Unpacking Zionism

Welcome to Battling the IHRA Definition, a new podcast by the Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism. This trailer is a quick introduction into “the IHRA definition of antisemitism,” which has been weaponized by Zionist institutions and policymakers to equate criticizing Israel with antisemitism and equate Zionism with Jewishness. The IHRA definition is a tactic used by political actors — par...

In this episode, we talk with Jennifer Mogannam about “refugees” as a keyword for thinking about Zionism. Our conversation considers how Palestinian refugee resistance to the condition of Zionist colonization permeates culture, community, politics, and sense of the future — not only for Palestinians but for everyone — and how that resistance poses a major challenge to the narratives that Zionism r...

In this special episode, we share a talk on a new (really!) right-wing attack on Palestine-related organizations: a U.S. federal "anti-terror" bill that would strip progressive organizations of their ability to function, and wouldn't require scrutiny or due process. Legal scholar Darryl Li and policy expert Lara Friedman discuss the new legislation and its relationship to the avalanche of new prop...

In this episode, we are joined by Sai Englert to discuss settler colonialism as a keyword in Critical Zionism Studies. Sai’s work considers the role of labor in the settler colonial conquest of land and accumulation of resources, and its particular importance to the Zionist project. This conversation explores the logics and contradictions of settler colonialism, and Sai makes a compelling case for...

This episode with Dylan Rodriguez takes a look at the Stop Asian Hate campaign, and some of the organizations behind it, as a way to consider hate as a keyword for Critical Zionism Studies. This is also the first of several episodes we hope to bring you where we’ll talk about the intersections of Asian and AAPI politics, in the US and globally, as they intersect with Zionist politics. Dylan’s arti...

In this episode on Zionism and anti-Zionism, we talk with Ronit Lentin. She outlines the processes by which Zionism adopts race science and rewrites history and Jewish identity to fit it. This is a wide-ranging conversation that draws on research, family history, and decades of antiracist work — and ends with exile.

This special episode maps the wide-ranging counterinsurgency against the anticolonial Palestine solidarity movement in the U.S., and opens a conversation on strategy for resistance. Lara Friedman, Amira Jarmakani, and Emmaia Gelman talk through campus safety narratives, Zionist “antisemitism watchdogs”, and a mushrooming landscape of federal and state legislation. This panel was recorded as part o...

This episode, with Miriam Osman of the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), goes right to the heart of the matter. We’re unpacking Zionism and anti-Zionism as keywords for Critical Zionism Studies, as we talk over Palestinian historical writing about Zionist colonialism. We discuss how understanding Zionism as a project of various powers — states, empires, and capital — is essential for defining anti...

For this episode, we invited Sara Kershnar to unpack antisemitism as one of the keywords in Critical Zionism Studies. In October 2023, Sara spoke at the Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism's inaugural conference about Israel, U.S. white nationalism, and transnational right-wing alliances and you can view Sara’s talk on our website . In today’s conversation, we will pull on some of the thre...

In this episode, we invited Amira Jarmakani and Sean Malloy to talk about DEI, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, as a crucial term to unpack in order to understand how Zionist politics are working. Amira Jarmakani is a professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and affiliated faculty with the Center for Islamic and Arabic Studies and LGBTQ Plus Studies at San Diego State University. And...

In this episode, we invited Arun Kundnani, a member of the founding collective of the Institute, to talk about the idea of terror and how it relates to Zionism. Arun is a writer and a thinker whose work is on race and racial capitalism, Islamophobia, surveillance, political violence, and radicalism. Arun wrote a recent article “ Israel, US campuses, and the fragility of the coloniser ” that is pub...

For this first episode, we have three guests and we're excited to launch the podcast in conversation with Rabab Abdulhadi, Lara Kiswani, and Dylan Rodriguez. We discuss what Critical Zionism Studies is and what it can offer us in this moment. To learn more about the Institute and to access episode notes and transcripts, visit our website criticalzionismstudies.org . And please subscribe to "Unpack...

Introducing the new weekly podcast "Unpacking Zionism." It will feature conversations with scholars, activists, and artists about their insights into Zionism. Whether you're an activist or an academic, whether you're new to these conversations, or you've been thinking about this for a while, we're making this podcast for you. To learn more about the Institute and to access episode notes and transc...