The research team initially considered adopting a single definition of antisemitism, such as the Working Definition created by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. ¹ However, this approach was ultimately deemed too restrictive. While a useful tool in some contexts, this definition was conceptualised as a "practical tool, not a theoretical one" and represents a "minimal consensus" within scholarship, necessitating further expansion and contextualisation in legal analysis. ² Collecting only cases where the courts recognise and openly use the term antisemitism is not an appropriate solution either. Court decisions often do not state that a case is about Jews or is related to antisemitism. This is due to the practice of shortening court decisions ³ and the concise writing style of the judgments, but may also be due to ignorance of the issues at hand. This is particularly true in cases heard by higher courts or courts of last resort, which often do not examine the facts of the case but instead review lower court decisions for legal or procedural errors and focus on errors of law. To address these challenges, the database was created using a context-sensitive theoretical framework that was borrowed from the social sciences. This approach is based on the distinction between four types of antisemitism, which are discussed in more detail below: Christian anti-Judaism, modern antisemitism, post-Shoah antisemitism and Israel-related antisemitism. This approach made it possible to identify decisions in which antisemitic elements were overlooked or not openly addressed by the judiciary. Wherever possible, additional information was obtained through primary or secondary sources. Restricting the database to cases with explicitly proven antisemitic motives or background would overlook how courts address, discuss and perceive antisemitism, including instances where allegations of antisemitism are present but unproven. The context-sensitive approach was complemented by a search for cases in which discussions about antisemitism were part of the proceedings even though the incident was not necessarily antisemitic. These cases illustrate how courts understand, determine and address antisemitism.

Four Concepts of Antisemitism

Four concepts of antisemitism have guided the collection of court decisions in France, Germany, the United Kingdom and Poland after 1945: Christian anti-Judaism, modern antisemitism, post-Shoah antisemitism and Israel-related antisemitism.

Christian Antijudaism emerged during the Western European crusades and was characterised by systemic persecution and the denigration of Judaism. It is partly rooted in the New Testament, where Jews are depicted as moneylenders and guilty of the crucifixion of Christ. ⁴ Historical accusations of the poisoning of wells, the sacrificing of Christian children, sexual deviance and demonic conspiracies led to widespread violence including mass murder, expulsion and assimilation through baptism. In contemporary settings, this prejudice persists among some conservative Christian ethnic nationalists who negate any similarities between Christianity and Judaism, reject the Second Vatican Council and any “rejudaisation” of Christianity. ⁵ Contemporary movements against Jewish ritual slaughter (shechita) sometimes also play into the anti-Judaic notion of the blood libel.⁶

Modern Antisemitism is historically linked to anti-Judaism and shares some tropes. ⁷ However, modern antisemitism singles out Jews as a race and an isolated collective with its own interests. ⁸ It emerged in the 19th century and is connected to the development of nations, the notion of biological races, the concept of ethnic purity and a fear of Jews as an enemy within and as an obstacle to realising a homogenous nation. ⁹ Modern antisemitism can also be connected to a truncated critique of capitalism, which not only understands Jews as personifications of abstract, greedy financial capital – in contrast to productive industrial capital – but also as embodying capitalism in general. ¹⁰ Modern antisemitism was central to the German national-socialist ideology and used to justify the Shoah. It is still prevalent in right-wing groups who, for example, mobilise fears of globalisation and conspiracies of a “Great Reset” supposedly advanced by Jews.¹¹

Post-Shoah antisemitism is motivated by a rejection of guilt in countries involved in the violence of the Holocaust, and often expressed in the form of Holocaust denial, distortion or trivialisation. sup id="a12">12 It can also coincide with a “sense of collective victimhood” and appeals for an end to the supposed culture of guilt in Europe.¹³ This form of antisemitism sometimes overlaps with other articulations of antisemitism, like Christian anti-Judaism, notably in rhetoric that equates contemporary social issues with the atrocities of the Shoah.¹⁴

Israel-related Antisemitism is characterised by the transfer of existing anti-Jewish tropes onto the state of Israel – for instance, by demonising Israel or holding all Jews collectively responsible for the state’s actions.¹⁵ It is prevalent in many communities, from the right wing to leftist anti-imperialist, anti-globalisation movements.¹⁶ Israel-related antisemitism is also often connected to a truncated version of capitalism critique that understands Zionism/Israel/the United States as embodiments of abstract capital and capitalism.¹⁷

To comprehensively examine how national courts perceive and tackle antisemitism through their judgments, the case law database focuses on four countries: Germany, France, Poland and the United Kingdom. Our sampling is governed by the following criteria:

• The countries selected provide a general overview of how courts confront antisemitism in Europe (the European perspective).
• These countries provide a nuanced overview of the particularities inherent to civil (Germany, France, Poland) and common law (the United Kingdom) legal systems.
• Antisemitism represents a tangible challenge for social trust and security in these countries in both contemporary and historical perspectives. They all share a lengthy and turbulent relationship with Judaism and antisemitism.

A multifaceted approach is employed to find relevant court cases, ensuring a comprehensive collection of judicial decisions. The methods include: exploring legal databases and law reports, retrieving court documents from courts and prosecution offices and accessing court documents in archives.

Search Legal Databases

The databases we have used include official government repositories, ministerial databases, court databases and commercial databases. For French cases, resources such as Légifrance, ArianeWeb (Conseil d’État), Judilibre (Cour de cassation), Gallica and Dalloz.fr are utilised. In the case of Germany, the focus shifts to Beck-Online; for Polish cases, Legalis.pl and Portal Orzeczeń are the primary resources. For the United Kingdom, Westlaw UK, Find Case Law, and the British and Irish Legal Information Institute Database serve as key sources. A list of keywords was established reflecting the legal, social and linguistic peculiarities of each country. In addition, “truncations” – placeholders like the asterisk – are used to enable the identification of different variants of terms. For instance, words and placeholders such as antisemit* or jew* are employed.

Examining Law Reports

Many cases that have not yet been digitised were found through an extensive review of law reports. Law reports are organised by chronological order, judicial hierarchy, legal discipline and occasionally by theme. As a result, researchers must carefully examine each decision and navigate the complexities of legal documentation.

Retrieving Documents from Courts and Prosecution Offices

Accessing further non-digitised court decisions involved directly engaging with the relevant courts and prosecution offices. This necessitated initial research to discover potential cases and identify the appropriate legal institutions in each jurisdiction by conducting a review of secondary sources. These include press reports – particularly from Jewish newspapers, such as the archives of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency – as well as academic literature in the fields of religious studies, history, political science, anthropology and law. Often this phase extends to uncovering specific details such as the court's name, the involved parties and the date of the decision. Formal requests are then made for copies of the relevant court decisions. This approach has been especially successful for more recent German decisions.

Accessing Archives

Archival research for unpublished decisions involves a consultation of secondary sources, including a review of press reports before engaging with the relevant archives to secure the court decisions identified. In Germany, we have focused on the archives of the individual federal states. We have conducted digital searches and consulted departmental and community archives across France, as well as the Archives Nationales. For the United Kingdom, the National Archives and The Wiener Holocaust Library have been especially helpful.

We strive to provide as many relevant court decisions as possible from our selected countries but our dataset inevitably contains some gaps and biases.

Bias as a result of the use of online databases:

Relying on online databases – whether free or commercial – brings inherent limitations. These resources often do not include every court decision and typically do not disclose their selection criteria. This is particularly evident in our efforts to identify cases related to antisemitism, where a disproportionate number of cases originate from higher courts. Lower court decisions, such as acts of cemetery desecration, rarely appear in these databases. Furthermore, the database content from the period between 1945 and the 1970s in Germany predominantly addresses compensation and Nazi-era injustices, highlighting a thematic bias. Keyword searches within these databases also have limitations. Cases that do not contain the specified terms may be overlooked, especially when decisions fail to include necessary contextual information or are summarised to the extent that only procedural details are provided. Together, these factors collectively contribute to an incomplete and potentially biased dataset, highlighting a need to improve legal databases overall to facilitate data-driven empirical legal research.

Selective access to court decisions through archives, courts and prosecution offices

Archives do not comprehensively store every court decision issued. Instead, a deliberate selection process is undertaken to determine which materials are deemed "worthy of archiving," resulting in a curated collection of preserved court decisions. The structural nuances of archival systems in various countries, combined with specific methods of classifying cases, substantially affect the accessibility of court decisions. In addition, legal requirements relating to the retention periods of certain files make access even more difficult, restricting the availability of some documents until certain periods have elapsed. Taken together, these factors shape the dataset by determining which decisions are accessible and which remain inaccessible. Access to court decisions through courts and prosecutor offices also significantly influences the dataset. Several factors are decisive, including stringent confidentiality policies, bureaucratic hurdles and the variable willingness of legal institutions to share information. These obstacles may result in a dataset that is disproportionately representative of cases that are more readily accessible or available through public channels, which may in turn skew the overall picture of legal precedents and judicial outcomes.

Representation of areas of law in the dataset

Case availability for each year:

Geographical and Linguistic Barriers

While the project’s affiliation with German law faculties facilitates access to German legal databases, prosecution offices and archives, the purchase of additional licenses was necessary to consult foreign databases. Similarly, building in-depth knowledge of Germany’s archival landscape and visiting archives throughout the country limited the team’s ability to conduct research in France, Poland and the United Kingdom. Another challenge lay in locating and accessing court decisions from the German Democratic Republic (GDR), largely because of the lack of readily available online search tools for archival holdings in regions such as Saxony and Thuringia. As a result, the current dataset is dominated by German cases. However, there is a concerted aim to achieve a more balanced representation of cases across the selected countries.


Cases in the Four Countries