Editor’s Introduction

Editor's Introduction Catherine Chatterley, Founding Editor-in-Chief This first issue of our eighth volume was produced in the months following the horrifying October 7 Hamas massacre of 1,200 Israeli citizens. At this time, I feel that it is important to express my continued hope for the safe return of all hostages, for the recovery and comfort of all wounded and suffering innocents in Israel and Gaza, and for the entry into Gaza of more than adequate humanitarian relief. As hard as it is to imagine during this challenging and depressing moment, many people wish that this conflict could be resolved peacefully and diplomatically so that Jews and Palestinians could finally enjoy permanent peace and security both in the Middle East and in diaspora. Our first article in this issue is a thoughtfully designed intervention into our discussion of how scholars should define antisemitism. Demographer and statistician Sergio DellaPergola argues that recent attempts at defining the phenomenon of antisemitism have neglected a key piece of evidence—the perceptions of antisemitism among Jewish people based on their own real-life experiences in relation to it. Arguing in support of a bottom-up approach to the subject, he suggests that scholars should place Jewish experiences of antisemitism, based upon the results of a large 2018 survey conducted by the European Union Agency of Fundamental Rights (FRA), at the center of their conceptual analysis and attempts to define the phenomenon. DellaPergola explains the survey's findings regarding the main contents of antisemitic expressions, the channels of transmission of antisemitism, and the identity of perpetrators. Using Similarity Structure Analysis (SSA) maps, he provides the reader with visual representations of the main patterns of Jewish perceptions of contemporary antisemitism and the relationships that exist and do not exist between variables. DellaPergola's research clearly illustrates that there is a significant divide between (European) Jewish perceptions of antisemitism and recent attempts to define the phenomenon. End Page 1 The Vatican's Historical Archive of the Secretariat of State, Section for Relations with States and International Organizations (ASRS) was first opened to scholars in March of 2020. Two years later, in June, Pope Francis requested that the archives of Pope Pius XII's pontificate involving his relationship with the Jewish people be digitized and made available online. In February 2023, the process was completed, which opens up many avenues for historical research. We are pleased to publish two new pieces of research on this material in this issue. David Kertzer and Roberto Benedetti examine files from the Ebrei (Jews) series, held in the Secretariat of State archive, which record the pleas made to the Vatican by Italians who had been defined as Jews under the new racial laws enacted by the fascist government. These people—Catholics who had been Jews (baptized converts from Judaism) or who descended from Jews or were married to Jews—wrote to the Vatican to request validation of their status as "Aryan" Catholics to remove their Jewish racial status under the state's legislation. Included in the files are baptismal certificates, where they exist—which had to be dated prior to October 1, 1938—proof of National Fascist Party membership, and involvement in other fascist organizations, as well as letters from the local Jewish community attesting to the person's non-involvement in Judaism and the Jewish community. This new research reveals the central role played by the Catholic Church in the administration of Italy's racial laws, as well as the participation of Italian Jewish communities. It also clearly demonstrates that the application of the racial laws under Benito Mussolini involved considerations of religion as well as definitions of "race." Using the same newly opened archives of the Pius XII pontificate, a group of scholars from the University of Münster, led by Hubert Wolf (Jana Haack, Sascha Hinkel, Elisabeth-Marie Richter, Judith Schepers, and Barbara Schüler), are engaged in analyzing thousands of petitions written by Jews to request Vatican assistance with emigration. Their project is called Asking the Pope for Help. In this article, they discuss the Vatican's Brazilian Visa Project, which operated from 1939 to 1941 to provide 3,000 immigration visas to Brazil for non...