Julia Pohlmann

Julia Pohlmann is a historian of European Jewish history (1800–present) and the history of ideas, whose work focuses on the evolution of contemporary antisemitism, the history of political imagination, and the intellectual construction of “Otherness,” through the prism of the Jew. She is currently helds research fellowships at the Institut für die Geschichte der deutschen Juden (IGdJ) in Hamburg and at Wrocław University.

Pohlmann’s research explores how representations of Jews and Israel are mobilized in political discourse, particularly during times of democratic crisis. Her current project, Creating a Pan-European Imagined Jew? Narratives, Projections, and Political Uses Across Borders, examines how the figure of “the Jew” functions as a political trope in post-1945 European rhetoric across Germany, Poland, Spain, and the UK. Her monograph “A Multitude of Western Traditions,” with PriHaPardes (Potsdam, 2026) will be followed by two other monographs in 2027 and 2028.

As a scholar, Julia is committed to bridging the gap between academic research and policy, currently working with legal and academic thinktanks on a pan-European task force designed to translate scholarly findings into actionable insights for combating antisemitism and anti-democratic rhetoric. She holds a PhD in History from the University of Aberdeen and a Master of Jewish Studies from the University of Potsdam. Her work has been supported by the Rothschild Hanadiv Foundation, the Leo Baeck Trust, and the German Historical Society.