the results.
Please forward the questionnaire to your colleagues.
