Since the start of the war in Gaza and its extension to Lebanon, several voices have been calling for a boycott of Israeli universities, always specifying that this should target only the universities as institutions and not the people working there. These initiatives claim to be aimed at increasing pressure on Israel to change its policies, end the war and recommit to a peace process with the Palestinians, and are justified by the argument that any Israeli university, by the mere fact of its existence, supports the policies of the Hebrew state. Yet there are serious grounds for doubting both the political effectiveness of these boycott practices and the representations that motivate them. To clarify the relationship between Israeli universities and the Netanyahu government, and to lift the veil on their role and functioning in the current conflict and within Israeli society, K. interviewed Professors Itai Ater and Alon Korngreen, members of the “Academics for Israeli Democracy” group, and Professor Eyal Benvenisti.
For contemporary critics of religious Zionism, its messianic fever is above all a consequence of its religiosity. Thus posed, the problem admits of only one solution: for life in Israel to be a negation neither of exile nor of Palestinian rights, Zionism can only be secular. In this personal reading of Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin’s latest essay, Mishnaic Consciousness, Biblical Consciousness: Safed and Zionist Culture (Kibbutz Ha-Meuhad and Van Leer Institute Publishing, 2022), Noémie Issan-Benchimol…
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How do Israeli academics react to the call for a boycott of their universities, and to the idea that they support the policies of the Hebrew state? What is their relationship with the Netanyahu government, and how has the war affected their academic freedom? To shed light on these questions, K. went to interview them directly. We publish the answers of Professors Itaï Ater and Alon Korngreen, members of the “Academics for Israeli Democracy” group, as well as those of Professor Eyal Benvenisti, member of the “Forum of Israeli Law Professors for Democracy”.
Can Jewish religiosity blend with Zionism without ending up in messianism? Through this personal reading of Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin's latest essay, Mishnaic Consciousness, Biblical Consciousness: Safed and Zionist Culture, Noémie Issan-Benchimol introduces us to another way of thinking about Jewish existence in the land of Israel: the Safed model, for which there is no outside of exile.
Daniel Szeftel continues his investigation into the origins of the discourse that portrays Israel as an intrinsically genocidal entity. In this second part, he describes the post-war efforts of Arab nationalism to reformulate its discourse for Western audiences. This highlights a fundamental phenomenon in the accusations that characterize the discourse of settler colonialism: the concealment of racist and fascist elements at home and the projection of these onto the Jewish state.
Is contemporary anti-Zionism a new version of “idiot socialism”? How can it be criticized from a left-wing perspective, without giving in to the sirens of reaction? In this interview, Mitchell Cohen, former editor-in-chief of Dissent magazine , gives us a few ways out of contemporary aporias. In the wake of the Trump victory, we also asked him to answer a few questions that might enlighten European readers about the American political situation.
What are the implications of the arrest warrants issued by the ICC against Netanyahu and Gallant? Should they be seen as a political judgment? To clarify the legal implications of this decision, K. went to interview legal expert Yann Jurovics – whom we had already interviewed about South Africa’s case before the International Court of Justice, as well as about the request to issue arrest warrants before the ICC last May.
What are the origins of the discourse that portrays Israel as an intrinsically genocidal entity, bent on the destruction of the indigenous Palestinian people? In the first part of his historical investigation, Daniel Szeftel examines the revival of Arab nationalism from the 20s to the 40s, highlighting the influence of fascism and European antisemitism on its structuring. The second part of his text will show how, from these ideological coordinates, the discourse of settler colonialism and the accusation of genocide against Israel developed in the second half of the twentieth century.
On a plane, two Jews are having a conversation. In this short story – delivered at the 2004 Koret Jewish Book Award ceremony in New York – Barbara Honigmann humorously questions what Jews have in common, and what radically sets them apart.
How can we explain the disarray of the European conscience in the face of the rise of antisemitism it promised itself it would “never again” tolerate? In this text, historians Henriette Asséo and Claudia Moatti examine the paradoxes of a Europe faced with the temptation of identity.
Dybbuk, golems, zombies, spectres, werewolves and other Mazzikim, Jewish demonology has penetrated the cinema, but what does it have to tell us? Between memories of the Shoah, reflections on evil, the body or the unconscious, or even the quest for an alternative religiosity – on the occasion of the exhibition currently on view at the mahJ in Paris: “The dybbuk. Phantom of the lost world”, an investigation into one of Judaism’s most singular contributions to art and representation. By David Haziza, who has just published ‘Jewish myths. The return of the sacred’, in the Diaspora book series published by Calmann-Lévy.
How did American Jews and their organizations position themselves during the presidential campaign, and what role did the Israel-Palestine conflict play in it? In this interview, conducted on the eve of Presidential Election Day, journalist and essayist Dara Horn sheds light on the political cleavages within the American Jewish world, and how they are at times instrumentalized.
What explains the political wandering of some Jews, who seem to be sliding irresistibly to the right? Katie Ebner-Landy proposes here three paradoxes, which she proposes will have to be fought against to reassure left-wing Jews.
Could the Jewish world, which is currently undergoing a process of division, go as far as an internecine war? For Bruno Karsenti, the possible election of Donald Trump to the American presidency could complete the rupture. It would make it impossible to ignore the gulf that now separates the “Jews committed to force” from the “Jews committed to law and rights”.
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