Unpacking Zionism

This is the first episode in a mini-series called "From Above," which looks at the Zionist organizations that have been laying the groundwork for Trump-era fascism and are now helping it advance. This mini-series isn’t so much a “how did we get here” as an effort to demystify the ongoing structures of Zionism that underwrite this present moment. In this episode, we’re joined by Zach Samalin from N...

"From Above" is a new mini-series in our Unpacking Zionism podcast. It launches next week, but our teaser this week is a mini-show in itself. This series looks at the Zionist institutions that have been smearing, doxxing, and fueling ICE abductions and deportations in their efforts to shut down criticism of the U.S.-backed Israeli genocide of Palestinians. To kick off the series, we talk with rese...

In this episode, we are joined by Mama Ganuush, a Palestinian drag artist and activist, to unpack “Cultural Boycott” as a keyword in Critical Zionism Studies. We discuss San Francisco’s Civic Joy Fund, its Zionist backers, and the joy-washing event the Fund is organizing on April 5 – the Tenderloin Eid Night Market. Mama Ganuush shares the investigative report into San Francisco’s Civic Joy Fund a...

In this episode, we’re unpacking “corporate capital” as a keyword in Critical Zionism Studies with our guest Felice Gelman. We are discussing the article she wrote for Mondoweiss titled “ The ADL’s war on socially conscious investing is in service to Israel and the new oligarchy .” It is about the investment research firm Morningstar that earlier this year caved to an ADL (the Anti-Defamation Leag...

In this episode we’re talking about building liberatory institutions — institutions of resistive, anti-Zionist knowledge production. We’re with Bassam Haddad of the Arab Studies Institute , the parent organization of Jadaliyya , Gaza in Context , and multiple other projects. Join us to talk about knowledge-making as a political project, escaping the constraints of capital, countering the power of...

In the fifth and final episode of “The Trouble with White Feminism” series, Jessie Daniels talks to ICSZ founding collective member Lara Sheehi about maintaining clarity about the material reality of Zionist settler colonialism while resisting psycho-affective tactics that Zionists use to unsettle us. Sheehi, Lara, and Stephen Sheehi. Psychoanalysis Under Occupation: Practicing Resistance in Pales...

In the fourth episode of "The Trouble with White Feminism" series, Kim-Hong Nguyen talks to Jessie Daniels, author of Nice White Ladies , about white ladies celebrities. They unpack why white Jewish celebrities like Debra Messing, Amy Schumer, and Sheryl Sandberg stake a claim on their brand of feminism in service of Zionism. Daniels, Jessie. Nice White Ladies: The Truth about White Supremacy, Our...

In the third episode of "The Trouble with White Feminism" series, Jessie Daniels interviews Kim-Hong Nguyen, professor at University of Waterloo, in Ontario, Canada, and author of Mean Girl Feminism: How White Feminists Gaslight, Gatekeep, and Girlboss (University of Illinois Press, 2024). This conversation takes us through the IHRA definition of antisemitism - which has been discussed here on the...

In this episode, Jessie Daniels and Kim-Hong Nguyen ask Melissa Weiner about her work exploring the affective ties that the Zionist project generates through Birthright trips and summer camps and how these ties become imbricated within heteropatriarchy and settler colonialism. “The Blue Box” - documentary https://www.norma.co.il/blue-box/ https://www.cineaste.com/winter2023/blue-box “Birthright Is...

In the first episode of our special mini-series "The Trouble with White Feminism," host Jessie Daniels interviews Randa Tawil about the ways that white feminism serves the Zionist project. Randa Tawil is an Assistant Professor of Women and Gender Studies at Texas Christian University and a fellow at the American Council of Learned Societies. Tawil is also a member of the Palestinian Feminist Colle...

Today’s guest is Palestinian filmmaker and writer Azza El Hassan and the keyword we are discussing is “visual remains.” This term refers to Palestinian photographs and films that have survived Israeli plunder, looting, and destruction. By recovering, collecting, and restoring visual remains, El Hassan grapples with the violent past and present in the search for a new visual experience emerging out...

The Trouble with White Feminism is a special mini-series presented by writer, professor, and member of the founding collective of the Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism Jessie Daniels. Across five episodes, Daniels and her colleagues will discuss how white feminism overlaps and intersects with Zionism. This series will help make sense of the present moment when reports of sexual assault a...

Today’s episode is a double release with Nothing Never Happens – A Radical Pedagogy Podcast. In conversation with Tina Pippin and Lucia Hulsether, Unpacking Zionism co-hosts Yulia Gilich and Emmaia Gelman discuss ICSZ’s vision of producing resistive critical knowledge about Zionism in service of the movement for Palestinian liberation and with the explicit commitment to dismantling Zionism and col...

Today’s special episode is a recording of the launch of the inaugural issue of the Journal for the Critical Study of Zionism (JCSZ). Our guest speakers, Diana Buttu and Robin D.G. Kelley, reflect on the devastation wrought by Zionism over the past year and the past century. We asked Diana and Robin to help us think through the question of how Zionist historiography and memorialization of October 7...

In this episode, founders of DecolonizePalestine.com Rawan Masri and Fathi Nimer discuss abolition as a keyword in Critical Zionism Studies. In June 2023, Rawan and Fathi published an article titled “ Imprisoning Palestine: Zionist Colonialism through an Abolitionist Lens ” in the Scalawag magazine. This piece connects abolition and decolonization by highlighting the centrality of carceral and pun...

This episode with Eli Meyerhoff looks at “antisemitism training” as a keyword for Critical Zionism Studies. Eli Meyerhoff is a fellow at the Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom, which is part of the American Association of University Professors. Last week's episode is related to this conversation — that one is about tacking anti-Islamophobia messages onto discussions of antisemitism — as in...

This week we’re looking at Islamophobia as a keyword for Critical Zionism Studies. But it’s necessarily also about anti-Palestinian racism and DEI — diversity, equity, and inclusion. This is a special episode — rather than an interview, we’re bringing you leading thinkers and educators in conversation. We’re joined by Evelyn Alsultany, Nadine Naber, Nina Mehta, and ICSZ collective member Amira Jar...

This episode with philosopher John Harfouch considers “propaganda” as a keyword for Critical Zionism Studies. We’re looking at the work of Fayez Sayegh — the incredibly prolific Palestinian-Syrian-American scholar who was instrumental in theorizing Zionism and defining Arab American politics. Dr. Harfouch walks us through Sayegh’s studies of how Zionism works as a colonial process in Palestine and...

Today's guest is Jamal Nablusi, a diaspora Palestinian writer, researcher, and organizer. And the term he is helping us unpack in this episode is “Indigenous sovereignty.” In 2023, Jamal published an article called “ Reclaiming Palestinian Indigenous Sovereignty ” in the Journal of Palestine Studies , and that's the text that's guiding our conversation today. This interview was recorded in early S...

This conversation with Sophia Azeb is the third and last (at least for now) episode in our mini-series about “future” as a keyword in Critical Zionism Studies. We talk about Palestinian futurity and its entanglement with Palestinian history and memory of the past. Sophia Azeb (she/they) is an assistant professor of Black Studies in the Department of Critical Race and Ethnic Studies at the Universi...

“Reclaiming Knowledge Production, Resisting Zionist Enclosures” is a recording of a panel discussion among scholars, organizers, and faculty labor leaders who are resisting Israel’s genocide of Palestinian in Gaza and also resisting the upsurging forces of intellectual and cultural repression in the US. The panel is moderated by Black studies scholar and ICSZ collective member Dylan Rodriguez, wit...

In this episode, Pranay Somayajula helps us unpack the term hindutva as a keyword in Critical Zionism Studies. Hindutva is a strain of ethnic supremacy and Indian nationalism that Pranay will help us unpack in the episode. It is specifically anti-Muslim, and – like Zionism – it has been fueled by British colonialism. In the present, Hindutva is more and more entwined with Zionist politics. In our...

This is part 2 of our ongoing mini-series on “future” as a keyword in Critical Zionism Studies. We talk to Eman Abdelhadi who explains that every liberation struggle is ultimately a struggle for a different future, one that rebels against the unjust present and past. Eman Abdelhadi is an academic, activist and writer who thinks at the intersection of gender, sexuality, religion, and politics. She...

In this episode, we talk with Nayrouz Abu Hatoum about “future” as a keyword in Critical Zionism Studies. This conversation demonstrates that despite the violence that the Israeli state inflicts on Palestinian daily life, violence that affects their ability to imagine and predict the future, Palestinian struggle for liberation is always already future-oriented. Nayrouz Abu Hatoum is associate prof...

Today we are sharing the first episode of our new podcast Battling the IHRA Definition. You will hear from Christine Hong, speaking at our October 2023 conference titled “Battling the IHRA Definition: Theory and Activism.” Christine Hong is a founding collective member of the Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism and a professor of Critical Race and Ethnic Studies at UC Santa Cruz. Her talk...