15.01.25
Editorial Note
IAM reported several times on Brown University Center for Middle East Studies and its head, Professor Beshara Doumani. Among others, Doumani, a known anti-Israel activist, recruited anti-Israel Israeli academics, such as Prof. Ariella Azoulay, to espouse anti-Israel themes. He later took time out to lead Bir-Zeit University in the West Bank but recently resumed his Brown position.
One of his latest ventures is a February conference co-sponsored by Brown University’s Cogut Institute for the Humanities and the Departments of History and Religious Studies. Titled “Non-Zionist Jewish Traditions,” the conference will question the “contemporary conflations of Judaism and Zionism.” It will examine “non-Zionist Jewish traditions throughout history and across different regions.”
According to the conference invitation, the speakers are going to address the “changing relation to Zionism and the State of Israel in various Orthodox communities, in socialist and communist Jewish traditions, in the U.S. and Europe, among Ottoman and Arab Jews critical of the Zionist idea before 1948, among those who refused to immigrate to Israel or who lived there as dissidents, and among disillusioned Zionists in Israel and abroad.” The conference intends to look at “the spectrum of non-Zionist forms of Jewish thinking, activism, and organizing in their historical, ideological, theological, and theoretical contexts.”
The conference features a large number of themes: Shaul Magid, “Zionism as Assimilation: Aaron Shmuel Tamares on the Hypnosis of Nationalism.” Omer Bartov, “Yankel, Victor, and Manfred: Antisemitism and Zionism Before the Holocaust — Lived Reality and the Literary Imagination.” Sarah Hammerschlag, “The Post-war Irremissibility of Being Jewish: Non-Zionist possibilities beyond Diasporism.” Geoffrey Levin, “American Jewish Non-Zionism: A History — and a Future?” Jonathan Boyarin, “The Making of a Non-Zionist.” Michelle Campos, “Anti-Zionism in an Ottoman Turkish Key: David Fresko between Empire and Republic.” Orit Bashkin, “Zionism, Arabism, and MENA Jews, 1846–1956.” Ariella Aïsha Azoulay, “Ima, Why Didn’t You Love Me in Ladino?” Harry Merritt, “Jewish Sons of Latvia: Latvian Jews and Non-Zionist National Identity in War and Peace.” Michael Steinberg, “The Confederative Imagination.” David Myers, “A Taxonomy of Jewish Anti-Zionisms: From the ‘Lost Atlantis’ to the New Jerusalem.” Jonathan Judaken, “Judith Butler, Hannah Arendt, and the Tradition of the Conscious Pariah.” Daniel Boyarin, “Eretz-Yisroel [Is] Wherever You Are: Zionism Against the Jews.” Omri Boehm, “Beyond Zionism and Anti-Zionism.” Adi M. Ophir, “Jewish Anti-Zionism: Reflection on Its Context, Meaning, and Political Imagination.” Roundtable: “Anti-Zionism, Anti-Semitism, and the Stakes of the Debate,” Aslı Ü. Bâli, Omer Bartov, Mari Cohen, Beshara Doumani. Moderator: Shaul Magid.
Even if these offerings look somewhat confusing, the conference’s sole purpose is propagandists, notably to prove that anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism. As the organizers stated: the goal is to question the “contemporary conflations of Judaism and Zionism.” The reason is quite obvious. After the October 7 attack of Hamas on the Jewish communities bordering Gaza, campuses erupted in violence against Jews, which was clearly antisemitic in nature according to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Definition that was adopted by many countries. In the United States, it has been adopted by several states, counties, and cities, and the State Department uses it. Most consequentially, as a result of the disturbances, scores of colleges and universities have been sued for failing to protect Jewish students against antisemitic attacks.
No one has ever claimed that Jews throughout the ages were universally Zionists. There still exist Jews who do not identify with Zionism, and some, like some extreme ultraorthodox groups, do not recognize Israel. But, during its seven decades of existence, the majority of Jews have supported the state of Israel, and, according to repeated opinion surveys, Zionism and its embodiment, the State of Israel, has been an important part of Jewish identity.
Not unexpectedly, a considerable number of scholars who appear on the panels are known as prominent critics of Israel. Some, like Adi Ophir and Ariella Azulay, have been profiled numerous times by IAM. In his book The Necessity of Exile: Essays from a Distance, Shaul Magid, a professor of Jewish studies at Dartmouth College, argues that Jews “should consider anew the benefits of living in exile.” It is bitterly ironic that the powerful anti-Zionist Jewish elite in America made the same argument before WWII. Maybe Magid needs to be reminded that there are perils of living in exile, as the tremendous increase in violent attacks on Jews in Europe and the United States illustrates.
A second conference at Brown University also needs attention. Organized by New Directions in Palestinian Studies (NDPS), with equally propagandist goals. It took place in March 2024, and was titled “Palestine and the Palestinians After October 7.” The conference was advertised as intending to “bring together three generations (emerging, established, senior) of engaged scholars to envision how to move forward conceptually and practically as a community. Roughly two dozen attendees will discuss, in a closed seminar setting, twelve short think pieces. In line with the NDPS mission, which centers Palestinians in research projects, the think pieces—diverse in terms of topic, themes, disciplines, and theoretical approaches—are expected to focus on the internal landscape of the Palestinian body politic within regional and global contexts.”
The two-day program, introduced by Beshara Doumani, covered a number of issues. Sherene Seikaly “Ruins and Abundance”; Ruba Salih, “Palestinian Refugees: Reflecting on a Politics of Return”; Beshara Doumani “Rebuilding from the Rubble Yet Again: Towards the Fourth Phase of Palestinian Collective Action”, Nada Elia “Uplifting Palestine’s Indigenous Feminism” Amahl Bishara , “A New Nakba, and Reconstituting Collectivities” Sarah Ihmoud “I will weep for my beautiful city”: Palestinian Women’s Testimonies of Genocide in Gaza: Leila Farsakh, Noura Erakat, “Nakba Peace: Israel’s Demand for Exception to the Prohibition on Genocide,” Nasir al-Masri The “Day After” and Palestinian Self-Determination,” Abdel Razzaq Takriti “Genocide and the National Unity Question,” Ali Musleh, “Seeing the World From the Mouth of a Tunnel,” Bassam Haddad, “Only the Most Important Thing,”: Loubna Qutami, Nasser Abourahme, “In Tune with Their Time,” Mjriam Abu Samra, “New Horizons in Struggle: The Role of Transnational Palestinian Youth in Decolonial Politics,” Samar Al-Saleh, and Tamar Ghabin, “Reflections on the Post October 7 Era: The University, Labor and the Need for Engaged Intellectuals.”
Several factors are worth noting. First, there is a strong emphasis on the alleged “genocide” in Gaza. As IAM repeatedly demonstrated, Palestinians and their supporters have made a tremendous effort to propagate the idea that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza. As the previous IAM post stressed, the war in Gaza is not a case of genocide per the international humanitarian convention. Second, there is a conspicuous omission of the Hamas brutal attack on the Jewish communities on October 7, which featured extraordinary violence, including murder, rape, and kidnappings of innocent civilians. The failure to mention Hamas and its misdeeds is crucial to the “genocide” narrative spun by pro-Palestinian activists. For that matter, the speakers shy away from commenting on the brutal rule of Hamas in Gaza, which became clear after the IDF uncovered the terror group’s documents in the tunnels. For decades, Hamas oppressed the population with a combination of punitive economic policies and imprisoned and tortured those who complained. The contents of the international aid tracks have been stolen by Hamas terrorists and sold on the black market for huge profits. Third, there is no mention of the fact that Hamas is embedded in public places, turning civilians into human shields.
The participants in this conference, like others before them, are probably aware that the brutal Islamist ideology of Hamas and its sponsor, Iran, did Palestinians no good. But they cannot admit to any of it because it would hurt the image of Palestinians as the innocent victims of Jewish “genocidal and apartheid policy.” To sustain this paradigm, history and reality have to be denied.
The Brown University leadership should be alerted.
REFERENCES:
https://humanities.brown.edu/events/non-zionist-jewish-traditions
Non-Zionist Jewish Traditions
February 3-4, 2025
Andrews House 110, 13 Brown St.
This academic conference sets into question contemporary conflations of Judaism and Zionism by exploring a rainbow of non-Zionist Jewish traditions throughout history and across different regions. Speakers at the conference will address the changing relation to Zionism and the State of Israel in various Orthodox communities, in socialist and communist Jewish traditions, in the U.S. and Europe, among Ottoman and Arab Jews critical of the Zionist idea before 1948, among those who refused to immigrate to Israel or who lived there as dissidents, and among disillusioned Zionists in Israel and abroad. Together they will give an account of the spectrum of non-Zionist forms of Jewish thinking, activism, and organizing in their historical, ideological, theological, and theoretical contexts.
Free and open to the public, but please register. For questions or to request special services, accommodations, or assistance, please contact humanities-institute@brown.edu or (401) 863-6070.
The event is cosponsored by the Cogut Institute for the Humanities and the Departments of History and Religious Studies. It is convened by Omer Bartov, Holly Case, Shaul Magid, Adi M. Ophir, and Peter Szendy.
Speakers and Moderators
- Ariella Aïsha Azoulay (Brown University)
- Aslı Ü. Bâli (Yale Law School)
- Omer Bartov (Brown University)
- Orit Bashkin (University of Chicago)
- Omri Boehm (New School for Social Research)
- Daniel Boyarin (University of California, Berkeley)
- Jonathan Boyarin (Cornell University)
- Michelle Campos (Penn State University)
- Holly Case (Brown University)
- Mari Cohen (Jewish Currents)
- Beshara Doumani (Brown University)
- Sarah Hammerschlag (University of Chicago)
- Jonathan Judaken (Washington University, St. Louis)
- Geoffrey Levin (Emory University)
- Shaul Magid (Harvard Divinity School)
- Harry Merritt (University of Vermont)
- David Myers (University of California, Los Angeles)
- Adi M. Ophir (Brown University)
- Michael Steinberg (Brown University)
- Peter Szendy (Brown University)
- Max Weiss (Princeton University)
Schedule
Monday, February 3
| 8:30 am – 9:00 am | Opening Remarks | |
| 9:00 am – 10:50 am | Panel: In EuropeShaul Magid, “Zionism as Assimilation: Aaron Shmuel Tamares on the Hypnosis of Nationalism”Omer Bartov, “Yankel, Victor, and Manfred: Antisemitism and Zionism Before the Holocaust — Lived Reality and the Literary Imagination”Sarah Hammerschlag, “The Post-war Irremissibility of Being Jewish: Non-Zionist possibilities beyond Diasporism”Moderator: Adi M. Ophir | |
| 10:50 am – 11:10 am | Break | |
| 11:10 am – 1:00 pm | Panel: Non-Zionists, Old and NewHarry Merritt, “Jewish Sons of Latvia: Latvian Jews and Non-Zionist National Identity in War and Peace”Geoffrey Levin, “American Jewish Non-Zionism: A History — and a Future?”Jonathan Boyarin, “The Making of a Non-Zionist”Moderator: Omer Bartov | |
| 2:30 pm – 4:20 pm | Panel: In the Wake of the Ottoman WorldMichelle Campos, “Anti-Zionism in an Ottoman Turkish Key: David Fresko between Empire and Republic.”Orit Bashkin, “Zionism, Arabism, and MENA Jews, 1846–1956”Ariella Aïsha Azoulay, “Ima, Why Didn’t You Love Me in Ladino?”Moderator: Max Weiss | |
| 4:20 pm – 4:40 pm | Break | |
| 4:40 pm – 6:30 pm | Roundtable: On Recently Published BooksShaul MagidDaniel BoyarinJonathan JudakenModerator: Peter Szendy | |
Tuesday, February 4
| 8:45 am – 10:35 am | Panel: On and Over the MarginsMichael Steinberg, “The Confederative Imagination”David Myers, “A Taxonomy of Jewish Anti-Zionisms: From the ‘Lost Atlantis’ to the New Jerusalem”Jonathan Judaken, “Judith Butler, Hannah Arendt, and the Tradition of the Conscious Pariah” | |
| 10:40 am – 12:40 pm | Panel: Disillusioned ZionistsDaniel Boyarin, “Eretz-Yisroel [Is] Wherever You Are: Zionism Against the Jews”Omri Boehm, “Beyond Zionism and Anti-Zionism”Adi M. Ophir, “Jewish Anti-Zionism: Reflection on Its Context, Meaning, and Political Imagination”Moderator: Holly Case | |
| 2:00 pm – 4:00 pm | Roundtable: Anti-Zionism, Anti-Semitism, and the Stakes of the DebateAslı Ü. BâliOmer BartovMari CohenBeshara DoumaniModerator: Shaul Magid | |
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2024 Workshop
Palestine and the Palestinians after October 7
The ninth annual workshop of New Directions in Palestinian Studies (NDPS) is to be held at Brown University on March 8–9, 2024, on the theme, “Palestine and the Palestinians after October 7.”
The workshop will bring together three generations (emerging, established, senior) of engaged scholars to envision how to move forward conceptually and practically as a community. Roughly two dozen attendees will discuss, in a closed seminar setting, twelve short think pieces. In line with the NDPS mission, which centers Palestinians in research projects, the think pieces—diverse in terms of topic, themes, disciplines, and theoretical approaches—are expected to focus on the internal landscape of the Palestinian body politic within regional and global contexts.
Venue: Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute
By invitation
LETTER OF INVITATION
The 2024 NDPS theme, “Palestine and the Palestinians after October 7,” simply asks: How did we get here? And where are we going?
The workshop will bring together three generations (emerging, established, senior) of engaged scholars to envision how to move forward conceptually and practically as a community. Roughly two dozen attendees will discuss, in a closed seminar setting, ten short think pieces that will be circulated at the end of February 2024. In line with the NDPS mission which centers Palestinians in research projects, the think pieces –diverse in terms of topic, themes, disciplines, and theoretical approaches– are expected to focus on the internal landscape of the Palestinian body politic within regional and global contexts.
Some of the general questions for discussion include: How does this moment challenge dominant paradigms – nationalist, relational, settler colonial, and indigeneity—and their associated conceptual vocabularies? How can we critically re-evaluate our visions for Palestinian futures both beyond and between the interstices of the state-centric and human rights approaches? What are the horizons and priorities for knowledge production, intra-Palestinian activism, and intersectional solidarities? What Palestinian institutions and networks, existing or imagined, can constitute scaffolding for these futures? As the first day of the workshop falls on March 8, International Women’s Day, the afternoon panel on that day will focus on feminist approaches to rethinking Palestine and the Palestinians.
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Palestine and the Palestinians After October 7
March 8-9, 2024
Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute
Friday, March 8
8:30–9:15 a.m. Registration and Continental Breakfast
9:15–10:00 a.m.
Opening Remarks by Workshop Host
Beshara Doumani (Brown University)
10:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m. Session I: Beyond the Rubble
Chair: Zachary Lockman (New York University)
Sherene Seikaly (UC Santa Barbara) Ruins and Abundance
Ruba Salih (University of Bologna) Palestinian Refugees: Reflecting on a Politics of Return
Beshara Doumani (Brown University) Rebuilding from the Rubble Yet Again: Towards the Fourth Phase of Palestinian Collective Action.
12:00-1:10 p.m. Lunch
1:10-3:10 p.m. Session II: Feminist Praxis and Invitations to Listen
Chair: Nadje Al-Ali (Brown University)
Nada Elia (Western Washington University) Uplifting Palestine’s Indigenous Feminism
Amahl Bishara (Tufts University) A New Nakba, and Reconstituting Collectivities
Sarah Ihmoud (College of the Holy Cross) “I will weep for my beautiful city”: Palestinian Women’s Testimonies of Genocide in Gaza
3:10-3:30 p.m. Coffee Break
3:30–5:30 p.m. Session III: Genocide and Palestinian Political Futures
Chair: Leila Farsakh (UMass Boston)
Noura Erakat (Rutgers) Nakba Peace: Israel’s Demand for Exception to the Prohibition on Genocide
Nasir al-Masri (MIT) The “Day After” and Palestinian Self-Determination
Abdel Razzaq Takriti (Rice) Genocide and the National Unity Question
8:00 p.m. Dinner at the Summit, 18th floor, Graduate Hotel, 11 Dorrance Street, Providence, RI
Saturday, March 9
8:30–9:15 a.m. Continental Breakfast
9:15–11:15 a.m. Session IV: Embodied Encounters: Language, Images, Ideas, and (Con)Text
Chair: Alex Winder (Brown)
Alia Al-Sabi (NYU) and Amany Khalifa (Columbia) Untitled
Ali Musleh (Columbia) Seeing the World From the Mouth of a Tunnel
Bassam Haddad (George Mason University) Only the Most Important Thing
11:15–11:35 a.m. Coffee Break
11:35 am–1:35 p.m. Session V: Youth, Labor, Intellectuals, and the Time of Liberation
Chair: Loubna Qutami (Brown)
Nasser Abourahme (Bowdoin) In Tune with Their Time
Mjriam Abu Samra (UC Davis) New Horizons in Struggle: The Role of Transnational Palestinian Youth in Decolonial politics
Samar Al-Saleh (NYU) and Tamar Ghabin (NYU) Reflections on the Post October 7 Era: The University, Labor and the Need for Engaged Intellectuals
1:35-2:00 p.m. Break to Grab Lunch
2:00-2:30 p.m. Closing Remarks (Working Lunch)
israel-academia-monitor.com 
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