Relevant Links
Running weekly during Term time, the Israel Studies Seminar is the primary setting for public discussions on a wide spectrum of issues relating to Israeli society, history, politics and culture in the University of Oxford. With an international list of speakers, it has been attracting much attention and a growing audience participation. The seminar is convened by Prof. Yaacov Yadgar, the Stanley Lewis Professor of Israel Studies, based at the Oxford School of Global and Area Studies and the Department of Politics and International Relation. The seminar is hosted by the Middle East Centre at St. Antony’s College. For more details, see the Seminar’s website here: https://www.mes.ox.ac.uk/#/
| # | Episode Title | Description | People | Date | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 78 | Trade Networks Bridging Yemen, Israel, and Ethiopia: The Ḥibshūsh Family and Jewish-Muslim Commercial Relations in the 20th Century | This lecture examines the commercial legacy of the Ḥibshūsh family, a prominent Yemenite Jewish dynasty that played a pivotal role in the Red Sea basin trade from the 1880s to the 1970s | Menashe Anzi | 06 Dec 2024 | |
| 77 | Abraham and Moses as Entrepreneurs: Educating for the Future with Narratives of the Past | How does the global entrepreneurial discourse, which advocates for a neoliberal, individualistic, and future-oriented identity, intersects with a state education system that seeks to establish a collectivist and ethno-national identity? | Sari R. Alfi Nissan | 22 Nov 2024 | |
| 76 | Synagogues in Israeli Urban Internal Frontiers as Symbols of Sovereignty | Israeli synagogues in mixed cities following the 1948 war, and their sovereign role | David Borabeck | 15 Nov 2024 | |
| 75 | Creative Commons | New & Jew, Zionism and the Quest for National Culture | The Creation of Hebrew Music and its Origins | Yaron Peleg | 06 Nov 2024 |
| 74 | Creative Commons | Michal Huss - You cannot really live (or die) here: ongoing struggles over cemeteries and housing in Tel Aviv-Jaffa, 1957-2020 | Debates over housing and cemeteries in Jaffa. | Michal Huss | 30 Oct 2024 |
| 73 | Martin Goodman - The Image of Herod in Modern Israel | Jewish, Israeli, and Zionist perceptions of Herod. | Martin Goodman | 23 Oct 2024 | |
| 72 | Yemima Hadad - Buber and Gandhi on land and resistance: Reading the Buber-Gandhi correspondence after October 7 | Contesting pacifist views and their implications today. | Yemima Hadad | 21 Oct 2024 | |
| 71 | Anat Scolnicov - The Israel Supreme Court Religion and the Relationship of State and Religion in Israel | On judicial independence in Israel | Anat Scolnicov | 23 Mar 2023 | |
| 70 | Amos Morris-Rich - The Fusion of Zionism and Science: The First Two Decades - And the Present Day? | On Zionism's relation to Science | Amos Morris-Reich | 23 Mar 2023 | |
| 69 | Creative Commons | Neta Schramm - Zionist Neutral? The Sardonic Zionism of Yeshayahu Leibowitz and Ovadia Yosef | Neta Schramm discusses the (non-ideological) "think Zionism" stances of two leading Israeli figures. | Neta Schramm | 05 Dec 2022 |
| 68 | Creative Commons | Maya Mark - Menachem Begin’s stand on the imposition of the Military Government, 1948- 1966 | Maya Mark discusses Menachem Begin's commitment to Liberalism | Maya Mark | 30 Nov 2022 |
| 67 | Creative Commons | Hillel Cohen - Haters, Love Story: on the relations between Mizrahi Jews and Palestinian Arab’ | Hillel Cohen discusses his new book on Mizrahim, Arabs, and Asheknazim in Israel | Hillel Cohen | 21 Nov 2022 |
| 66 | Creative Commons | Suzanne Schneider - The Divine People? Mapping the political-theological coordinates of post-liberalism | On the political theology of "illiberal democracy" | Suzanne Schneider | 10 Nov 2022 |
| 65 | Gabriel Schwake - Dwelling on the Green Line: Privatize and Rule in Israel/Palestine | Gabriel Schwake discusses his new book dealing with urban planning along the green line. | Gabriel Schwake | 03 Nov 2022 | |
| 64 | Tilde Rosmer - The Islamic Movement in Israel | Tilde Rosmer (Zayed University) discusses the history and politics of the Islamic Movement in Israel. | Tilde Rosmer | 19 Oct 2022 | |
| 63 | Gideon Katz - The Fear of Judaism in Israeli Culture | Gideon Katz discusses some of the mure surprising aspect of Israeli secularism | Gideon Katz | 27 May 2022 | |
| 62 | Nitzan Lebovic: Is Zionism a “Left-Wing Melancholy”? | Nitzan Levobic discusses Zionism and melancholy, through the woks of Israel Zarchi | Nitzan Levobic | 18 May 2022 | |
| 61 | Tony Shaw and Giora Goodman - Hollywood and Israel: A History | The authors of a recently published book dealing with the history of Hollywood's relation with Israel discuss some of their findings | Tony Shaw, Giora Goodman | 12 May 2022 | |
| 60 | Haggai Ram - The Social Life of Hashish in Mandatory Palestine and Israel: A Global History | Haggai Ram charts the (modern) history of Hashish in the Holy Land | Haggai Ram | 01 Dec 2021 | |
| 59 | Amnon Aran - Israeli foreign policy since the end of the Cold War | Amnon Aran maps the development of Israeli foreign policy since the end of the Cold War | Amnon Aran | 18 Nov 2021 | |
| 58 | Michael Karayanni - Religion and State among the Palestinian-Arabs in Israel: A Multicultural Entrapment | Michael Karayanni considers how the Israeli construction of religion and politics shapes the live Palestinian-Arabs in the state. | Michael Karayanni | 18 Nov 2021 | |
| 57 | Creative Commons | Eldad Ben Aharon - Supporting Denial: Israel’s Foreign Policy and the Armenian Genocide | Eldad Ben-Aharon charts the history of Israel's refusal to recognise the Armenian Genocide. | Eldad Ben-Aharon | 03 Nov 2021 |
| 56 | Creative Commons | Kathrin Bachleitner - A road towards atonement? Why only West Germany came to “atone” for the Nazi crimes. | Kathrin Bachleitner remaps the road that led to Germany's "atonement" for the Holocaust | Kathrin Bachleitner | 27 Oct 2021 |
| 55 | Creative Commons | Atalia Omer - Pathways toward a Jewish Israeli Restorative Ethics | Atalia Omer discusses restorative justice practices and the possibilities (and limits) of Jewish critiques of Zionism. | Atalia Omer, Yaacov Yadgar | 20 Oct 2021 |
| 54 | Reconsidering Early Jewish Nationalist Ideologies Seminar: Elana Shapira: Berta Zuckerkandl and Her Circle: Austrian Nationalism and Zionism in Viennese Modernism | Elana Shapira discusses the tangled relationship between Austrian Nationalism and Zionism in Viennese Modernism | Elana Shapira | 09 Mar 2021 | |
| 53 | Reconsidering Early Jewish Nationalist Ideologies Seminar: Maja Gildin Zuckerman: The Pragmatism of Proto-Zionism: Tracing Jewish Nation-building through a Cultural Sociological Framework | Maya Gildin Zuckerman discusses a 1897 tour from London to Palestine as a moment in the Zionist meaning making process. | Maja Gilding Zuckerman | 23 Feb 2021 | |
| 52 | Jamie Stern-Weiner: IHRA: The Politics of a Definition | Jamie Stern-Weiner (Oxford) traces the genesis and evolution of a controversial 'working definition' of antisemitism. | Jamie Stern-Weiner | 16 Feb 2021 | |
| 51 | Anna Prashizky: Connecting Ethnicity and Space: The New Russian-Mizrahi-Mediterranean Pop Culture in Israel’s Periphery | Ann Prashizky discusses 'self orientalistation' by the 1.5 generation of FSU immigrants to Israel. | Anna Prashizky | 02 Feb 2021 | |
| 50 | Adam Sutcliffe: Light Unto the Nations - The Idea of Jewish Purpose and the Emergence of Zionism (Reconsidering Early Jewish Nationalist Ideologies Seminar) | Adam Sutcliffe (KCL) discusses how Zionist ideologues have viewed the notion of Jewish purpose. | Adam Sutcliffe | 27 Jan 2021 | |
| 49 | Tal Shamur (Cambridge): The emergence of melancholic citizenship at the urban periphery: The case of south Tel Aviv protest against global migration | Tal Shamur presents his work on the melancholic protest of Hatikva residents. | Tal Shamur | 19 Jan 2021 | |
| 48 | Reconsidering Early Jewish Nationalist Ideologies Seminar: Rose Stair (Oxford): Age and gender in German-language cultural Zionism | The fourth lecture in the Reconsidering Early Jewish Nationalist Ideologies seminar series. Rose Stair discusses cultural Zionism through a focus on age and gender. | Rost Stair | 01 Dec 2020 | |
| 47 | Peter Bergamin (Oxford): Guns and Moses: Jewish anti-British Resistance during the Mandate for Palestine | Peter Bergamin presents some findings and conclusions from his recent research on the British Mandate for Palestine, focusin on the phenomena of Jewish illegal immigration and anti-British terrorism, and their role in Britain’s eventual abandonment of the | Peter Bergamin | 24 Nov 2020 | |
| 46 | Reconsidering Early Jewish Nationalist Ideologies Seminar: Yuval Evri (KCL) - The Return to Al-Andalus: Disputes Over Sephardic Culture and Identity Between Arabic and Hebrew | Yuval Evri discusses his new book, The Return to Al-Andalus, Disputes Over Sephardic Culture and Identity Between Arabic and Hebrew | Yuval Evri | 17 Nov 2020 | |
| 45 | Nahshon Perez (Bar-Ilan) and Yuval Jobani (Tel Aviv): Governing the Sacred: Political Toleration in Five Contested Sacred Sites | Nachshon Perez discusses Perez and Jobani's co-authored book on the politics of contested sacred sites | Nachshon Perez | 10 Nov 2020 | |
| 44 | Reconsidering Early Jewish Nationalist Ideologies Semina: Danielle Drori (Oxford): Yosef Klausner in Translation: Zionism and Christianity | The second seminar in the Reconsidering Early Jewish Nationalism Sereis. Danielle Drori discusses Zionism and translation, with a focus on Klausner's Life of Jesus | Danielle Drori | 03 Nov 2020 | |
| 43 | Hadeel Abu Hussein (Oxford): Palestinian Arab Citizens in Israel, Equality Struggle | Hadeel Abu Hussein discusses the historical stages of the Palestinian Arab citizens in Israel with respect to their political formation and social experience as individuals and a collective starting from 1948, until nowadays. | Hadeel Abu Hussein | 27 Oct 2020 | |
| 42 | Reconsidering Early Jewish Nationalist Ideologies Seminar: Yair Wallach, (SOAS): Language of Revival or Conquest? Hebrew in the Streets of early 20th century Jerusalem | Yair Wallach discusses his book A City in Fragments: Urban Text in Modern Jerusalem (Stanford University Press, 2020). | Yair Wallach | 22 Oct 2020 | |
| 41 | Sandy Kedar: Emptied Lands - A Legal Geography of Bedouin Rights in the Negev. | Prof. Sandy Kedar (Haifa) discusses his co-authored book on the legal rights of the Bedouin in the Negev. | Sandy Kedar | 14 Oct 2020 | |
| 40 | Hizky Shoham - The Emotional Scripting of Boycotts: The Nazi-Zionist Agreement in Jewish Public Culture During the 1930s | Hizky Shoham discusses the 'emotionologies' surrounding the Nazi-Zionist 'Transfer agreement.' | Hizky Shoham | 26 Feb 2020 | |
| 39 | Larissa Remennick - The Israeli Diaspora in Berlin: Back to Being Jewish? | Larissa Remeniick discuss the origins and present condition of the new (post-2010) Israeli diaspora in Berlin | Larissa Remennick | 19 Feb 2020 | |
| 38 | Lotem Perry-Hazan: Ethnic segregation in the Haredi education in Israel: Policies and practices | Lotem Perry-Hazzan discusses ethnic discrimination in admissions to Haredi schools in Israel | Lotem Perry-Hazzan | 05 Feb 2020 | |
| 37 | Heather Munro: Ashkenazi Hegemony in Haredi Israeli Society and Implications for the Future | Heather Monro discusses the implications of Ashkenazi Hegemony in the Israeli Haredi society. | Heather Munro | 28 Jan 2020 | |
| 36 | The Making of the Israeli Far Right Book Talk by Peter Bergamin | Peter Bergamin discusses his new book: The Making of the Israeli Far-Right: Abba Ahimeir and Zionist Ideology | Peter Bergamin | 22 Jan 2020 | |
| 35 | Creative Commons | Seyed Ali Alavi - Iran and Palestine: Past, Present and Future | Ali Alavi discusses the history of Iran's relations with Palestinian organisation and the Palestinian cause, and their implication to Iranian-Israeli relations. | Ali Alavi | 22 Jan 2020 |
| 34 | Creative Commons | Tamar Calahorra, Competition between Members of Parliament and Governmental ministries on Policy Outcomes through Legislation – Israel as a Test case | Dr. Calahorra studies some dramatic changes in the ways legislation is conducted in Israel | Tamar Calahorra | 03 Dec 2019 |
| 33 | Creative Commons | Nancy Hawker - Palestinian multilingualism: A perfectly normal adaptation to colonialism, conflict and late capitalism | Nancy Hawker (The Aga Khan University) considers the developing place of Arabic in official nation-statist platforms in Israel | Nancy Hawker | 27 Nov 2019 |
| 32 | Creative Commons | Yoav Ronel - 'Love, Zionism and Melancholy in the Prose of Micha Yosef Berdichevsky' | Yoav Ronel (Bezalel and BGU) considers representations of a melancholic national and subjective desire in the prose of Micha Yosef Berdichevsky (1865-1921) | Yoav Ronnel | 20 Nov 2019 |
| 31 | Creative Commons | Avihu Shoshana - 'Nocturnal Inequality: Ethnographies of Social Selection and Waiting in Line for Night Clubs in Tel-Aviv' | Avihu Shoshana (Haifa University) discusses findings from his ethnography of social selection in Israeli night-clubs. | Avihu Shoshana | 13 Nov 2019 |
| 30 | Creative Commons | Jonathan Leslie - Fear and Insecurity: Competing Narratives of the Iran-Israel Relationship | Jonathan Leslie considers the history of Iran's "becoming" and existential threat in Israel | Jonathan Leslie | 06 Nov 2019 |
| 29 | Moriel Ram, 'A tale of sand and snow: Bar-Lev line and the Hermon ski site as material fantasies' | Moriel Ram (SOAS) discusses how sand and snow produce potent imageries and physical realities in Israeli political culture. | Moriel Ram | 05 Nov 2019 | |
| 28 | Creative Commons | The Folly of Secularism Dialogues on the theopolitics of the nation-state: Israel in a wider context. Session 3: Israel: a dialogue between Yehouda Shenhav (Tel Aviv) and Yaacov Yadgar (Oxford) | Yehouda Shenhav and Yaacov Yadgar discuss the uses and misuses of a discourse on “Judaism” in Israel. Session 3 in a series of three. | Yehouda Shenhav, Yuval Evri, Yaacov Yadgar | 03 Apr 2019 |
| 27 | Creative Commons | The Folly of Secularism Dialogues on the theopolitics of the nation-state: Israel in a wider context. Session 2: Liberalism and Secularism: a dialogue between Elizabeth Shakman Hurd (Northwestern) and Yolanda Jansen (Amsterdam) | 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 | Elisabeth Shakman Hurd, Yolande Jansen | 03 Apr 2019 |
| 26 | Creative Commons | The Folly of Secularism Dialogues on the theopolitics of the nation-state: Israel in a wider context. Session 1 Religion and Politics: a dialogue between William Cavanaugh (DePaul) and Timothy Fitzgerald (Centre for Critical Research on Religion) | 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 | Timothy Fitzgerald, William Cavanaugh | 03 Apr 2019 |
| 25 | Creative Commons | Avner Offer: Quality of Life and Well-being in Israel Today | Avner offer discusses how to measure -- and how to understand the measurements -- of quality of life and well-being in Israel. | Avner Offer | 06 Mar 2019 |
| 24 | Creative Commons | Eyal Chowers - The emerging notion of sovereignty in contemporary Israel | Eyal Chowers considers Israeli democracy, liberalism, and the emerging notion of sovereignty in the state | Eyal Chowers | 06 Mar 2019 |
| 23 | Ibrahim Khatib - Identity, Conflict perception and Reconciliation in the shadow of the Arab-Israeli conflict | Ibrahim Khatib discusses the correlations between identity, conflict perception, and willingness to reconcile. | Ibrahim Khatib | 27 Feb 2019 | |
| 22 | Guy Burton - Rising Powers and the Arab-Israeli Conflict since 1947' | 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? | Guy Burton | 27 Feb 2019 | |
| 21 | Creative Commons | Menachem Klein - Abbas' Leadership in a State Postponed | Menachem Klein discusses the political biography and leadership of Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority. | Menachem Klein | 06 Feb 2019 |
| 20 | Khaled Furani - Putting Israel on the Couch: A Palestinian challenge from within the Leviathan | Khaled Furani deconstruct sovereignty, and considers some alternatives. | Khaled Furani | 23 Jan 2019 | |
| 19 | Creative Commons | Netta Cohen - When climate takes command: Jewish-Zionist scientific approaches to climate in Palestine 1900-1948 | How did Zionist scientist see climate in Palestine? | Netta Cohen | 16 Jan 2019 |
| 18 | Creative Commons | Brian Klug - Defining antisemitism, demonizing Zionism, excoriating Corbyn: The current controversy over the left and the Jews | Brian Klug analyses the controversy around antisemitism in the Labour Party and the limits on the criticism of Zionism. | Brian Klug | 28 Nov 2018 |
| 17 | Orna Sasson-Levy - Gendered citizenship: The case of Women Breaking the Silence | Orna Sasson-Levy discusses the cast of women soldiers who decide to speak | Orna Sasson-Levy | 21 Nov 2018 | |
| 16 | Creative Commons | Adriana X Jacobs - A gift from Sinai: Translation and nation-building | Adriana Jacobs (Oxford) discusses the role of translation in the constitutive era of modern Hebrew literature. | Adriana X Jacobs | 16 Nov 2018 |
| 15 | David Tal - The making of alliance: The making and history of US-Israel relationships | David Tal discusses the making and history of US-Israel relationships. | David Tal | 16 Nov 2018 | |
| 14 | Yakov Rabkin - Israel: The Russian Connection | Yakov Rabkin (University of Montreal) discusses the roots of Israeli political culture in the Zionist beginnings in the Yiddish speaking regions of the Russian Empire. | Yakov Rabkin | 26 Oct 2018 | |
| 13 | Yaacov Yadgar - The Nation-State bill and the meaning of Israel’s Jewish identity | Yaacov Yadgar discusses the recently passed Basic-Law: Israel the Nation State of the Jewish People, and discusses how it plays into Israel's Jewish Identity Crisis | Yaacov Yadgar | 10 Oct 2018 | |
| 12 | Creative Commons | Kfir Cohen - Israeli Literature as Global Literature | Kfir Cohen discusses Israeli literature as global literature (broadly defined) | Kfir Cohen | 25 Jun 2018 |
| 11 | Bashir Abu-Manneh - Habibi’s The Pessoptimist and 1948 | Bashir Abu-Manneh discusses Emile Habibi’s The Pessoptimist and 1948. | Bashir Abu-Manneh | 31 May 2018 | |
| 10 | Rami Ginat - Egyptian Communist Voices of Peace (1947-1958) | Rami Ginat discusses the Egyptian Communist Party's stance on Israel in its formative first decade of statehood. | Rami Ginat, Yaacov Yadgar | 30 May 2018 | |
| 9 | Creative Commons | Faisal Devji: Jewish Pecedents and Muslim Nationalism | Faisal Devji discusses the surprising relations between Pakistani nationalism and Zionism. | Faisal Devji, Yaacov Yadgar | 02 May 2018 |
| 8 | Yuval Evri: Andalusian Legacies: the role of al-Andalus/Sepharad in the political and cultural history of Israel/Palestine | Yuval Evri discusses the uses of the the image of Al-Andalus in political and cultural discourses in the turn of the 20th Century. | Yuval Evri, Yaacov Yadgar | 07 Mar 2018 | |
| 7 | Creative Commons | Galia Sabar: African Migration to Israel - Chronicle of a Failure Foretold | The history and politics of African migration to Israel | Galia Sabar, Yaacov Yadgar | 21 Feb 2018 |
| 6 | Almog Behar - Between Hebrew and Arabic | The politics, culture, and reality of Hebrew and Arabic in Israel and beyond. | Almog Behar, Yaacov Yadgar | 14 Feb 2018 | |
| 5 | Eugene Rogan - The Myth of the Campbell-Bannerman Report: Arab views on Israel after the Suez Crisis | On the origins and context of a little know (for some obvious reasons) chapter in the history of the Zionism. | Eugene Rogan | 08 Feb 2018 | |
| 4 | Creative Commons | Haim Yacobi - Israel, Africa: Identity, Culture and Politics | Haim Yacobi (UCL) gives a talk on Israel in Africa, Africa (and Africans) in Israel. | Haim Yacobi, Yaacov Yadgar | 30 Jan 2018 |
| 3 | Avi Shlaim - A Jordanian Perspective on Israel | Prof. Avi Shlaim reviews the history of the Jordanian-Israeli relations, and considers how Israel is viewed and understood from the Jordanian side | Avi Shlaim, Yaacov Yadgar | 29 Nov 2017 | |
| 2 | Birth of the Ashkenazi-Mizrahi Controversy on the ‘Arab Question’ (1910-12) | On 'the mother' of all ensuing Mizrahi–Ashkenazi ethnic controversies. | Moshe Behar, Yaacov Yadgar | 01 Nov 2017 | |
| 1 | Jews, Israel and Debate: Understanding Israel in the Diaspora | Why and how should we study Diaspora Jews' relation to Israel? | Ilan z Baron, Yaacov Yadgar | 31 Oct 2017 |