The commemorative speech delivered by Elie Rosen, President of the Jewish Communities of Salzburg, Styria and Carinthia, on the occasion of International Holocaust Remembrance Day in Parliament was marked by moral gravity and historical responsibility. It served as a powerful reminder of the singular crime of the Holocaust and of the enduring obligation to protect Jewish life. This reminder is undisputed and necessary. All the more important, however, is precision of language when historical remembrance transitions into contemporary political or religious criticism.

Elie Rosen is no exception. Given how often political and media debates about Jewish identity —by Jews— are linked to a victim role, the question arises as to whether the victim role is not desired in the end. Image: Austrian Parliament

Particularly problematic was Rosen’s sweeping criticism of “Islamism,” which was not sufficiently differentiated in the speech. While political sunni/shia movements —especially in their violent and antisemitic manifestations— are real and dangerous, drawing an undifferentiated connection between extremism and Islam as a whole risks conflating religious concepts and collectively addressing billions of believers who have no connection whatsoever to antisemitism or violence.

Neither sunnism nor shiism “are” Islam or Islamism. They are theological currents outside of Islam that venerate the Prophet Muhammad while nevertheless referring to the Holy Quran. The term “Islam” itself means “devotion” or “submission” in Arabic —exclusively submission to God.

Another central issue concerns religiously motivated antisemitism that is prevalent in parts of the sunni and shia worlds. This antisemitism derives less from the Holy Quran itself than from certain traditions (hadiths) attributed to the Prophet Muhammad. Many of these hadiths contain anti-Jewish statements, yet they stand in clear contradiction to Quranic passages in which Jews are recognized as “People of the Book” and in which religious pluralism is fundamentally envisaged. In general, these hadiths function as an instrument to counteract the Law of Allah —which, unlike the Torah, has remained unchanged to this day—, for example through the legalization of pedophilia: keyword Aisha.

Islamic scholarship further points out that the major hadith collections were compiled long upon the death of the Prophet. The oldest known hadith manuscript, currently in the possession of the university of Leiden, dates to roughly 200 years upon Muhammad’s death. This temporal distance makes clear that the hadiths represent later theological, political, or social interpretations rather than direct prophetic statements. That such traditions are still used today as religious justification for hatred and violence constitutes a serious internal sunni and shia problem —yet it is not evidence of an inherent antisemitism within Islam as a religion.

It is precisely here that the strategic void becomes apparent: a sincerely intended “Israeli struggle against antisemitism” cannot succeed if its opponent is incorrectly defined. Those who fail to distinguish between true religion and sects ultimately do not fight antisemitism, yet a construct. A fight against a false enemy does not lead to victory.

And besides, would God ever allow His true Work to become annihilated?

This leads to a sensitive yet necessary moment of self-reflection. In political and media debates, Jewish identity —understandably given historical experience— is often strongly associated with the role of victimhood. While historically grounded, this perspective can become problematic when it is uncritically generalized or strategically employed in the present. The case of Gil Ofarim, in which a serious accusation of antisemitism was later admitted to be false, as well as the stance of many, if not all, Israeli institutions, raises the question of whether the victim role may, in fact, be desired.

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By Okay Altinisik | 31-1-2026, 11:09:51 (updated on 1-2-2026, 18:37:32)