Israel Studies Seminar

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...

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') agre...

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,...

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...

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 enga...

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 (...

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...

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. Th...

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...

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 cr...

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 i...

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 societa...

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...

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...

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...

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 relig...

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...

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...

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 formula...

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...