Zionism and Anti-Semitism: An International Conference

 

Screen Shot 2017-04-05 at 10.47.33 AMThe Brandeis Center received this notice from colleagues at The Pears Institute and London. The Pears Institute will be holding an international conference on Zionism and Anti-Semitism from May24 – 26.

Key note speakers: Derek Penslar, Harvard University and Bashir Bashir, Open University, Israel and The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute

Date: 24 – 26 May 2017

Venue: Birkbeck, University of London, Clore Lecture Theatre, Clore Management Centre, Torrington Square, London WC1E 7HX

Academic delegate fee – £100.00

Birkbeck staff – £50.00

Postgraduate student/Early career fellow – £35.00 Click here to register.

This three day international conference brings together more than 35 scholars from institutions in eight countries, from different disciplines and with diverse perspectives, to examine the interaction between Zionism and antisemitism as it has developed from the nineteenth century through to the present day.

Political Zionism and antisemitism have been connected ever since the late nineteenth century. From the 1870s, self-proclaimed antisemites regarded Jews as an unassimilable element within their nations and states. Many Zionists concluded that the persistence of antisemitism required a Jewish state or national home in Palestine. ‘We are one people – our enemies have made us one in our despite….Distress binds us together,’ wrote Theodor Herzl in The Jewish State, in 1896.

This is a timely moment for our conference. November 2017 brings the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration which enabled the Zionist movement to build a national home in Palestine and set it on the road to statehood, achieved three decades later. This year also marks the 50th anniversary of the Six Day War. The war and its aftermath have added further dimensions to the relationship between Zionism and antisemitism. See the call for papers for this event.

To view the conference program: click here.