ABSTRACT
Jewish-Muslim relations investigated in London and Amsterdam are influenced by the dynamic interplay of a multitude of institutional, positional, and contextual factors. This chapter looks in detail at these three types of factors. Key institutional factors are ideology and practical matters such as initiators, organisational structures, and available resources, but above all the social identity strategies employed. These are closely related to the attitudes Jews, Muslims, and their institutions adopt towards each other, which in turn are influenced by differences in power and identity they experience among themselves. Contextually, in addition to developments that act as ‘trigger events’, such as the Rushdie affair, flare-ups in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and antisemitic or Islamophobic incidents, what stands out is the influence of historical events, public opinion, the mainstream Christian churches and the media, along with the role of the government.
