Roundtable on Feminism, Anti-Semitism and Anti-Zionism

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Session Sponsor: Hadassah-Brandeis Institute

Abstract

Recent years have seen new waves of anti-Zionist discourse in feminist spaces. BDS initiatives have been debated in academic learned societies devoted to Women’s and Gender Studies and grass-roots Feminist organizing has been riven by decisions to exclude or stigmatize pro-Zionist or simply Jewish groups. This panel will explore these contemporary controversies from a range of disciplinary perspectives. Is there anything new about anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism found among feminists and operative in feminist organizations? Much of concern has long roots. Not all anti-Zionism is a form of anti-Semitism. Historically, many individuals active in Jewish communal life as well as core Jewish organizations have been non-or anti-Zionist. But we often do find a problematic anti-Semitism at work in anti-Zionism. This panel will place the discussion in historical context in terms of some primary feminist organizations and the phenomenon in western modernity. We will also explore the ways that the newer feminist paradigm of intersectionality is both a welcome analytical tool and a site of concern for many Jews engaged with this issue.

Sub Unit

• Jewish Politics (2018 Pilot Division)

Moderator

• Lisa Fishbayn Joffe, Hadassah-Brandeis Institute, Brandeis University

Discussants

• Debra Renee Kaufman, Professor Emerita and Matthews Distinguished University Professor, Northeastern University

• Judith Rosenbaum, Jewish Women’s Archive

• Janet L. Freedman, University of Massachusetts--Dartmouth

• Marla Brettschneider, University of New Hampshire

• Joyce Antler, Brandeis University