This academic conference sets into question contemporary conflations of Judaism and Zionism by exploring a rainbow of non-Zionist Jewish traditions throughout recent 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.
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 Ophir (Brown University)
- Michael Steinberg (Brown University)
- Peter Szendy (Brown University)
- Max Weiss (Princeton University)
The event is cosponsored by the Cogut Institute for the Humanities, the Office of Institutional Equity and Diversity, and the Departments of History and Religious Studies. It is convened by Omer Bartov, Holly Case, Shaul Magid, Adi M. Ophir, and Peter Szendy.