Israel Studies Seminar: Recent Episodes
Oxford University
Running weekly during Term time, the Israel Studies Seminar is the primary setting for public discussions on a wide spectrum of issues relating to Israeli society, history, politics and culture in the University of Oxford. With an international list of speakers, it has been attracting much attention and a growing audience participation. The seminar is convened by Prof. Yaacov Yadgar, the Stanley Lewis Professor of Israel Studies, based at the Oxford School of Global and Area Studies and the Department of Politics and International Relation. The seminar is hosted by the Middle East Centre at St. Antony’s College. For more details, see the Seminar’s website here: https://www.mes.ox.ac.uk/#/
In this lecture, Dr Stav Shufan-Biton examines how Israeli Jews living outside Israel experience holy time, focusing on Shabbat, Jewish holidays, and local religious and civil holidays such as Halloween and Christmas. Drawing on ongoing ethnographic research based on interviews and observations conducted within Israeli Jewish communities in Cambridge and London, the findings show that cultural distance and a sense of temporariness enable the selective adoption of Jewish mitzvot alongside openness to local ritual practices.Interviewees with flexible religious identities, particularly those identifying as secular or traditional, actively choose rituals they perceive as enjoyable and meaningful. These include Jewish practices such as Hanukkah, Purim, or partial Sukkot decorations, as well as local practices such as trick-or-treating on Halloween, Christmas decorations, singing carols learned at school or kindergarten, and exchanging gifts. At the same time, some halakhic practices that were part of everyday life in Israel, including the weekly Friday night Kiddush, fasting or reduced activity on Yom Kippur, and partial observance of Passover, tend to be less consistently maintained in the new context.Building on Ammerman’s framework of lived religion, the analysis highlights how enjoyment, curiosity, and a sense of magic, alongside child centered and family-oriented logics, shape ritual participation and contribute to a reconfiguration of ethnic and religious boundaries in everyday life.Stav Shufan-Biton is a sociologist and currently a Postdoctoral Fellow and Visiting Research Fellow in the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Cambridge. Her research interests focus on the sociology of religion, the sociology of time, and Israeli society. Her doctoral dissertation examined understandings of the weekend among Jews in Israel and resulted in several peer reviewed publications, which are available online. She currently studies experiences of sacred time among religious minorities, including Jews and other groups, across the UK, with support from the Argov Centre for the Study of Israel and the Jewish People.
Professor Elad Lapidot reflects on the relations between post-Holocaust Jewish thought and decolonial thought through the work of French-Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas. Recently thinkers criticized Levinas for his Eurocentrism. In his recent book, State of Others. Levinas and Decolonial Israel (Indiana UP, 2025), he argues that Levinas anticipated this critique and from the 1960s on sought to develop the foundations for decolonial Jewish thought – and for decolonial Zionism. To demonstrate this claim, his talk will analyze Levinas’s entire intellectual project as articulated around a fundamental turn between the period prior to 1968 and the post-68 period. The turn relates to Levinas’s understanding of the relationship between Judaism and Western civilization – and to his position with respect to the State of Israel and to the Palestinian question.Elad Lapidot is Professor for Jewish Thought at the University of Lille, France. His work is guided byquestions concerning the relation between knowledge and politics. Among his publications: State of Others. Levinas and Decolonial Israel (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2025), Politics of Not Speaking (Albany: SUNY Press, 2025), Jews Out of the Question. A Critique of Anti-Anti-Semitism (Albany: SUNY Press, 2020), Hebrew translation with introduction and commentary (with R. Bar) of Hegel’s Phänomenologie des Geistes, Vol. 1 (Tel Aviv: Resling Publishing, 2020).
Raef Zreik talks about his paper, with a focus on Zionist, Liberal and Movement. When things are presented in an alternative way, we will find out that the problem is political, not logical, it is historical and not merely concept Raef Zreik, a Professor of moral and political philosophy at Tel Aviv College and Prof. of Jurisprudence at Ono Academic college and senior researcher at Jerusalem Van Leer Institute, will talk about his paper, with a focus on Zionist, Liberal and Movement. When things are presented in an alternative way, we will find out that the problem is political, not logical, it is historical and not merely conceptual.Professor Zreik's recent publications include: Kant's Struggle for Autonomy (book), War and Self-Defense: Reflections on the War on Gaza in Analysis and Kritik, Zionism and Political Theology in the journal Political Theology; The Tyranny of Truth and the Tyranny of Opinion: Thinking with Hannah Arednt in Theoretical Inquiries in Law.
The grouping of Yiddish speaking Jews, of various origin countries in Central and Eastern Europe, into a single overarching identity of Ashkenazim, was meaningful particularly in multi-ethnic and multi-lingual Jewish contexts. This seminar examines the shaping of the Ashkenazi community in Ottoman Jerusalem, as facilitated by Ottoman legal and political context. Ottoman recognition of Ashkenazim as a corporate identity was crucial to its emergence and continuity.Dr Yair Wallach is a Reader (Associate Professor) in Israeli Studies, and the head of the SOAS Centre for Jewish Studies. He has written on urban and material culture in modern Palestine/Israel, and more recently on race and migration. His book A City in Fragments: Urban Text in Modern Jerusalem (Stanford University Press, 2020) won the Jordan Schnitzer book prize in 2022.
In this talk, Dr Sapir will present her research on the historical development of student volunteering in Israeli higher education and its current implications. Based on archival analysis of two elite universities over four decades, the study identifies three key debates surrounding student volunteering: over the purpose of volunteering; over its mandatory nature; and over the awarding of academic credit. Challenging current critiques which focus on tensions embedded in the current neo-liberal climate, the historical lens reveals that key features – such as individualisation, control mechanisms, and demands for compensation – were shaped in earlier decades. These debates reflect broader questions about the shifting boundaries of the academic mission, student equity, and academic autonomy. Connecting this study to ongoing research on widening participation in Israeli higher education, she argues that mandatory volunteering requirements tied to need-based grants function as mechanisms of disciplinary poverty governance, reproducing inequality through disciplinary practices.Dr Adi Sapir is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Leadership and Policy in Education at the University of Haifa. Her research focuses on higher education and its social, cultural, historical, and organisational contexts. She has studied early academic entrepreneurship, the evolving meanings of basic and applied research, and the commodification of universities’ public roles. Her current work examines equity in higher education, focusing on the experiences and challenges of students from disadvantaged backgrounds and the institutional barriers they encounter.
This study explores the mechanisms underlying the paradox of marginality experienced by middle-class Palestinian professional women in the Israeli labour market through an intersectional analysis of their everyday professional lives. It demonstrates that this paradox—characterised by their marginalisation despite possessing high educational capital comparable to that of highly educated Jewish (both men and women) and Palestinian male professionals—is perpetuated through biopolitical modes of power. The findings reveal that when their professional capital intersects with other axes of power such as ethnicity/racism, gender, religious norms, and tribal affiliations, it fails to receive recognition or legitimacy from colleagues and clients, thereby reinforcing intersectional inequalities.Professor Sarab Abu Rabia-Queder is an Associate Professor at the school of Education at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. In her studies, she focuses on the mechanisms of control, racialisation and marginalisation of minority groups in the fields of higher education, employment and the family. She has published many papers in journals such as Sociology, British Journal of Sociology and Current Sociology and the winner of several competitive grants and prizes, such as the Toronto Prize for Excellent Young Academic Scholars, Businesses for Peace, and has chosen as the sociologist of the month (July) for Current Sociology journal (2019). In May 2024, she received an honorary doctorate from Weizman Institute of Science for promoting epistemic justice for minority groups. Alongside her academic pursuits, Professor Abu-Rabia-Queder is also a feminist activist. She serves as a board member in several NGO’s and academic committees. Her main activity focuses on issues central to Palestinian women’s agenda such as access to education, combating polygamy, and improving employment opportunities.
In this lecture I present Religious Zionism, the right-wing religious nationalist movement, which despite representing 12-16% of Israel’s population, has a prominent and influential place in the current “fully” right-wing government. In contradistinction to previous research, I argue that this movement, which initiated and led the settlement movement in the West Bank and the Golan Heights, is best understood not as a fundamentalist movement, but as a religious romantic nationalist enterprise that at its philosophical core emphasizes modern notions, such as self-expression and self-realization. Thus, not only does it adopt important components of the modern cultural program, it also presents a religious theory of modernity. I briefly examine how opposing religious Zionist sub-streams developed in response to the political and cultural challenges that the broader Israeli society and government posed. Finally, I discuss the impact of recent developments: 1) the increasing acceptance of religious nationalism among the general Israeli public; and 2) the extensive Religious Zionist participation (and sacrifice) in the prosecution of the Israel-Hamas war.Dr. Shlomo Fischer is a Senior Fellow at the Jewish People Policy Institute in Jerusalem. Until his retirement, he taught sociology in the School of Education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He has published extensively on religious Zionism and the Shas movement. His research interests include religion in Israel and its intersections with politics and class, the American Jewish community, and the relations of religious and civic education. His book, Expressivist Religious Zionism: Modernity and the Sacred in a Nationalist Movement was published in December 2024.
In this presentation, Professor Yacobi aims to discuss settler colonial urbanism(s) in Palestine/Israel, while exploring the different spatial and political typologies developed during the last few decades. He will discuss how colonial planning has been used as a tool of social, demographic, and spatial control and how Palestinian claims for the right to the city are meaningful political forms of protest. The presentation will refer to Palestinian cities (such as Lydda) that were transformed into ‘Jewish-Arab mixed cities’, to new ‘Jewish cities’ that are going through a process of ‘Arabisation’, to Jerusalem as a neo-apartheid city, and to the current spatiocide of Gaza. The argument to be articulated in this talk is that moving from the paradigm of separation into a shared homeland is the only sustainable approach which will lead to a shared future.Haim Yacobi is a Professor of Development Planning at the Bartlett Development Planning Unit. With a background in architecture he specialised in critical urban studies and urban health. Between 2006-2007 he was a Fulbright Post-doctorate fellow at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, University of California, Berkeley, and then joined the Department of Politics and Government at BGU. For the years 2010-2012 he received a Marie Curie Grant which has enabled him to work at Cambridge University, where he conducted a research project that dealt with contested cities. The main issues that stand in the center of his research interest in relation to the urban space are social justice, the politics of identity, urban health, and colonial planning. In 1999 he formulated the idea of establishing ‘Bimkom – Planning in Human Rights’ an NGO that deals with human rights and planning in Israel/Palestine and was its co-founder. Currently he holds (together with Prof Omar Dajani) a UKRI ESRC grant: ‘The Shared Homeland Paradigm: Reimagining Space, Rights and Partnership in Palestine-Israel’.
amp; Lévy), often overlooked by normative Judaism, yet central to the ethical imagination of Mizrahi feminist thought. These women’s rituals challenge the dichotomy between public and private, legal and affective, tradition and innovation.Dr Angy Cohen is a Ramón y Cajal research fellow at the Institute of Languages and Cultures of the Mediterranean and the Middle East at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC). She holds a PhD from the Autonomous University of Madrid and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and has held academic positions at Tel Aviv University, Concordia University (Canada), and the University of Calgary (Canada). Her research focuses on Sephardi and Mizrahi communities in Israel and in the diaspora—particularly in Argentina—with special attention to migration memories and experiences, women’s religiosity, Sephardi feminism, and the everyday moral experiences of Sephardi women. She combines ethnographic fieldwork with feminist theory and Jewish thought to explore questions of tradition, care, and ethics and subjectivity.
Although overshadowed by the scale of atrocities in Gaza since October 2023, employment and workers’ rights significantly affect individual lives, non-citizen workers, and the region’s political economy The scale of atrocities in Gaza since October 2023 has overshadowed less catastrophic issues such as employment and workers’ rights. Yet these concerns, while less urgent, significantly affect individual lives, non-citizen workers, and the region’s political economy. Key developments include the replacement of Palestinian workers with migrant workers and the adoption of problematic recruitment mechanisms discarded in the past. These developments reflect a tension between three logics underlying the political economy of non-citizen labour in Israel/Palestine: a capitalist, an ethno-nationalist, and a colonial logic. They show how events since October 2023 have shaped the relationship between the three logics. Conflicts around the use of national security rhetoric following the 7 October attack to promote a far-right political ideology and around domestic and international checks and balances that used to offer (limited) protection of workers’ rights demonstrate these tensions.Dr Maayan Niezna is a Lecturer at the University of Liverpool School of Law and Social Justice. Before joining the School, she was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Modern Slavery and Human Rights at the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights, University of Oxford. Her research focuses on trafficking for labour exploitation, the regulation of labour migration, and the rights of non-citizens. She previously worked at the Hotline for Refugees and Migrants-Israel, the Office of the National Anti-trafficking Coordinator, Israeli Ministry of Justice, UNHCR, and worked on issues concerning the rights of Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories as a lawyer at Gisha-Legal Center for Freedom of Movement.Dr Niezna's co-author Dr Yahel Kurlander is a sociologist of labour markets specialising in migration and work. Her research explores the intersections of labour migration, agriculture, law, and health, with a focus on Thai and other migrant workers in Israel. She has published extensively in leading academic journals and collaborates on international research with partners from academia and civil society. Her current projects address the impact of war on migrant workers, agricultural policy, and access to healthcare for marginalised groups. She is a Senior Lecturer at Tel-Hai Academic College.
By situating Hebrew textbooks for adults within their historical and social contexts, this lecture sheds light on the intricate relationship between pedagogy, national identity, and the challenges faced by immigrants adapting to a new homeland. Employing the concept of Entangled Histories, it connects global pedagogical knowledge of language instruction with the unique adaptations developed in Mandatory Palestine and the State of Israel for adult learners. Through an examination of Hebrew textbooks, their authors, and their integration into Hebrew classes for adults, often conducted as evening lessons, my research highlights the interplay between imported methodologies and local innovations. The lecture explores how Hebrew textbooks became a medium for navigating the tension between preserving cultural heritage and fostering integration into a rapidly evolving society.Rakefet Anzi is a PhD candidate in Jewish History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a 2024/25 Leo Baeck Fellow of the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes. Her dissertation explores Hebrew language education for adults in Mandatory Palestine and early Israel (1930s–1950s), focusing on its role in shaping national identity and society-building.She has been affiliated with the Franz Rosenzweig Minerva Center and the Cherrick Center, contributing to research on German-Jewish history and the Yishuv. In May–July 2025, Rakefet will be a Junior Visiting Scholar at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies.Alongside her research, she teaches at the Hartman High School for Girls in Jerusalem, blending her passion for history and education.
By situating Hebrew textbooks for adults within their historical and social contexts, this lecture sheds light on the intricate relationship between pedagogy, national identity, and the challenges faced by immigrants adapting to a new homeland. Employing the concept of Entangled Histories, it connects global pedagogical knowledge of language instruction with the unique adaptations developed in Mandatory Palestine and the State of Israel for adult learners. Through an examination of Hebrew textbooks, their authors, and their integration into Hebrew classes for adults, often conducted as evening lessons, my research highlights the interplay between imported methodologies and local innovations. The lecture explores how Hebrew textbooks became a medium for navigating the tension between preserving cultural heritage and fostering integration into a rapidly evolving society.Rakefet Anzi is a PhD candidate in Jewish History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a 2024/25 Leo Baeck Fellow of the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes. Her dissertation explores Hebrew language education for adults in Mandatory Palestine and early Israel (1930s–1950s), focusing on its role in shaping national identity and society-building.She has been affiliated with the Franz Rosenzweig Minerva Center and the Cherrick Center, contributing to research on German-Jewish history and the Yishuv. In May–July 2025, Rakefet will be a Junior Visiting Scholar at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies.Alongside her research, she teaches at the Hartman High School for Girls in Jerusalem, blending her passion for history and education.
What emotional traits are essential for building a nation? More broadly, are there such things as ‘national emotions,’ and if so, what are they? In this lecture, I will explore these questions by analysing the Zionist case through the lens of the history of emotions. I will examine emotions where the national dimension is evident, such as honour and love of the homeland, alongside emotions that may seem less directly national, like fear and happiness.
What emotional traits are essential for building a nation? More broadly, are there such things as ‘national emotions,’ and if so, what are they? In this lecture, I will explore these questions by analysing the Zionist case through the lens of the history of emotions. I will examine emotions where the national dimension is evident, such as honour and love of the homeland, alongside emotions that may seem less directly national, like fear and happiness.
The seminar explores the discursive mapping of far-right constituents within the most right-wing coalition in Israel’s history, formed under Benjamin Netanyahu’s premiership after the five elections held between 2019 and 2022. The Religious Zionism Party and Jewish Power have consistently been at the centre of heated debate—not only because their leaders hold critical ministerial positions, including finance and national security, which gained heightened relevance in the aftermath of October 7th, but also due to their self-positioning within Israel’s shifting political landscape and their anti-establishment push for political and legal changes, even before these events.The seminar examines their shared and divergent motivations during the 2021 and 2022 elections, with a focus on the division of labour between these two factions. Drawing on campaign data from X (formerly Twitter) by key leaders Betzalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir, it offers a comparative analysis of their articulation of the key issues such as legitimacy, sovereignty, and the judiciary.This lecture is based on some of the data collected and analysed during his postdoctoral research titled ‘Identifying Multiple Frames of the Israeli Settlements’ at the Oxford School of Global and Area Studies, funded by the TÜBİTAK 2219 International Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Program.
The seminar explores the discursive mapping of far-right constituents within the most right-wing coalition in Israel’s history, formed under Benjamin Netanyahu’s premiership after the five elections held between 2019 and 2022. The Religious Zionism Party and Jewish Power have consistently been at the centre of heated debate—not only because their leaders hold critical ministerial positions, including finance and national security, which gained heightened relevance in the aftermath of October 7th, but also due to their self-positioning within Israel’s shifting political landscape and their anti-establishment push for political and legal changes, even before these events.The seminar examines their shared and divergent motivations during the 2021 and 2022 elections, with a focus on the division of labour between these two factions. Drawing on campaign data from X (formerly Twitter) by key leaders Betzalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir, it offers a comparative analysis of their articulation of the key issues such as legitimacy, sovereignty, and the judiciary.This lecture is based on some of the data collected and analysed during his postdoctoral research titled ‘Identifying Multiple Frames of the Israeli Settlements’ at the Oxford School of Global and Area Studies, funded by the TÜBİTAK 2219 International Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Program.
A book launch event marking the publication of Yaacov Yadgar's new book, To Be a Jewish State: Zionism as the New Judaism. The author in conversation with Amnon Ray-Krakotzkin
This lecture examines the commercial legacy of the Ḥibshūsh family, a prominent Yemenite Jewish dynasty that played a pivotal role in the Red Sea basin trade from the 1880s to the 1970s Utilizing a rich archive of primary sources, this global micro-historical study illuminates the intricate Jewish-Arab commercial networks that flourished across geopolitical boundaries, encompassing Yemen, Mandatory Palestine, Israel, Ethiopia, and beyond.By analyzing the Ḥibshūsh family's extensive business operations, particularly in coffee trade and textile imports, we gain novel insights into Jewish-Muslim relations from a transnational, commercial perspective. This approach reveals the nuanced interactions between Arab-Asian, Israeli, and African communities in the Red Sea region, offering a fresh historical perspective within the contexts of colonial rule (Italian and British) and the Yemenite monarchy.While existing scholarship on Israel's engagement with the Red Sea region and Africa has predominantly focused on political, and security dimensions, this study shifts the lens to long-established Jewish business networks. It explores how Yemenite Jewish entrepreneurs, exemplified by the Ḥibshūsh family, maintained and adapted trade routes connecting Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, Somalia, Djibouti, and Israel before and after the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948.This research contributes significantly to our understanding of Israel's economic history and its commercial ties in the region. By examining how the Ḥibshūsh family navigated shifting political landscapes while sustaining cross-cultural business relationships, we gain deeper insights into the role of Yemenite Jews in shaping Israel's early economic connections in the region; the continuity and adaptation of pre-state Jewish trade networks in the post-1948 era; and the interplay between Israel's diplomatic efforts and private commercial initiatives in Africa.Through this focused study, we illuminate a crucial yet often overlooked aspect of Israeli-African relations, demonstrating how commerce served as a bridge between cultures and nations in this strategically vital region.
How does the global entrepreneurial discourse, which advocates for a neoliberal, individualistic, and future-oriented identity, intersects with a state education system that seeks to establish a collectivist and ethno-national identity? Over the past two decades, the entrepreneurial ethos has gained prominence in state education systems across many countries, aiming to construct an entrepreneurial identity among children and youth. The entrepreneurial ideal is frequently regarded in sociological literature as part of the neoliberal culture serving the global free market economy. The global entrepreneurial discourse promotes neoliberal values which include future orientation, personal autonomy and individualisation. Concurrently, state education systems strive to shape a national identity. In Israel, this objective is uniquely translated to promote an ethno-national, Zionist, Jewish- Israeli identity. The paradox between entrepreneurialism and ethno-nationalism raises an important question: How does the global entrepreneurial discourse, which advocates for a neoliberal, individualistic, and future- oriented identity, intersects with a state education system that seeks to establish a collectivist and ethno-national identity? The study followed the translation of the global entrepreneurial discourse into the local Israeli state education system (mamlakhti) among policymakers, educators, and within educational spaces through a multi- focal qualitative research. Findings reveal a hybrid entrepreneurial-nationalistic ideal emerging in Israeli education, merging neoliberalism and ethno-nationalism, and combining future orientation with Jewish-Israeli narratives and symbols. As neoliberal and ethno-national narratives are weaved together, the local discourse reclaims and reproduces social in/exclusion, marking social boundaries and perpetuating inequality. The research contributes to the understanding of how discourse (re)shapes the social, by showing how a global educational discourse is redesigned and translated within a socio-political context.
Israeli synagogues in mixed cities following the 1948 war, and their sovereign role This paper will focus on synagogues in the urban internal frontier in Israel following the 1948 war and the Nakba. Following the 1948 war and the collapse of Palestinian urbanity, several administrative initiatives were held by the authorities to demonstrate sovereignty in these urban internal frontiers. Among these initiatives were the establishment of new synagogues.Two significant features were highlighted in these newly constructed Israeli synagogues – their architectural design and location within urban space. Synagogues were built in monumental dimensions and were located in locations where they would overshadow other religious buildings and extract Israeli surveillance over the surviving Palestinians in the urban sphere. Thus, the synagogues, as well as the communities that gathered around them, were harnessed into the Zionist colonial policy in the urban sphere and served as national-sovereign agents. This phenomenon is demonstrated through close analysis of archival documents in several urban frontiers in the State of Israel and point out the implications of this shift in various contexts by illustrating five examples of synagogues in Haifa, and Jaffa, Ramla. These examples demonstrate the shift in synagogues role within Jewish society and theology – from places of worship and longevity to the destroyed Temple to symbols of Jewish sovereignty. Moreover, these synagogues demonstrate a shift in the role of religion in Jewish society following the establishment of the state of Israel.
The Creation of Hebrew Music and its Origins The Zionist claim to Palestine was based on a very old story; so old that it became a myth. And since the distance between the Jewish present and the Jewish past was vast, the wish to make Palestine a home for a modern Jewish nation called for creating that nation anew. It was an immense claim that required an equally immense innovation. The lecture reexamines this well-known story by looking at some of the cultural innovations of Zionists - body culture, space, art, music - and considering their fraught legacy a century later.
Debates over housing and cemeteries in Jaffa. In the summer of 2020, protests erupted in Jaffa against a plan to build a homeless shelter on the site of the ancient Al-Isaaf Muslim cemetery, and in the following year, the community mobilized to protest a wave of housing demolitions. These were the latest in a long line of actions by the Muslim community opposing the sale and demolition of Muslim cemeteries and fighting to remain in their homes in Tel Aviv-Jaffa. This paper maps these struggles over everyday spaces of living and dying from the 1950s to the present day and investigates how activists recently gained tangible achievements by framing their protests as an urban citizenship mobilization. The aim of the paper is twofold: it seeks to demonstrate the inter connections between the history of colonialism, partition, new state formation, and contemporary urban conflict; and to theorize the role of the built environment that facilitates daily life, rituals, and mourning, in shaping urban citizenship under post/coloniality. The paper builds on a participatory ‘walk-along’ ethnography, interviews with community leaders and activists, as well as archival tracing of court rulings, newspaper reports, and spatial plans. Utilizing this framework, it will show how activists invoked and reinterpreted the right-to-the-city ideas; deploying creative spatial performances and appealing to municipal governance to demand a deeper geo-temporal right-to-the-city that encompasses its religious and historical dimensions. Dr Michal Huss is a Leverhulme early career fellow and assistant Professor in Human Geography at Durham University. She researches spatial in/justice and struggles over urban planning and the right to the city.
Jewish, Israeli, and Zionist perceptions of Herod. Much is known from ancient authors and archaeological remains about the life and rule of Herod the Great (73-4 BCE), who was appointed king of Judaea by the Romans in 40 BCE. In later Christian mythology, Herod was depicted as an archetypical tyrant who had ordered a massacre of infants in Bethlehem at the time of the birth of Jesus, but Jewish tradition was oblivious of the Christian myth and showed little interest in Herod until the nineteenth century, when he began to be seen by some as an example of a powerful Jew who had negotiated a line between subservience to the ruling power and service to his people. These Jewish depictions of Herod have mutated over the past two centuries under the influence of Zionist ideologies and in light of the establishment of the State of Israel and archaeological finds, and the image of Herod has been employed for markedly different and novel rhetorical purposes over recent years both by Israelis themselves and by others in relation to the actions of the Israeli state. Martin Goodman is Emeritus Professor of Jewish Studies at the University of Oxford and an Emeritus Fellow of Wolfson College. He is a Supernumerary Fellow and former President of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies. Among his books on Jewish and Roman history are Rome and Jerusalem (Allen Lane, 2007) and Herod the Great: Jewish King in a Roman World (Yale University Press, 2024).
Contesting pacifist views and their implications today. In 1938, shortly after the November Reichspogromnacht, leaders of the Zionist movement turned to Gandhi with a request to support the Zionist enterprise in Eretz-Israel/Palestine. Gandhi, against their expectations, stated his strong objection to Zionism, suggesting that German Jews should stay in Germany and practice Satyagraha, even if it would result in massive martyrdom. In his response to Gandhi’s open letter, Buber questioned the wisdom of Satyagraha and effectively took a non-pacifist standpoint that justified violent resistance in extreme cases—such as the Nazi assault on defenseless Jews. He also tried to distinguish between the Zionist project and European colonialism, maintaining, however, that Zionism would only be successful if it could create a true Arab-Jewish cooperative. Martin Buber’s concept of dialogue and Mahatma Gandhi’s concept of Satyagraha developed in response to violent conflict, World War I and the British colonial occupation, respectively. Both Buber and Gandhi advocated non-violence as new paths of resolution and peacemaking. But they also differed in their approaches to pacifism and martyrdom. In this lecture, we will consider the famous Gandhi-Buber correspondence of 1938 to understand some of these differences and their implications for today.Yemima Hadad is an assistant professor for Jewish Studies the Theological Faculty at the University of Leipzig. Her research interests focus on Modern Jewish Thought, German-Jewish Philosophy, Continental Philosophy, Political Theology and Jewish Feminism. She received her PhD from the School of Jewish Theology at the University of Potsdam (2021) and she is a research fellow at the Bucerius Institute for Research of German Contemporary History and Society at the University of Haifa. Her dissertation, Hasidism and Theopolitics in the Writings of Martin Buber, demonstrates the significance of Hasidism in explaining the political tenets of Martin Buber's thought.She held several fellowships including the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes scholarship (2019/2020) and the Leo Baeck Institute fellowship (2018/2019) and the Rosenzweig Minerva Research Center fellowship at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem (2017/2018). Her research has appeared or is forthcoming in journals such as the Hebrew Union College Annual, The Jewish Quarterly Review, Jewish Studies Quarterly, Religions, etc. She is currently working on a monograph, Thinking with Care: Feminine Interventions into the Ethics of Dialogue (expected 2028). The book traces the meaning of feminine thought (Frauendenken) in the 20th century and discusses its relevance for contemporary gender discourses.
On judicial independence in Israel Israel was originally to have a Constitution, but it never did as the issue proved divisive on religious grounds, among others. An unwritten constitution developed in its place. This is the legal context of current constitutional debates, including on the constitutional status of religion in Israel. The solution was the adoption of chapters or Basic Laws, that together would form a constitution. What are the Basic Laws – an exercise of a constitutional authority of the Knesset, if such existed? An exercise of legislative authority?The status of religion in the state is a constitutional matter which directly affects religious freedom, and the establishment of religious is a pivotal constitutional matter. Religious courts derive their legal powers from the statutes enacted by the Knesset and must abide by the laws of the Knesset as interpreted by the Supreme Court, even if it conflicts with their religious interpretation. The religious courts, however, view their authority as emanating from a religious normative system. Attempts to rectify inequalities in religious law through state law directed at religious courts, are destined for a clash of normative hierarchies.The talk will draw on the speaker’s experience as a constitutional law barrister representing litigants in the Supreme Court, as well as on her academic research.
On Zionism's relation to Science Focusing on the relationship between Zionism and science in the first two decades of the Zionist movement, the argument of this paper is threefold. First, that a relationship was established with the very inception of the Zionist movement. Second, it is characterized by a duality, a tension between a highly pragmatic scientific attitude, on the one hand, namely science conceived as ‘engineering,’ as the principal instrument of national construction, and simultaneously, on the other hand, science understood as working with the most fragile and inaccessible ‘materials’ or ‘building blocks.’ I will suggest that the Zionist movement was characterized by the quintessential place of programmatic and detailed planning and of striving towards pragmatically defined goals; at the same time, however, Zionism’s ultimate goal, idealistic, utopian, and always just out of reach, remained unstated. While focusing on the first two decades of the Zionist movement, I suggest, thirdly, that because this intellectual structure was embedded in the socialization processes of Zionism from its very earliest phase, it remains critically important, in spite of the many additional historical events that followed, for the understanding of key facets of Jewish, and later Israeli, society to this day.
Neta Schramm discusses the (non-ideological) "think Zionism" stances of two leading Israeli figures. Back in the days when the Israeli labour party enjoyed its dominance, two prominent agenda-setters in Israel shared an unpopular position: Zionism does not define nor embody Judaism. Prof. Yeshayahu Leibowitz and Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, two Orthodox Jews affiliated with different social and religious milieus, were unhappy about the theological overtones existing in most, or even all, streams of Zionism. They devoted their lifework to shaping and critiquing Israeli social and political policies because of religious sentiments. But Leibowitz and Yosef also refused to turn their “thin” Zionism into a strong ideology. In previous accounts of their positions, Leibowitz is hailed as the first post-Zionist, and Yosef is signaled as the architect of a Mizrahi, Haredi, and Zionist statism. However, turning to their sermons, lectures, and interviews and paying attention to the vocal registers of Leibowitz’s irony and Yosef’s parody shows both these assumptions seem inaccurate. The Iraqi-born Chief Rabbi and the Ostjuden science professor preferred to stick to sardonic statements and even used the same line of arguments (“we are fed up of being ruled by goyim,” as Lebowitz put it) to walk the tightrope between adamant Zionists and anti-Zionists. To sum up, their “pro-zionist” talk was closer to “Zionist neutral” than was previously supposed.
Maya Mark discusses Menachem Begin's commitment to Liberalism The Military Government over the Arab citizens of Israel was established several months after the founding of the state, and ended late in 1966. Although it was initially driven by security considerations and fears concerning the Arab citizens’ involvement in hostile activities, its political and economic usefulness to the government and particularly to the ruling party, Mapai, became increasingly apparent over time. The talk will focus on the campaign waged by Herut, a right-wing National-Liberal party, to abolish the Military Government. Launched in 1959, this campaign was a major rallying cry of the party and its leader Menachem Begin. A critical analysis suggests that Herut derived certain political benefits by campaigning for the annulment of the Military Government, the most important of which was undermining its political rival, Mapai. However, it also establishes that Herut paid a price for its campaign, suffering criticism from within the right-wing political camp and wrestling with allegations from the left-wing political camp. Nevertheless, Begin pursued the cause of abolishing the Military Government while articulating an explicit commitment to democracy, liberty and full civic equality between Jews and Arabs in Israel.
Hillel Cohen discusses his new book on Mizrahim, Arabs, and Asheknazim in Israel The prominence of Mizrahi Jews as perpetrators of violent acts against Palestinians that have topped the headlines in recent years was the starting point of my recent study. The media coverage and public denunciation of these incidents are usually accompanied by reference to the attackers’ Mizrahi origins, frequently invoking controversy among the commentators: Does ‘Mizrahi culture’ generate excessive violence towards Palestinians? Are the Israeli media racist, denouncing Mizrahi Jews more than they do others? Or maybe this violence has to do with class and religious perceptions rather than ethnic origin? In this talk I will start with suggesting a definition to Mizrahi acts, i.e., what makes a certain act or view (violent or otherwise) to be defined as ‘Mizrahi’; then move on to present Mizrahi views and acts regarding the ‘Palestinian Question’ from the outset of Zionism to present. The changes over time will be discussed in the light of the influence of the Ashkenazi-Zionist hegemony over Mizrahim and Arabs alike, as well as vis-à-vis Palestinian acts and ideas regarding ethnic relations within the Yishuv and the Jewish society in Israel.
On the political theology of "illiberal democracy" The rise of right-wing ‘populist’ parties has generated considerable anxiety over the future of liberal democracy in countries ranging from India and Turkey to Israel, Hungary, Brazil, and the United States, among others. This talk will attend to the political-theological dimensions of what has variously been called post-liberalism, illiberal democracy, or populism (a usage the speaker will contest) by considering the ways in which champions of the post-liberal project understand the relationship between three fundamental political concepts: the law, the state, and the people. Looking in particular at the work of the American scholar Patrick Deneen and the Israeli thinker Yoram Hazony, it will outline the central attributes of the post-liberal vision: a natalist understanding of political community, the denigration of individual freedom, the displacement of ‘the law’ by ‘the people’ as the central legitimating concept, and the embrace of counter-majoritarian and authoritarian measures to enforce the desired moral order. The state, in this schema, is paradoxically required to support and sustain the supposedly organic and homogenous nation that precedes it and indeed justifies its existence. In this way post-liberals differ markedly from libertarian conservatives and represent a new chapter in relations between virtue and the state.
Gabriel Schwake discusses his new book dealing with urban planning along the green line. Concealed within the walls of settlements along the Green Line, the border between Israel and the occupied West-Bank, is a complex history of territoriality, privatisation, and multifaceted class dynamics. Since the late 1970s, the state aimed to expand the heavily populated coastal area eastwards into the occupied Palestinian territories, granting favoured groups of individuals, developers, and entrepreneurs the ability to influence the formation of built space as a means to continuously develop and settle national frontiers. As these settlements developed, they became a physical manifestation of the relationship between the political interest to control space and the ability to form it. Discussing a socio-political and economic story from an architectural and urban history perspective, this lecture focuses on how this production of space can be seen not only as a cultural phenomenon, but also as one that is deeply entangled with geopolitical agendas.
Tilde Rosmer (Zayed University) discusses the history and politics of the Islamic Movement in Israel. The Islamic Movement in Israel was established in the early 1980s by and for Palestinian citizens of Israel. It has a non-violent approach focusing on providing its community with grassroots Islamization, as well as catering to this community’s socio-economic needs. Its trifecta of goals is to protect Palestinian land, religious sites, and people. In response to the shifting realities of the Israeli social and political context, the leaders and activists of this movement continuously adjust (and sometimes disagrees on) its methodology and interaction with the state. The movement split in 1996 due to disagreement whether to participate in national elections or not and it has since has two branches. In 2015 the Northern branch of the movement was outlawed, whereas the Southern branch is today part of the Israeli government coalition. Thus, today its supporters are left with the choice between criminalization and integration.
Gideon Katz discusses some of the mure surprising aspect of Israeli secularism The fear of Judaism is an important theme in Israeli culture. By analyzing Israeli dystopias and essays we have the chance to “look” closely at this fear, and its images. The main one is the image on Judaism as the Israeli unconsciousness that ambush to the secular identity. This central image tells us something about the roots of the fear.
Gideon Katz is an associate professor in Ben-Gurion Research Institute at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. He is author of To the Core of Secularism: A Philosophical Analysis of Secularism in its Israeli Context, (Jerusalem, 2011), The Pale God – Israeli Secularism and Spinoza's Philosophy of Culture (Boston, 2011) and co-editor of Music in Israel (Sede-Boker, 2014). His book In Silence and out Loud: Leibowitz in Israeli Context (Open University Press, Ra’anana) has been recently published.
Nitzan Levobic discusses Zionism and melancholy, through the woks of Israel Zarchi The story of the early Zionist settlement in Palestine could be told from the viewpoint of failure and melancholia. An untold history of this period ignores the high rate of suicides and cases of clinical depression among the Zionist “pioneers”. The story of the forgotten author Israel Zarchi (1909-1947) will serve as a test case: During his short life he published six novels and seven collections of short stories, as well as translations from German, English, and Polish. He also became a close friend of Bialik, Agnon, Klausner and other literary and academic dignitaries of the Jewish Yishuv. His “Left-Wing Melancholy” was adopted by the young Amos Oz who mentions him as a key source of inspiration. Zarchi’s life and writing reflects his deep melancholy, the result of the growing gap between the high Zionist ideals and the reality on the ground.
Nitzan Lebovic is Professor of History and the Apter Chair of Holocaust Studies and Ethical Values at Lehigh University, Pennsylvania. He is the author of monographs and edited collections dedicated to German Lebensphilosophie [Life-Philosophy], Zionism and Melancholy, or happy concepts such as Nihilism, Catastrophe, Complicity, and Dissent.
The authors of a recently published book dealing with the history of Hollywood's relation with Israel discuss some of their findings From Frank Sinatra's early pro-Zionist rallying to Steven Spielberg's present-day peace-making, Hollywood has long enjoyed a 'special relationship' with Israel. Based on a newly-published book by Columbia University Press, this paper outlines the ways in which Hollywood's moguls, directors, and actors have supported or challenged Israel for more than seven decades, including Eddie Cantor, Kirk Douglas, Elizabeth Taylor, Barbra Streisand, Vanessa Redgrave, Arthur Krim and Arnon Milchan. The paper probes the influence of Israeli public diplomacy on Hollywood's output and lobbying activities, but also highlight the limits of ideological devotion in high-risk entertainment industries. It demonstrates how show business has played an important role in crafting the U.S.-Israel alliance and illuminates how U.S. media and soft power have helped shape the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Tony Shaw is professor of contemporary history at the University of Hertfordshire. Giora Goodman, a historian, chairs the Department of Multidisciplinary Studies at Kinneret College on the Sea of Galilee.
Haggai Ram charts the (modern) history of Hashish in the Holy Land After a century of prohibition, we are witnessing a dramatic shift in cannabis culture and policy around the world from a “killer weed” and a cause of racial degeneration to an accepted recreational drug and a “magic medicine.” In his lecture, Haggai Ram will examine this global shift of cannabis by focusing on the social history of the drug (i.e., hashish and marijuana) in Palestine-Israel from the late nineteenth century to the present. Ram will offer a vista into the political and cultural contexts within which cannabis became a “drug”; the underworlds of Jewish and Arab users and traffickers; the complex roles played by race, gender, and class in the construction of cannabis “addiction”; the place of the Zionist project in dispersing cannabis use and enforcing drug restrictions; and the normalization-cum-medicalization of this intoxicant in recent decades. In the process, he will demonstrate the extent to which the history of cannabis in Palestine-Israel offers a window through which one can explore broader political, economic, social, and cultural change.
Prof. Haggai Ram is a historian of the Middle East at Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel. His areas of teaching and research are the social and cultural histories of Iran and the Levant. Among his publications are Myth and Mobilization in Revolutionary Iran (American University Press, 1994); Reading Iran in Israel (in Hebrew, 2006); Iranophobia: The Logic of an Israeli Obsession (Stanford University Press, 2009); and Intoxicating Zion: A Social History of Hashish in Mandatory Palestine and Israel (Stanford University Press, 2020).
Amnon Aran maps the development of Israeli foreign policy since the end of the Cold War This is the first study of Israeli foreign policy towards the Middle East and selected world powers including China, India, the European Union and the United States since the end of the Cold War. The book provides an integrated account of these foreign policy spheres and serves as an essential historical context for the domestic political scene during these pivotal decades. In my talk, I shall demonstrate how Israeli foreign policy is shaped by domestic factors, which are represented as three concentric circles of decision-makers, the security network and Israeli national identity. Told from this perspective, I shall highlight the contributions of the central individuals, societal actors, domestic institutions, and political parties that have informed and shaped Israeli foreign policy decisions, implementation, and outcomes. I shall demonstrate that Israel has pursued three foreign policy stances since the end of the Cold War - entrenchment, engagement and unilateralism-- and hope to explain why. Amnon Aran (LSE, PhD) is a Senior Lecturer and Head of the Department of International Politics at City, University of London. His research interests lie in the International Relations of the Middle East and Foreign Policy Analysis. His publications include three monographs, Israel's Foreign Policy towards the PLO: The Impact of Globalization (Sussex Academic Press, 2009); Foreign Policy Analysis: New Approaches (Routledge, 2016), with Chris Alden; and Israeli Foreign Policy since the End of the Cold War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020). He has also published in journals such as International Studies Review, International Politics, and the Journal of Strategic Studies.
Michael Karayanni considers how the Israeli construction of religion and politics shapes the live Palestinian-Arabs in the state. The religion-and-state debate in Israel is Jewish centred and systematically disregards the Palestinian-Arab minority. This is rather puzzling. For the religion-and-state debate in many other countries does take up conflicts pertaining to minority religions, and the Palestinian-Arab minority did generate quite a diverse series of questions that could have easily qualified as part of the existing debate. In this article, I decode this anomaly by pointing out the existence of a legal matrix in the Israeli religion-and-state debate. This matrix identifies the recognition accorded to Jewish religious institutions and norms as "public and coercive" but that accorded to the Palestinian-Arabs as "private and liberal". In the second part of this article, I point out some of the legal implications of this matrix as well as critically evaluate if what seems to be "private and liberal" is in fact as such.
Michael Karayanni was born in Kafr-Yasif, a Palestinian village located in the Western Galilee in Israel. After obtaining his undergraduate law degree at Bar-Ilan University (LLB 1990) and being admitted to the Israeli bar, he went on to pursue graduate studies in law in the United States (George Washington University, LLM 1994, University of Pennsylvania, SJD 2003) and in Israel (Hebrew University of Jerusalem, LLD 2000). His academic base is at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he is today the Bruce W. Wayne Professor of International Law. Throughout his career at Hebrew University he has held a number of administrative positions, among them Dean of the Faculty of Law, Academic Director of Minerva Center for Human Rights, Director of Sacher Institute for Legislative Research and Comparative Law and Founding Director of Center of the Study of Multiculturalism and Diversity. He has also held visiting positions at Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, Georgetown Law Center, Melbourne Law School, Stanford Law School, Yale Law School and Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. Recently he was elected to the Institut de Droit International. His work focuses on issues of private international law and interreligious law, civil procedure and multiculturalism.
Eldad Ben-Aharon charts the history of Israel's refusal to recognise the Armenian Genocide. In a milestone vote in late 2019, both the US House of Representatives and Senate overturned more than forty years of precedent to pass a bill declaring that the killing of 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Turks was, in fact, a genocide. Subsequently, on 24 April 2021, also US President Joe Biden has officially recognized the Armenian genocide. These decisions reinforced the importance of the subject matter and which offers the opportunity to learn how the 1980s were a formative period for the campaign for international recognition of the Armenian genocide. In his talk, Dr. Ben Aharon will assess how from the 1980s onwards, the state of Israel found itself in the remarkable position of supporting denial of the Armenian genocide. His talk takes us behind the scenes of the Israeli foreign ministry in the 1980s to examine how these state actors strategically mobilised the memory of the Armenian genocide into International Relations where it has remained for the following forty years. Dr. Ben Aharon will explore how Israeli diplomats took advantage of the growing international prominence of the 1915 Armenian genocide to court Turkey in the late Cold War period, leading to the emergence of a unique relationship between Israel and Turkey. The importance of this relationship is underlined by the successful role Israel played in supporting Turkey’s attempts to undermine the campaign by the Armenian diaspora to secure international recognition of the 1915 genocide.
Dr. Ben Aharon is a Lecturer in International Relations of the Middle East, at University of Groningen and Minerva Fellow and Associate Researcher at Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF). He is a historian of International Relations specializing in the Cold War in the Middle East. Dr. Ben Aharon main areas of interest are Israel's diplomatic history, Turkey’s foreign policy, intelligence history, counter-terrorism, oral history theory and practice, Jewish transnationalism, and memory of the Holocaust and the Armenian genocide. His forthcoming book (Edinburgh University Press) offers a critical re-examination of Israel’s relationship with Turkey in the last decade of the Cold War. This book reveals the complicated and often contradictory process of managing the legacies of the Armenian genocide and the Holocaust in International Relations. Dr. Ben Aharon is also involved in research-led public engagement, therefore, he regularly writes short essays on current affairs for Newsweek, The Conversation, The Jerusalem Post, Haaretz, and the National Interest. He received his PhD in history from Royal Holloway University of London (2019). Dr. Ben Aharon also holds an MA in Holocaust and Genocide Studies from the University of Amsterdam (2014) and a BA in Political Science and International Relations from the Open University in Israel (with honours, 2011).
Kathrin Bachleitner remaps the road that led to Germany's "atonement" for the Holocaust The duty to remember the Holocaust, the profession of responsibility for the atrocities committed, the admission of guilt and shame on the part of all Germans with the ensuing effort to atone for the past constitute the cornerstone of Germany’s national memory approach today. However, what started this official ‘atoner attitude’ in the first instance? More specifically, what was the initial push towards the long road of atonement, and why did German political leaders decide to take this approach in the first place? To answer this question, the presentation examines the decision to pay reparations to Israel in 1952. Through archival documents, the case study reconstructs the international incentives, mindset and diplomatic backchannel discussions between the Israelis, the Allies and the West Germans and compares these with the Austrian case. Altogether, the paper sheds new light on the roots of the German “atonement approach” – particularly the role of Israel therein – explicating more generally which international constellations and aspects of the global political process bear the potential to lead countries towards atonement.
Dr. Kathrin Bachleitner is the IKEA Foundation Research Fellow in International Relations at Lady Margaret Hall. She wrote her DPhil at the University of Oxford about the diplomatic relations between Israel, Germany and Austria. Her research focuses on collective memory and values within International Relations, mainly how WWII and the memory of the Holocaust affected inter-state relations. She is the author of the book Collective Memory in International Relations, recently published with OUP.
Atalia Omer discusses restorative justice practices and the possibilities (and limits) of Jewish critiques of Zionism. In the same way that it is no longer possible to talk about antisemitism without also thinking about Israel/Palestine, it is no longer possible to imagine Jewish ethics outside the realities of Jewish power. My focus here is on when such thinking unfolds through a restorative justice prism or carries a restorative justice potential. At stake is not only a Jewish critique of Zionism, but also justice for Palestinians. The two issues are forever enmeshed. Examining Judith Butler’s relational ethical analysis of Zionism in her Parting Ways and Michael Manekin’s recent The Dawn of Redemption, I argue that, to the degree that restorative justice practices are missing from ethical Jewish reflections on Zionism and Israelism, the sources of such Jewish critiques of Zionism remain diasporic. Butler approaches it from the comfort of diasporic “authenticity,” while Manekin reclaims a Jewish (Israeli) ethics from within the realities of Jewish Israeliness and with an effort to reimagine religious Zionism as gentle and kind. At the same time, focusing on Jewish Israeli restorative justice practices and potentials, including Zochrot, young “refusniks,” and the petition of Jewish Israelis against Israel apartheid propelled by the escalation of violence in May 2021, offers a pathway for unsettling the diasporic as the primary source of ethical critique of Israelism. These restorative pathways constitute sources for Jewish ethics from the ground up where the experiences of Jewish power and Israelism can no longer be bracketed or magically theorized out of existence as “inauthentic.” Atalia Omer is a Professor of Religion, Conflict, and Peace Studies at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies and at the Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame in the United States. She is also the Dermot T.J. Dunphy Visiting Professor of Religion, Violence, and Peace Building at Harvard University and a senior fellow at the Religion, Conflict, and Peace Initiative at Harvard University’s Religion and Public Life program. She earned her PhD in Religion, Ethics, and Politics (2008) from the Committee on the Study of Religion at Harvard University. Her research focuses on religion, violence, and peacebuilding with a particular focus on Palestine/Israel as well as theories and methods in the study of religion. Omer was awarded an Andrew Carnegie Fellowship in 2017 to complete a manuscript titled Decolonizing Religion and Peacebuilding. Among other publications, Omer is the author of When Peace is Not Enough: How the Israeli Peace Camp Thinks about Religion, Nationalism, and Justice (University of Chicago Press, 2015) and Days of Awe: Reimagining Jewishness in Solidarity with Palestinians (University of Chicago Press, 2019). She is also a co-editor of the Oxford Handbook of Religion, Conflict, and Peacebuilding (Oxford University Press, 2015).
Elana Shapira discusses the tangled relationship between Austrian Nationalism and Zionism in Viennese Modernism Berta Zuckerkandl grew up witnessing her father, publisher of the newspaper Neues Wiener Tagblatt, Moritz Szeps’s stormy career and political engagements. Moritz Szeps was a close advisor to the liberal Austrian Crown Prince Rudolf and a supporter of an Austria-France alliance through his connections with liberal French politicians such as Léon Gambetta and Georges Clemenceau. Clemenceau’s brother, Paul, married Szeps’s eldest daughter Sophie. Berta also became involved in political causes. Learning about the “Dreyfus affair” at her sister’s salon, Zuckerkandl supported the fight to recognize his innocence. For Berta Zuckerkandl, the city of Vienna would become hers to form. Among the guests in the early days of Zuckerkandl’s renowned salon were non-Jewish cultural critic and Zionist Hermann Bahr. Other members in her salon associated with the Zionist movement were authors Richard Beer-Hofmann and Felix Salten of the literary group “Jung Wien” (Young Vienna), and who also played critical roles in shaping Viennese modernism. Working with her colleagues Bahr and the critic Ludwig Hevesi, Zuckerkandl raised the flag for modern Austrian art within a conservative and provincial cultural climate. She promoted modern design as part of constructing a progressive Austrian national identification. This talk aims to explore the antisemitic background and the pluralistic character of Austrian nationalism and Zionism, as they developed in the early years in relation to each other within and in relation to Zuckerkandl’s cultural networks.
Speaker Bio: Elana Shapira is cultural and design historian and project leader of the Austrian Science Fund research project “Visionary Vienna: Design and Society 1918–1934” (2017-2021). She is a senior postdoctoral fellow and lecturer in Design History and Theory at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. Shapira is the author of Style and Seduction: Jewish Patrons, Architecture and Design in Fin de Siècle Vienna (Brandeis University Press, 2016). She is the editor of Design Dialogue: Jews, Culture and Viennese Modernism (Böhlau, 2018) and of the forthcoming anthology Designing Transformation: Jews and Cultural Identity in Central European Modernism (Bloomsbury, 2021). Shapira is further the coeditor of the following anthologies based on the proceedings of International Symposiums she has co-organized Freud and the Émigré (Palgrave, 2020) and of Émigré Cultures in Design and Architecture(Bloomsbury, 2017). Her forthcoming symposium organized together with Anne-Katrin Rossberg is “Gestalterinnen. Frauen, Design und Gesellschaft im Wien der Zwischenkriegszeit” will take place at the MAK – Museum of Applied Arts in May 2021.
Maya Gildin Zuckerman discusses a 1897 tour from London to Palestine as a moment in the Zionist meaning making process. Zionist emergence and its early developments have often been told either as a person/organisation-centred narrative or a Herderian cultural-geographically distinct account (see Dubnov 2011). Through the empirical case study of Danish Zionist emergence, I will show Zionism as an entangled and networked phenomenon that forced the involved parts to rethink Jewish belonging as either here or there. In the lecture, I unfold how a proto-Zionist tour from London to Palestine and back in 1897 inspired the participants, among which was the Danish-Jewish physician, Louis Frænkel, to discover and make sense of what Zionism meant to them. Based on a cultural sociological framework, I show how this proto-Zionist trip became a catalyst for re-coding Jewish values for a group of European Jews. They subsequently returned to their different nation-states and local Jewish communities with a repertoire of new ways of enacting Jewish collectivity that, among other things, reshuffled the earlier marginalisation of small Jewish communities such as the Danish.
Maja Gildin Zuckerman is Assistant Professor in the Department of Management, Politics and Philosophy at Copenhagen Business School. She was the Jim Joseph Postdoctoral Fellow at Education and Jewish Studies at Stanford University. Her research centers around questions related to modern and contemporary Jewish citizenship, the civil sphere, and national in/exclusion relations. She has co-edited the book New Perspectives on Jewish Cultural History: Boundaries, Experiences, and Sense-Making (New York, Routledge, 2019). She holds a PhD from University of Southern Denmark in Middle Eastern Studies (2016), a MA in Sociology and Anthropology from Tel Aviv University (2012), and a BA in Anthropology and Jewish Studies from Copenhagen and Haifa University.
Jamie Stern-Weiner (Oxford) traces the genesis and evolution of a controversial 'working definition' of antisemitism. The Working Definition of Antisemitism was originally presented in modest terms: a common reference point enabling monitoring bodies to collect data in a manner that permitted cross-country comparison. Some 15 years on, a formidable array of Jewish organisations and supportive Governments is lobbying around the world to have the Working Definition of Antisemitism institutionalised across political and social life. This juggernaut is everywhere provoking opposition - albeit disparate and poorly resourced - led by dissident Jewish groups and Palestinians. The Working Definition's advocates argue that, in order to combat antisemitism, one has to define it. This talk will examine the political genesis and instrumentalisation of the Working Definition to ask: Do we need a definition of antisemitism in order to fight it? If so, should it be this one? If not, what purpose does this definition serve?
Jamie Stern-Weiner is a DPhil candidate in Area Studies at the University of Oxford. He is the editor of Moment of Truth: Tackling Israel-Palestine's Toughest Questions (OR Books, 2018) and Antisemitism and the Labour Party (Verso, 2019).
Ann Prashizky discusses 'self orientalistation' by the 1.5 generation of FSU immigrants to Israel. Abstract This seminar explores the mutual influences between urban spaces and ethnic relations and hierarchies in the cultural field. It hinges on the two theoretical arguments: that physical place influences intergroup/ethnic relations, and that ethnic relations may reshape the meaning of spaces, especially in the urban context. Both ethnicity and space involve political contestations over their meaning and emerge from the interplay between materiality and culture. Young Russian-speaking ethnic entrepreneurs in Israel have invented the new cultural trope of Mizrahi or Mediterranean Russianness, expressed in various venues of pop culture in which they are involved as cultural producers: video clips, festivals, and music and dance performances. This counter-intuitive merger reflects the mainstreaming of Mizrahi styles and genres in the Israeli culture. It also challenges the Orientalist attitudes towards Mizrahim prevalent among Russian immigrants in Israel, especially the older generation. I examine the nexus between the spatiality and materiality of this new culture which has emerged within Israel’s geographic and social periphery. The third space is thus being produced that undermines the alleged Mizrahi/Russian binary and the perception of these identities as essences which are in opposition in a racial and ethnic context. It enables the mixing of categories, and the possibility of creating a new material style and new artistic objects.
Anna Prashizky is senior lecturer at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Western Galilee College. Her research interests are in the area of the anthropology of Judaism and the immigration from FSU in Israel. Her recent articles dealing with the 1.5 generation of Russian-speaking immigrants in Israel were published in such journals as Journal of Israeli History, Ethnic and Racial Studies, Ethnicities, and Social Identities.
Adam Sutcliffe (KCL) discusses how Zionist ideologues have viewed the notion of Jewish purpose. The nineteenth-century emergence of Zionism was intimately connected to the idea that the Jews served a uniquely crucial role in the world. This notion is rooted in theological anticipations, both Jewish and Christian, of a messianic future. From it the 1860s took on distinct overtones of economic and geo-political transformation, and spread in various ways into the secular realm. In this paper I will show how ideas of Jewish purpose feature in both Jewish and non-Jewish Zionist thinking, from Joseph Salvador and Ernest Laharanne in 1860, through George Elliot, Theodor Herzl and Bernard Lazare, to the religious Zionism of Abraham Kook and the secularised ‘light unto the nations’ rhetoric of David Ben-Gurion.
Adam Sutcliffe is Professor of European History at King’s College London. His most recent book is What Are Jews For: History, Peoplehood, and Purpose (Princeton University Press, 2020). His co-edited volumes include The Cambridge History of Judiasm, volume VII (1500-1815) (CUP, 2018) and Philosemitism in History (CUP, 2011). He is currently working on a history of the idea of empathy in historical writing and pedagogy.
Tal Shamur presents his work on the melancholic protest of Hatikva residents. While the concept of citizenship is often related to legal status within the nation state, the actual expression of the concept is defined by one’s standing within the political community and develops questions of inclusion and belonging where spaces of citizenship extend to the city level. According to this perspective, although people may be included in the collective by law of the nation state, they may also be, in actual fact, excluded by the unwritten spatial law. This law dictates the life conditions of minorities and creates symbolic and physical boundaries that pushes “others” to the city margins where marginalized citizens and noncitizens contest their exclusions. Whereas public demonstration of discriminated citizens emerging at the urban periphery might be seen as reactionary and as a raging outbursts, closer examination reveals they are also a site of sadness and melancholy. following this line of thought, Tal Shamur will suggest the concept of “melancholic citizenship” to describe the emotion of sadness aroused among a discriminated group of citizens in light of a process that highlights their social and urban marginality. The case study explored is the struggle of old-time Mizrahi (Jews who immigrated to Israel from Arab countries) residents of the HaTikva neighborhood – a lower income neighborhood of south Tel Aviv – against the inflow of African migration to the area. Based on anthropological field work he conducted in the neighborhood he argues that the struggle of the long-standing residents aroused melancholic feelings among them when they realized that the global migration is a current indication of their discrimination as lower-income Mizrahim who inhabit the city periphery and are located at the margins of Israeli society.
Tal Shamur is an ISEF Foundation International Fellow in the Department of Social Anthropology, at the University of Cambridge. He wrote his PhD in Cultural Anthropology in Haifa University. His work focuses on questions of belonging and identification within the urban sphere. His Book titled: Hope and Melancholy on an Urban Frontier: Ethnicity, Space and Gender in the Hatikva Neighborhood, Tel-Aviv was recently published in Haifa University of press (2020, in Hebrew). His articles were published in the journals Emotion Space and Society (2019) and Citizenship Studies (2018).
The fourth lecture in the Reconsidering Early Jewish Nationalist Ideologies seminar series. Rose Stair discusses cultural Zionism through a focus on age and gender. This paper examines the construction and mobilization of age categories in the German-language cultural Zionism of the turn of the 20th century. Presenting examples of texts and visual art that employ models and metaphors of different age identities, Rose Stair suggests that age functioned as a conceptual language through which the cultural Zionist community expressed their relationship to the Jewish past and Zionist future. She argues that these conceptions of age cannot be detached from the community’s assumptions about gender, meaning that even the metaphorical use of age imagery remained tethered to the social reality of family structures and bourgeois gender roles.
Rose Stair is DPhil student in the Theology and Religion faculty at the University of Oxford, and previously studied at the University of Chicago Divinity School. Her doctoral research looks at age and gender in German-language cultural Zionism, and their articulation through textual and visual sources.
Peter Bergamin presents some findings and conclusions from his recent research on the British Mandate for Palestine, focusin on the phenomena of Jewish illegal immigration and anti-British terrorism, and their role in Britain’s eventual abandonment of the Abstract: In this seminar Dr Bergamin presents some findings and conclusions from his recent research on the British Mandate for Palestine. The project examines Britain’s administration of the Mandate, and – using almost exclusively British archival documents - suggests reasons for its eventual referral of the Mandate to the United Nations in April 1947, and premature departure in May 1948, having not fulfilled the conditions of its Mandate. The seminar focuses on the phenomena of Jewish illegal immigration and anti-British terrorism, and their role in Britain’s eventual abandonment of the Palestine Mandate. A comparison of the Jewish anti-British terror campaign, from 1944-1948 – alongside the concurrent campaign of Jewish illegal immigration to Palestine – with the IRA terror campaign in London, between 1973 and 1998 shows that, in only three and a half years, acts of Jewish anti-British terror far surpassed those of the IRA in London – in scope, intensity, and indeed, casualties – which occurred over a period of more than twenty-five years. Thus, the seminar will conclude by stating outright what other studies of the period often whitewash or downplay: that the combined phenomena of Jewish illegal immigration to Palestine, and the campaign of anti-British terror waged by Jewish underground paramilitary groups Irgun, Stern Gang, and, at times, also by the Haganah (with the support of the Jewish political leadership in Palestine), were the key factors in Britain’s decision to withdraw from the Mandate. Indeed, what Britain had originally hoped would be one its most successful imperial undertakings turned out, in retrospect, to be perhaps its greatest failure.
Bio: Peter Bergamin is Lecturer in Oriental Studies at Mansfield College, University of Oxford, after having gained his DPhil in Oriental Studies in 2016, under the supervision of Derek Penslar. His research focuses on the period of the British Mandate for Palestine, with a particular interest in Maximalist-Revisionist Zionism. His first monograph, The Making of the Israeli Far-Right: Abba Ahimeir and Zionist Ideology (I.B. Tauris, 2020), focused on the ideological and political genesis of one of the major leaders of pro-Fascist, Far-Right Zionism, in the 1920s and 30s. His current research examines British archival sources, in order to suggest reasons for Britain’s premature withdrawal from its Palestine Mandate.
Yuval Evri discusses his new book, The Return to Al-Andalus, Disputes Over Sephardic Culture and Identity Between Arabic and Hebrew Abstract: Against the background of the tumultuous political and social events of the period and the processes of national, ethnic, and religious partitions that gained momentum during those years, the lecture explores the ways in which these Arab-Jewish intellectuals fundamentally challenged the nationalistic and monolingual separatist ideologies that characterized their times, and proposed an alternative political and cultural route. It looks at their efforts to establish a shared Jewish-Arab society based on a symbolic return to the Sephardi/Andalusian medieval legacy of Hebrew-Arabic bilingualism and a Judeo-Muslim joint cultural heritage. Instead of partition into two separate languages, identities, or traditions, they developed a model of a single multilingual and multi-religious cultural landscape. Thus, the fluidity that is inherent in these multiplicities becomes a source of resistance to the dominant monolingual and nationalistic forces, and dismantles any (national) claim over exclusive ownership of texts, traditions, or languages. By exploring these contested representations of Andalusian identity and culture, the lecture re-examines some fundamental issues that emerged at the turn of the twentieth century: the national conflict between Jews and Palestinians, the contacts and splits between Hebrew and Arab cultures and the formation of ethnic hierarchies between Ashkenazim and Mizrahim.
Bio: Dr Yuval Evri is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at Kings College. His research focuses on the cultural and political history of Palestine/Land of Israel at the turn of the 20th century. The issue of Sephardi and Arab-Jewish thought lay in the heart of his research and teaching interest. His current research traces multilingual translational and cultural models that emerged in the beginning of 20th century Palestine/Land of Israel and explores how the fluidity inherent in these cultural models becomes a source of resistance to the dominant monolingual forces, and to any exclusive claims of ownership of land, texts, traditions, or languages. His new book The Return to Al-Andalus Disputes Over Sephardic Culture and Identity Between Arabic and Hebrew was published by Magnes Press (2020). Dr. Evri is headed to Brandeis University, where he will take the Marash and Ocuin Chair in Ottoman, Mizrahi and Sephardic Jewish Studies.
Nachshon Perez discusses Perez and Jobani's co-authored book on the politics of contested sacred sites Abstract: Sacred sites are often at the center of intense contestation between different groups regarding a wide variety of issues, including ownership, access, usage rights, permissible religious conduct, and many others. They are often the source of intractable, long-standing conflicts and extreme violence. In our presentation we profile five sites: Devils Tower National Monument (Wyoming, US), Babri Masjid/Ram Janmabhoomi (Uttar-Pradesh, India), the Western Wall (Jerusalem), the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (Jerusalem), and the Temple Mount/Haram esh-Sharif (Jerusalem). Telling the fascinating stories of these high-profile contested holy sites, we develop and critically explore five different models of governing such sites: "non-interference", "separation and division", "preference", "status-quo", and "closure". Each model is grounded in different sets of considerations; central among them are trade-offs between religious liberty and social order. This novel typology aims to assist democratic governments in their attempt to secure public order and mutual toleration among opposed groups in contested sacred sites. Yuval Jobani is a senior lecturer of Jewish Philosophy and Education at Tel Aviv University. His research interests include the variety of Jewish secularisms, religion and the public sphere as well as religion and education in contemporary society. He is the author of “The Role of Contradictions in Spinoza's Philosophy: The God Intoxicated Heretic.” Nahshon Perez is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Studies at Bar Ilan University. His fields of research include toleration, pluralism, religion-state relations, and the rectification of past wrongs. He is the author of “Freedom from Past Injustices: A Critical Evaluation of Claims for Inter-Generational Reparations”.
The second seminar in the Reconsidering Early Jewish Nationalism Sereis. Danielle Drori discusses Zionism and translation, with a focus on Klausner's Life of Jesus Abstract: The literary critic, historian, and Hebrew writer Yosef Klausner has never been as widely known and as celebrated as some of his mentors and interlocutors in the Zionist movement. His competing alliances may explain this. He aligned himself with Jabotinsky’s brand of Zionism, admired Herzl, and owed his career as an influential editor to Ahad Ha’am. He also published, in the early 1920s, a controversial Hebrew study of the life and times of Jesus Christ, based on his German-language doctoral dissertation. This presentation will tell the story behind this English translation and revisit some of Klausner’s ideas about Jewish history, the Hebrew language, and monotheism. It will suggest that the translation of Klausner’s Yeshu ha-notsri, executed by an Anglican priest in Jerusalem shortly after the Hebrew book’s publication, allows for reassessing some of the foundational tensions that shaped early Zionist thought: between Semitic and European languages, the Jewish “diaspora” and Jerusalem, and Jews and Christians.
Bio: Danielle Drori teaches modern Hebrew literature at Oxford University. She holds a PhD in Hebrew and Judaic Studies from New York University, and has taught at the City University of New York and the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research. Her research focuses on the ties between literary translation and nationalism, bringing together contemporary theories of cultural transfer and the study of modern Hebrew literature. Her writing has appeared in several academic and popular publications, including Prooftexts: a Journal of Jewish Literary History, Dibur: a Literary Journal, and the Los Angeles Review of Books.
Yair Wallach discusses his book A City in Fragments: Urban Text in Modern Jerusalem (Stanford University Press, 2020). Until the late nineteenth century, Hebrew was rare to come by in the streets of Jerusalem, visible only in a handful of synagogues and communal institutions. Yet in the early years of the twentieth century, Hebrew erupted into the city's urban space. It appeared in rabbinical proclamations, adverts and posters, stone inscriptions, signs of schools and hospitals, and even on "Jewish money", Hebrew-marked coins used for charity. But Hebrew's emergence into the streets took place at the moment when the meaning of the language was no longer stable and given. For Ashkenazim and Sephardim, reactionaries and modernisers, Zionists and their opponents, local elites and newly-arrived "pioneers", the language was a battleground over different visions for Jews in Palestine. After 1920, with the adoption of Hebrew as a state language by the British Mandatory government, Arab nationalists began to view Hebrew as a colonial tool and resisted its use on that basis. In this talk I will explore the dramatic emergence of Hebrew in turn of the century Jerusalem, the struggles over its meaning, and its subsequent alignment with the Zionist project.
Yair Wallach is Senior Lecturer in Israeli Studies at SOAS, University of London, where he is also the head of the SOAS Centre for Jewish Studies. He is a cultural and social historian of modern Palestine/Israel, who has published articles in Hebrew, Arabic and English on urban and visual culture, and on Jewish-Arab relations. His book, A City in Fragments: Urban Text in Modern Jerusalem, which was published by Stanford University Press in 2020, looks at Arabic and Hebrew street texts (inscriptions,banners, graffiti and other media) in modern Jerusalem. Dr. Wallach is currently (2020-2022) a Leverhulme Research Fellow, and his project "The Arab Ashkenazi" looks at Jewish Ashkenazi acculturation in the Arab Levant. Wallach has also published articles in Haaretz, the Guardian, and other media.
Prof. Sandy Kedar (Haifa) discusses his co-authored book on the legal rights of the Bedouin in the Negev. Kedar presents his book, Emptied Lands (co-authored with Amara and Yiftachel). Emptied Lands investigates the protracted legal, planning, and territorial conflict between the settler Israeli state and indigenous Bedouin citizens over traditional lands in southern Israel/Palestine. The authors place this dispute in historical, legal, geographical, and international- comparative perspectives, providing the first legal geographic analysis of the “dead Negev doctrine” used by Israel to dispossess and forcefully displace Bedouin inhabitants in order to Judaize the region. The authors reveal that through manipulative use of Ottoman, British and Israeli laws, the state has constructed its own version of terra nullius. Yet, the indigenous property and settlement system still functions, creating an ongoing resistance to the Jewish state. Emptied Lands critically examines several key land claims, court rulings, planning policies and development strategies, offering alternative local, regional, and international routes for justice.
Professor Alexandre (Sandy) Kedar teaches at the Law School at the University of Haifa. He holds a Doctorate in Law (S.J.D) from Harvard Law School. He was a visiting professor at the University of Michigan Law School as well as a Grotius International Law Visiting Scholar there and a visiting associate professor at the Frankel Institute for Judaic studies in the University of Michigan. His research focuses on legal geography, legal history, law and society and land regimes in settler societies and in Israel. He served as the President of the Israeli Law and Society Association, is the co-coordinator of the Legal Geography CRN of the Law and Society Association and a member of its international committee. He is the co-founder (in 2003) and director of the Association for Distributive Justice, an Israeli NGO addressing these issues
Hizky Shoham discusses the 'emotionologies' surrounding the Nazi-Zionist 'Transfer agreement.' Are boycotts emotional outbursts or practical political tools? The proposed paper looks at the emotional aspects of the public debate that raged in Jewish Palestine in the 1930s about the Nazi-Zionist agreement, in order to suggest a theory of boycotts as emotional scripts. The Ha'avara ('transfer') agreement enabled Jews to leave Germany and take some of their assets with them, in the form of German goods to be sold in Palestine, therefore breaking the worldwide anti-Nazi boycott. Drawing on contemporary media and archival sources and comparative studies about boycotts and 'buy national' campaigns, I analyze the discourse on emotions in the public debate about the agreement. Rather than so-called ‘practical’ politics, the debate focused on various emotions such as humiliation, fear, anger, and vengeance, their role in politics, and the right way to contain or release them. The emotionology (as defined by historians Peter and Carol Stearns) of Zionist pride prescribed ‘practicability’ as a demonstration of restraint and respectability, and denounced the anti-Nazi boycott movement as ‘exilic’ Jewish submissiveness. Nonetheless, this emotionology did not fit the actual ability of the Jewish public to contain the harsh emotions. Under the guise of “buy national” campaigns, anti-German feeling was channeled into an effective boycott of the Templers, a small German community living in Palestine since the nineteenth century. Based on Theodor Sarbin’s theory of emotions as cognitive schemes, the paper suggests theorizing boycotts as political dramas whose ‘effectivity’ depends mainly on their emotional scripting.
Bio: Hizky Shoham’s works consist of anthropological history and sociology of Zionism, the Yishuv, and Israel; and cultural theory. He is a senior lecturer in the Interdisciplinary Program for Hermeneutics and Cultural Studies, and co-director of the Center for Cultural Sociology, Bar Ilan University, Israel; and a research fellow in the Kogod Institute for Advanced Jewish Studies at the Shalom Hartman institute in Jerusalem. His publications include Carnival in Tel Aviv: Purim and the Celebration of Urban Zionism (Academic Studies Press, 2014); and Israel Celebrates: Festivals and Civic Culture in Israel (Brill, 2017).
Larissa Remeniick discuss the origins and present condition of the new (post-2010) Israeli diaspora in Berlin In this lecture, I reflect on the origins and present condition of the new (post-2010) Israeli diaspora in Berlin. Based on 10 months of participant observation, I map out the main sub-streams of this emigration, elicit the economic, professional, and political reasons for leaving Israel, and explore these émigrés’ initial encounter with German society. My observations suggest that many Israeli residents of Berlin (mostly secular) rediscover their Jewishness along diasporic lines and forge ties with the local religious and community organizations. Being a small minority in the German-speaking milieu, Israelis invest in building their own Hebrew-based community networks, cultural and educational institutions. Lastly, I explore these émigrés’ ties with Israel and conclude that many are sojourners rather than immigrants and that Berlin is but one phase in their life journey.
Lotem Perry-Hazzan discusses ethnic discrimination in admissions to Haredi schools in Israel Haredi education has been dominated by the Ashkenazic Haredi Independent Education school network since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. During the 1980s the Sephardic Haredi community established its own school network so as to avoid the discriminatory practices of the Ashkenazi-dominated schools. However, many Sephardic Haredi parents have preferred not to send their children to the Sephardic Haredi schools, which are perceived by these parents as less prestigious. Over the last decade, the issue of discriminatory admission policies to Haredi schools has been extensively deliberated in secular courts. The presentation will discuss the legal efforts to eradicate the discrimination in Haredi schools and account to their social and political implications. It will present, inter alia, an empirical study that demonstrated how policy changes prompted Sephardic Haredi parents to claim their rights.
Dr. Lotem Perry-Hazan is Head of the Centre for Jewish and Democratic Education and the Educational Management Program at the University of Haifa, Israel. Her research interests include the intersection of law, religion, and culture in education and children’s rights in education. Many of her studies have focused on Haredi education in Israel and in other countries. Dr. Perry-Hazan is a graduate of NYU School of Law (LL.M., 2006) and the University of Haifa’s Faculty of Law (LL.B., 2004; Ph.D., 2011). She was a visiting scholar at the European Association for Education Law and Policy at Antwerp University (2012), Harvard University Graduate School of Education (2014), and Melbourne University Faculty of Education (2018).
Heather Monro discusses the implications of Ashkenazi Hegemony in the Israeli Haredi society. Discrimination against Sephardim has become a growing issue in the Haredi world in Israel, but one which has taken a backseat to the more pressing questions of gender inequality and the religious-secular divide. Heather Munro's research has revealed that new Haredi feminist movements are increasingly engaged with the intersectionality debates of mainstream equality movements, and Sephardi discrimination is often inextricably wound up with other community struggles. Ashkenazi women with whom she engages articulate an Orientalist-type perception of Sephardim, including a rhetoric of cultural superiority. Sephardi women describe the way in which they have experienced discrimination as overly sexualising; most discrimination has occurred around issues of access to Ashkenazi institutional services like schools, which are perceived by both Sephardim and Ashkenazim as higher quality. Women are beginning to engage with the question of Sephardi discrimination through new Haredi feminist movements, which are gaining support despite Ashkenazi rabbinical denouncements of women politicians. Women may, ultimately, be the drivers behind anti-discrimination movements within the Israeli Haredi world.
Peter Bergamin discusses his new book: The Making of the Israeli Far-Right: Abba Ahimeir and Zionist Ideology Abba Ahimeir (1897 –1962) writer, journalist and historian began his public life as a socialist, but subsequently moved toward the rightward extreme of Zionist ideology. One of the earliest opponents of the British Mandate, in 1930 he founded a radical organization called Brit Habiryonim (the Union of Zionist Rebels). This was a clandestine, self-declared fascist faction of the Revisionist Zionist Movement (ZRM) in Palestine whose official ideology was Maximalist Revisionism, an ideology for which Ahimeir is now most well-known. Ahimeir's career as a political activist came to an early end, when he was arrested in connection with the murder of the Labour Zionist leader, Chaim Arlosoroff. Although acquitted, Ahimeir nonetheless went to prison for his involvement as a political activist. Bergamin's book is the first intellectual biography of one of the most influential figures on the Zionist Right. Based on much unseen primary source material from the Ahimeir archive in Ramat Gan and the Jabotinsky Institute in Tel Aviv, as well as Ahimeir's newspaper articles, Bergamin provides a rigorous analysis of Ahimeir's ideological development. The book positions him more accurately within the contexts of the Israeli right and the Zionist movement in general, updates common misunderstanding about this period of history and revises Israeli collective memory.
Ali Alavi discusses the history of Iran's relations with Palestinian organisation and the Palestinian cause, and their implication to Iranian-Israeli relations. Examining the nature of relations between the Islamic Republic of Iran and Palestine, the talk investigates the relationship between state and authorities in the Middle East. Analysing the connections of the Iranian revolutionary movements, both the Left and the Islamic camps’ perspectives are scrutinised. To provide a historical background to the post-revolutionary period, the genealogy of pro-Palestinian sentiments before 1979 are also traced. The lecture contextualises the events from the beginning of the Palestinian predicament to the post-Arab spring era. In demonstrating the pro-Palestinian stance of post-revolutionary Iran, the study focuses on the roots of the ideological outlook and the interest of the state. The study also investigates the connections between the Islamic Republic and the Palestinian Islamic Movements of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in depth. Despite a growing body of literature on the Iranian Revolution and its impacts on the region, Iran’s connection with Palestine has been overlooked. This talk fills the gap in academia and enables the audience to unpack the history of the two states. Ultimately the talk aims to answer the questions: what the roots of Iranian pro-Palestinian tendencies are. The talk is based on the book (Iran and Palestine, Past Present, Future) published in August 2019. It transforms the notion of solidarity into a concept of desire for justice. In order to complete the book, the author conducted valuable interviews with Palestinian high representatives in Iran and some Iranian prominent academics active in the sociology of the Palestinian cause.
Seyed Ali Alavi is a Teaching Fellow in the Department of Politics and International Studies at SOAS, University of London. He holds a PhD in Politics from SOAS. Ali’s book “Iran and Palestine, Past, Present, Future” was published by Routledge in 2019. Ali also writes and comments about contemporary politics of the Middle East and Europe and he has appeared in a number of interviews by Euronews, Al-Jazeera English, RT, LBC Radio, Radio Four and other outlets.
Dr. Calahorra studies some dramatic changes in the ways legislation is conducted in Israel Politicians, whether they be ordinary MPs and or government ministers (GMs), compete on the ability to influence policy outcomes. After elections and the formation of government, they do that through legislation ("Competition through Legislation"), in parliamentary democracies that allow such competition. This is a two-stage competition: the initiation of a bill – drafting the bill and filing it with parliament’s administration – and the actual legislation of the bill. It is not always competition between two conflicting policy goals. Sometimes both MPs and the GMs propose very similar bills, which wish to advance the same policy goal in similar ways, and sometimes they propose bills with conflicting goals. It is an unfair and unequal competition, as usually the rules of the legislative procedure usually favor the government’s bills (GBs) over those of the MPs (PMBs). In most countries where competition through legislation is theoretically possible it does not take place in fact. In Israel, it does. What makes Israel interesting and possibly unique is not only the enormous number of bills initiated, according to the Knesset's National Legislation Data, (6642 bills during 4 years of the 20th Knesset, 2015-2019) but also the fact that 90% of the bills were Private Members' Bills (PMBs), and only 9% were Government Bills. Even more interesting is the fact that 88% of the PMBs (5317) did not even make it to the preliminary stage of legislation, and only 4% (246) actually passed the third reading and became law. The Government was more successful, with 57% of its bills becoming law (359 out of 595), but still, in total, only 9% of the bills proposed during the 20th Knesset actually became law. The Data further shows a consistent rise in the total number of bills that had been submitted to the Knesset over the years, with an exponential rise in the number of PMBs, from less than a dozen in the 1st Knesset in 1949 to more than 6000 the 20th Knesset. The number of GBs, has more than doubled to almost 600. Until the 80’s (10th Knesset), the majority of the submitted bills were GBs but since then, a decisive majority of the bills is PMBs. The government has grown less successful in legislating GBs over the years: from 92% in average until the 80’s to 55% in the 2000’s. The total success rate of legislation, of all origins, has dropped from 87% in average in the 50’s to 10% in average since the 90’s. There are many possible explanations for this phenomena: The transfer of government from Labor to Likud in 1977; The rise of judicial activism in the early 80’s; The changes in the electoral system; The rise and fall of democratic internal party candidate selection; The introduction of the human rights Basic Laws and the constitutional revolution; The weakness of other parliamentary tools; The gradual weakening of the government due to the reduction in size of the coalition; The gradual rise in the power of the Knesset's committees. By using Israel as a test-case, and theories on government’s agenda setting powers and the way that vote seeking and coalition considerations affect legislation, I will try to answer such questions as: What factors affect the competition between MPs and GMs through legislation (agenda setting powers, vote-seeking, coalition agreements)? What are the incentives of a GM to initiate a bill and to see it through the legislative process in comparison to those of an MP (from the opposition or from the coalition)? The Israeli test-case can also help answer questions such as what are the advantages and disadvantages of competition through legislations. On the one hand, it promotes pluralism, facilitates cooperation between different sides of the political map and promotes social consensus. It can also circumvent obstacles to legal reforms in a certain field, regulatory capture of GMs. However, legislative competition has also shortcomings. It delays the legislation of government bills, forces the government and Parliament to waste resources on legislation that deals with issues that the public considers to be of low priority or on bills that are in fact mere declaration, and attempts to promote changes in policy contrary to the policy of the majority. Further research is needed to answer the question what changes, if any, should be made to the Israeli legislative process as a result of this analysis.
Nancy Hawker (The Aga Khan University) considers the developing place of Arabic in official nation-statist platforms in Israel In the governing institutions of Israel, Arabic is suppressed. This practice crystallised in the early years of the state: there were points in history where it might not have gone in the direction of suppression; some activists in the 1960s had campaigned for some kind of minority Arabic-speaking official state platform to be maintained. In relation to insider/outsider dynamics, Arabic-speakers who also speak Hebrew make linguistic choices that result in the avoidance of Arabic in situations where Jewish Israelis are also present. These two elements form the sociolinguistic habitus of the Palestinians and other Arabs in the area controlled by Israel. When speaking Arabic, to give their propositions authority, Palestinians and other Arabs mobilise multilingual repertoires, including codeswitching with and borrowing from Hebrew, for rhetoric effect and style. The analysis moves away from scholarship that has been concerned 'language endangerment' which has channeled concerns about political problems. The Palestinian multilinguals are performing the aspirations of an emergent middle class elite. On the political stage, this elite challenges the ethnorepublican political structures of Israel, as well as ethnonationalist campaigns, with different inhabitations of citizenship that envisage liberal equality, dignity and autonomy. Under conditions of late capitalism, multilingual language skills are re-packaged as marketable resource: this creates value, but in a contested way, with ambivalent opportunities. With evidence from fieldwork on the political campaigning trails, from street surveys, from cultural products, and from archive sources, the research presented at the seminar contributes to work in sociolinguistics linking language with politics via discursive practices that negotiate who is a legitimate speaker. In conclusion it considers that speakers with sufficient linguistic and material resources – an elite class – form (political, cultural) platforms on which they insist on the legitimacy of their speech. This is not a pattern confined to Palestinians: it is a perfectly normal adaptation of speakers of undervalued languages communicating in contexts of linguistic hegemonies.
Dr Nancy Hawker (DPhil Oxon, MA SOAS) is the 2019 Research Fellow at the Aga Khan University – Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations (https://www.aku.edu/govprogramme/Pages/home.aspx). Her current research analyses audience receptivity to women's testimonies that have been translated between Arabic and English in human rights organisations. Her main research has been on the sociolinguistics of Palestinian Arabic and Modern Israeli Hebrew in zones of contact and conflict. After publishing Palestinian-Israeli Contact and Linguistic Practices (2013), her Leverhulme Fellowship at Oxford University (2014-2019) resulted in The Politics of Palestinian Multilingualism: Speaking for Citizenship (2019). She previously worked at Amnesty International’s Secretariat in London.
Yoav Ronel (Bezalel and BGU) considers representations of a melancholic national and subjective desire in the prose of Micha Yosef Berdichevsky (1865-1921) This talk deals with the representations of a melancholic national and subjective desire, in the prose of Micha Yosef Berdichevsky (1865-1921), one of the prominent figures of the revival period of modern Hebrew Literature. Berdichevsky – as critics have shown repeatedly – claimed that the national revival will come from the birth of a new, erotic, willful and vital subject: the young, in-love and “detached” (Talush) protagonist of many of his stories, who represents the fracture point of Jewish modernity and secularism at the end of the 19th century. Ronel suggests that erotic love and the desire for a national revival in Berdichevsky’s poetic work appear as experiences of a melancholic desire that does not exhaust itself because it has already lost its object. And that this desire is the hinge around which the new life of Berdichevsky’s work turns. The erotic and vital desire – both subjective and national – is built upon an inherent sadness and melancholy. The revival period was characterized by a tension between the desire for the founding of sovereign Jewish nationality, and a deep doubt concerning the historical possibility of that project. Berdichevsky held a radical and anti-positivist position concerning the national-political debate: In his publicist and philosophical texts, the author repeatedly called for the need for Jewish sovereignty, and for the cultivation of a subjective and collective erotic will. Such calls stood against Berdichevsky’s disbelief in the possibility of such endeavour, and even in the survival of modern Jewish culture. Ronel argues that the melancholy found at the heart of his work is not opposed to the erotic and the national desire but preserves them. That is why Berdichevsky’s poetic and philosophical language does not distinguish between love and melancholy. Melancholy, Ronel thus argues, is not a biographical or psychological sadness and loss, but a poetic-political device. It is a mechanism for the suspension of subjective and national desire, and functions as the key to a renewed understanding of the author’s work and life.
Avihu Shoshana (Haifa University) discusses findings from his ethnography of social selection in Israeli night-clubs. This ethnographic study examines how micro-inequality operates face-to-face in everyday (or actually everynight) context of the nocturnal space of night clubs, focusing in particular on the long line awaiting entry to the club and undergoing the selection process to determine who is a bona fide customer and who will be denied access. The study entailed ethnographic observations of the long queue at the entrance to the club; in-depth interviews with the selectors (as they are called in Israel, or doormen and bouncers as they are referred to in the US and England); interviews with the partygoers in the long queue to enter the club aiming to examine their spatial and temporal experiences, especially interviews with individuals who do not pass selection (those whose ethnicity is depicted as "excessive" or referred to by the selectors as "heavy Oriental"); interviews with individuals who pass selection easily and regularly (individuals whose ethnicity is hegemonic and transparent and Oriental individuals who "pass" as hegemonic subjects); and ethnographic observation within the club (and especially the relations between different groups). The main research findings reveal a scenario of social selection (which includes specific status cues); differences in the waiting time experience between those who pass selection and those who do not pass selection; and unique reflexive engagement with respect to the spatial qualities of nightclubs among those who do not pass selection. The discussion section addresses the unique qualities of nocturnal inequality through the identification of a new symbolic type or unique spatio-temporal subjectivity in night life ("the one who does not pass selection"); the experiences of the subjects who do not pass selection (loss of singularity and privacy, the interpellation of symbolic type in hegemonic hierarchical-ethnic order and experiences of state abandonment and lawlessness); and the structural qualities of the nocturnal space (what I call hyper-structure as compared to anti-structure) associated with nightclubs. This cultural study of nightclubs enables us to discuss the connection between state, space, nocturnal inequality and subjectivity in everynight life.
Avihu Shoshana, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Education, University of Haifa, Israel. Avihu’s areas of research include cultural sociology; anthropology of education; ethnicity, race and social class; everyday inequalities; discourse, subjectivity and emotion. His articles have appeared in Ethnic and Racial Studies; Qualitative Sociology; Sociological Quarterly; Poetics; Sociology; Symbolic Interaction; Sociological Forum; Anthropology & Education Quarterly; Critical Studies in Education; Anthropological Theory; Ethos; Journal of Contemporary Ethnography; and Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry. Avihu's recent articles published in these journals deal with Palestinian professionals in labor organizations in Israel; Muslim students in Israeli universities; upward mobility (economic and cultural) of Mizrahim and Ashkenazim in Israel; ethnographies of schools from various socio-economic classes in Israel; social selection and ethnic distinctions for night clubs in Tel Aviv; and contemporary orders of discourse about ethnicity and class in Israel.
Jonathan Leslie considers the history of Iran's "becoming" and existential threat in Israel Years after the Islamic Republic of Iran resumed its nuclear development program, Israeli leaders began constructing a narrative aimed at instilling in their polity the fear of Iran as an existential threat to the Jewish State. Building upon Israel’s geopolitical insecurity, politicians, assisted by societal elites, repeatedly claimed that the imminent acquisition of a bomb by Iran’s religious fundamentalist regime undermined Israel’s security and threatened the stability of the world order. This project examines how Israeli leaders crafted a narrative in which Iran’s rulers sought the destruction of Israel; how the Israeli public internalized this perception of Iran as an enemy; and how Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu incorporated this message into his foreign policy agenda and used it in efforts to secure the support of international allies. Through the lens of securitization theory, this project analyzes primary source documents to show the divergence between the narrative’s content and historical facts. In doing so, it highlights how perception eclipses reality when a powerful securitizing actor claiming exclusive access to material information identifies a threat source and publicly promotes its danger. It then examines how Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu strategically embraced populist strategies to advocate for extraordinary action against Iran and to bolster his status as a leader and national protector. Taking advantage of Israel’s failure in the Second Lebanon War and Iran’s election of a radical and bombastic president, Netanyahu chose resonant tropes – misusing history, recasting Holocaust memory, and fashioning an overarching moral imperative – to create a permanent crisis and secure Israelis’ acquiescence. By 2015, however, he had failed to convince international powers that a negotiated deal suspending Iran’s nuclear enrichment program would make Israel and the world less safe. This project contributes to our understanding of current and future developments in the Israel-Iran enmity, both predictable and unanticipated.
Moriel Ram (SOAS) discusses how sand and snow produce potent imageries and physical realities in Israeli political culture. The talk examines how sand and snow produce potent imageries and physical realities which both solidify and undermine social hierarchies, cultural imagination and power relations. Focusing on Israel's fortification campaign in the Sinai Peninsula and touristic schemes in the Golan Heights between 1967 and 1973, Ram examine two projects which utilised sand and snow to shape contested spaces into geopolitical fantasies. First, the Bar-Lev line, built on a massive sand wall on top of the Eastern Bank of the Suez Canal and designed as the state's ultimate barrier. Second, the ski resort at the peak of Mount Hermon that was formed as a gateway to an imagined Europe. Ram argues that in both cases, the materiality of sand and snow, was mobilised to normalise the act of occupation, but at the same time challenged this very effort due to the fluidic nature of these materials which are constantly 'on the move' changing in shape, structure, and volume. Hence, an analysis of how sand and snow 'act' is also a call to read them as more than natural elements that are part of a silent landscape for human interaction, but as political matters that matter.
Moriel Ram is a political and cultural geographer. His main interest lies in exploring how matter matters in unstable environments. Past and present research include the militarization of natural resources in contested territories in the Middle East and the Mediterranean. The infrastructure of faith and religion in Israel's contested urban environments. The interaction between human lives and medical equipment in the development of clinical aid to African states and the representation of dead matter in popular culture through the figure of the zombie.
Yehouda Shenhav and Yaacov Yadgar discuss the uses and misuses of a discourse on “Judaism” in Israel. Session 3 in a series of three.
Elizabeth Shakman Hurd and Yolande Jansen discuss the notion of the “secular,” liberal politics of the nation-state. Session 2 in a series of three
Timothy Fitzgerald and William Cavanaugh discuss the politics and history of the conceptual duality and its current usages. First session in a series of three
Avner offer discusses how to measure -- and how to understand the measurements -- of quality of life and well-being in Israel. Israel scores very high internationally in the reported happiness of its Jewish inhabitants, and government politicians make much of that survey result. On the face of it there is a paradox: the country does not score high on other quality-of-life indicators and is not an easy place to live in. Prof. Offer reports on the construction and record of quality-of-life indicators more generally, on what they tell us about Israel, on currently ongoing research about well-being in the country, and on how the paradox might be understood and resolved.
Eyal Chowers considers Israeli democracy, liberalism, and the emerging notion of sovereignty in the state
How have rising power engaged with the Arab-Israeli conflict? What does this tell us about rising powers and conflict management as well as their behaviour in international politics more generally? How have rising power engaged with the Arab-Israeli conflict? What does this tell us about rising powers and conflict management as well as their behaviour in international politics more generally? The book examines these questions in relation to five rising powers - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - and how they have interacted with Israel, the Palestinians and the Arab states since the conflict became internationalsied in 1947. Situating conflict management on a spectrum, between more active and passive modes, the book finds that contrary to expectations, rising powers have adopted a more passive stance to conflict management under Oslo and into the post-Second Intifada period period, especially when compared to some of the countries' more active approach in the first decades after 1947.
Ibrahim Khatib discusses the correlations between identity, conflict perception, and willingness to reconcile. In the context of protracted conflict, is there a relation between identity and willingness for reconciliation, and in what way does this relation exist? The current study checks the relation between individual differences in identity perceptions of a given protracted conflict along religious, national, and civic dimensions and willingness for reconciliation. The research case study is the Arab Israeli conflict and was able to formulate a unified attitude which was applied to groups with asymmetrical power and also can serve scholars who study political mechanisms and dynamics involved in various protracted conflicts around the world and the researchers on democratic changing. Our hypothesis is that the perception of conflict and threat perception are major factors that mediate between the degree of agreement to reconciliation on the one side, and religious identity and other identity perceptions (national and civic identities) on the other side. Also, democratic values have a crucial role for increasing the willingness to reconcile. The study, a comparative study, examines this research model using surveys carried out among 2,170 students in Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia, Palestine, and Israel between October 2015 and June 2016. The cases were selected as each country has a various regime type (control variable). Results show that the perception of conflict and threat perception are major factors that mediate between degree of willingness to reconcile and the rise of some identity perceptions. Results also show that religious conflict perception decreases willingness to reconcile, while material perception increases it; in both cases, threat perception decreases willingness to reconcile. The results also show that this younger generation opposes reconciliation with Israel. Democratic values play a positive role in willingness to reconcile in the Israeli case, while in the Arab cases, they play a negative role. Identity perception could play a crucial role and affect how groups perceive their conflict basis, i.e., if one perceives his identity as religious, then s/he will also perceive the conflict as religious. According to the results; Israelis perceive their identity more as a national and civic and the conflict as material, while the Arabs perceive their identity as a religious and the conflict as a religious. Finally, being a democracy does not necessarily increase willingness to reconcile.
Menachem Klein discusses the political biography and leadership of Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority. Professor Klein presents a portrait of Abbas as PA President including in comparison to his predecessor - Arafat. Klein deals with these two leaders in his forthcoming book Arafat and Abbas: Portraits of Leadership in a State Postponed (C Hurst and Co Publishers, July 2019)
Khaled Furani deconstruct sovereignty, and considers some alternatives. The deceits and deficiencies of the workings of sovereignty have received noticeable attention among generations of writers in Israel/Palestine. However, the sovereignty of sovereignty itself as a reigning paradigm in the Western tradition of political thought remains unduly recognized. Taking this insufficient attention as an initial assumption, in this paper I focus on a dissociable property of modern sovereignty as formulated by its founding celebrants Hobbes and Rousseau: the molecular principle of indivisibility. I argue that in sovereignty regimes, there is an inherent denial of the possibility of human self-oppression—a denial that attenuates ethical orientations to fragility, finitude, and revelation—to deleterious effects. From a Palestinian standpoint within a dissolving Middle East, I hold that an immanent task for critiquing sovereignty remains and requires something greater than promoting its equitable performance in the region’s complex of nation-states. A Palestinian contestation of the grip of sovereignty over the modern political imagination could draw resources from the Palestinian experience and from the past and present of the Muslim tradition, to generate possibilities for restoring humility to governances and inducing a more genuine flourishing of persons, polities, and the planet.
How did Zionist scientist see climate in Palestine? Netta Cohen presents her doctoral research which occupies the intersection between modern Jewish history, climate and environmental history, the history of knowledge, and colonial history. Her talk focuses on Jewish physicians, architects, and botanists as they examined the potential ramifications of climate on the success of the Zionist project in Palestine between 1900 and 1948. Through the prism of climate, she explores the ways in which Jewish experts transported scientific knowledge from Europe and its colonies to Palestine. In addition to analysing the transfer of knowledge concerning climate, she also explores the role of climate – both as an abstract concept and a concrete condition – in shaping Jewish national, racial, cultural, and spatial identity in Palestine.
Brian Klug analyses the controversy around antisemitism in the Labour Party and the limits on the criticism of Zionism. In July 2018 a storm of controversy broke out in the UK when the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the Labour Party published a draft code of conduct to tackle antisemitism. Ostensibly, the controversy was about Labour's failure to adopt the definition of antisemitism formulated by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance in May 2016, substituting its own definition instead. This, however, was just the tip of the iceberg. This talk will critically examine the charge made against the NEC and explore the complex issues lying under the surface of the controversy. Particular attention will be given to the role played by the public debate over Zionism, Israel and Palestine.
About the speaker Brian Klug is senior research fellow and tutor in philosophy at St. Benet's Hall. He is also an honorary fellow of the Parkes Institute for the Study of Jewish/non-Jewish Relations, University of Southampton and fellow of the College, Saint Xavier University, Chicago. He is the author, among many works, of Being Jewish and Doing Justice: Bringing Argument to Life and Offence: The Jewish Case.
Orna Sasson-Levy discusses the cast of women soldiers who decide to speak Women's military service has dual meanings: on the one hand, it includes women in the institution of citizenship and enhances their feelings of belonging to the national collective. On the other hand, the women's encounter with the state at such a formative time, becomes an initiation process into gendered citizenship, where the women learn their (marginal) place vis-à-vis the state. The aim of my paper is to analyze women soldiers' testimonies about their military service to the anti-occupation movement "Breaking the Silence". The lecture will open with introducing three analytical concepts that help us understand better women's encounters with the state: Multi-level contracts, Contrasting gendered experiences and Dis/acknowledging violence. The second part will employ these concepts to analyze the soldiers' testimonies, and explore what they teach us about the link between women's military service, women's political voice, and gendered citizenship.
Adriana Jacobs (Oxford) discusses the role of translation in the constitutive era of modern Hebrew literature. In the early decades of the twentieth century, as the European literary enclaves of Hebrew literature began to move and consolidate their operations in Palestine, translation reinforced its status as a major, indispensable component of modern Hebrew literary production. In this talk, I will discuss the Hebrew translation economy in Mandatory Palestine and specifically address the role that the translation of poetry played in the development of Hebrew as a national literary language. Drawing my examples from the 1942 anthology, Shirat rusiya (Russian Poetry), I will show how Hebrew poet-translators engaged literary translation as a mode that simultaneously supported and unsettled the nation-building project.
David Tal discusses the making and history of US-Israel relationships. In December 1962 President John F. Kennedy told Israel’s foreign minister, Golda Meir that “the United States has a special relationship with Israel in the Middle East really comparable only to that which it has with Britain.” While agreeing that indeed, the Israeli- American relations could be labelled as ‘special,’ most students of American- Israeli relations argued over the question since when the Israeli-American relationship became really special, and what was it that made them “special.” The debate took place between students of the realistic school of thought, who argued that only after the 1967 war, or after the 1970 Black September events in Jordan that Israel became a strategic asset for the United States, and it was since than that the relations between the two countries became ‘special’. The proponents of the idealistic school of thought argue that idealism and religion were the determining factors that decided American special attitude toward Israel. While both realism and idealism existed in the American – Israel relationship, it was applied differently by each state. While the American approach toward Israel was mostly idealistic, based on religion, idealism and history, the Zionist and later Israeli approach toward the United States was realistic.
Yakov Rabkin (University of Montreal) discusses the roots of Israeli political culture in the Zionist beginnings in the Yiddish speaking regions of the Russian Empire.
Yaacov Yadgar discusses the recently passed Basic-Law: Israel the Nation State of the Jewish People, and discusses how it plays into Israel's Jewish Identity Crisis
Rami Ginat discusses the Egyptian Communist Party's stance on Israel in its formative first decade of statehood.
Faisal Devji discusses the surprising relations between Pakistani nationalism and Zionism.
Yuval Evri discusses the uses of the the image of Al-Andalus in political and cultural discourses in the turn of the 20th Century.
On the origins and context of a little know (for some obvious reasons) chapter in the history of the Zionism.
Prof. Avi Shlaim reviews the history of the Jordanian-Israeli relations, and considers how Israel is viewed and understood from the Jordanian side Prof. Avi Shlaim, an Emeritus Fellow of St Antony's College, a former Professor of International Relations at Oxford, and Fellow of the British Academy, offers an authoritative consideration of the Israeli-Jordanian relations, as these are perceived from the Jordanian side. Prof. Shlaim has written extensively on the Arab-Israeli conflict. His research has shed new light on the history of the Middle East, ushering in what in retrospect has been dubbed a new era in the historiography of the region.
On 'the mother' of all ensuing Mizrahi–Ashkenazi ethnic controversies. The question was simple: should the Hebraist Zionist movement in Ottoman Palestine invest in publishing a newspaper in Arabic and, if yes, should it be communitarian Jewish or general in its topics? What began as yet another obscure intra-Zionist deliberation gradually crystallized into what Dr. Behar argues merits the label of the earliest, explicitly Ashkenazi–Mizrahi ethnic controversy. This is with the smallest risk of the superimposition in hindsight of the terms and signifiers usually associated with Israel’s post-1971/Black-Panthers era onto the Ottoman period. Lasting between 1909 and 1913, the spirited exchange regarding the Arabic newspaper involved two dozen writers, mainly of the Sephardi–Mizrahi Haherut newspaper, and about one third of ethnic Ashkenazim writing elsewhere. It was nonetheless October 1911 that encapsulated the peak of the controversy, mainly due to writing by Mizrahi intellectual and activist Dr Shimon Moyal (1866–1915) and Ashkenazi intellectual and activist Dr Avraham Ludvipol (1865– 1921). Dr. Behar lets let primary texts speak for themselves at greater length than is customary, resulting from his conviction that – in this case – extensive recourse to source material can convey best to twenty-first-century readers why the exchange is effectively “the mother” of all ensuing Mizrahi–Ashkenazi ethnic controversies. Please note that the talk was accompanied by slides, offering the full quotes mentioned by the speaker. Your can read these text in Dr. Behar's article linked here: https://www.academia.edu/32479282/_1911_the_birth_of_the_Mizrahi_Ashkenazi_controversy_2017_
Why and how should we study Diaspora Jews' relation to Israel? In this talk, Dr. Ilan Baron makes a case for why studying Diaspora Jews' relationship with Israel ought to be done using a hermeneutic phenomenological approach. However, instead of making the case using a methodologically and philosophically abstract argument, he does so by going over empirical and related theoretical conclusions from his work on this topic. These include discussing recent fieldwork in California, his book 'Obligation in Exile: the Jewish Diaspora, Israel and Critique', and a forthcoming article in the Journal of International Political Theory. As he argues, for those Jews who feel a connection with Israel, or find that having such a connection is important for being Jewish, Israel matters not necessarily ideologically but phenomenologically, as a part of their being-in-the-world as Jews. Dr. Baron suggests that the evidence for how Israel features in the construction of contemporary Jewish identity is in how debates about Israel are not about Israel so much as they are about what it means to be Jewish. Consequently, what is especially important for researchers to explore are the types of meaning that Israel provides for Diaspora Jews and the implications of this meaning.