Whoever you are, wherever you stand politically, we are all affected by living in an age when Israel is traumatized – and anyone who is Jewish or cares about the Jewish state is traumatized, to one extent or another. You can see this trauma in the defensiveness of Israel’s defenders and the viciousness of Israel’s detractors. And we are now seeing a dangerous escalation. Bad enough that, back in the 1970s, it became politically acceptable to call Zionism racism. Today, we have a Turkish premier calling Zionism a crime against humanity.  Bad enough that, even in the 1990s, as the Israelis and Palestinians were negotiating through the Oslo framework, whatever its flaws, many progressives and intellectuals were questioning Israel’s right to exist. Today, mainstream publications like the New York Times casually runs blog posts, like the recent one from Joseph Levine, saying Israel as a Jewish State lacks legitimacy.  (more…)

Reminder for Anti-Semitism Scholars:  This Friday is the deadline for response to the Call for Papers for Prof. Alvin Rosenfeld‘s 2014 international conference on “Deciphering the ‘New’ Antisemitism” at Indiana University.  Rosenfeld serves on the Louis D. Brandeis Center‘s academic advisory board as well as heading IU’s Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism (ISCA’s).  ISCA’s first two conferences were first-class scholarly events, so we strongly recommend that serious anti-Semitism scholars, regardless of discipline, consider submitting a proposal to Prof. Rosenfeld by the end of the week.  The official Call for Papers follows below (read more). (more…)