Ritual Practice

Ever since Christianity emerged from Judaism, partly out of (initially) intra-Jewish conflicts, Jewish ritual practice has been and continues to be portrayed as a negative black foil, as backward, outdated or even harmful, on which the superior Christianity shines all the brighter. Christian women formulated their religious self-image by differentiating themselves from Jewish ritual practice in an "anti-Jewish / antisemitic othering". The planned project therefore aims to investigate the extent to which Jews are influenced in their religious practice by this anti-Jewish representation and negative reactions to Jewish ritual practice in words and deeds to such an extent that they avoid the "unnecessary display" of Jewish ritual practice in public spaces and towards non-Jews in advance due to feared attacks.

This Jewish selfrestraint is to be countered by various projects. On the one hand, workshops are to convey the significance of ritual practice for Jews to journalists and multipliers, including Christian theologians and pastors. Secondly, short online videos are to be produced for social media in which Jews of all age groups and denominations explain in a vivid, authentic and emotional way why which form of ritual practice is personally important to them.