Amid devastating violence in Israel and Palestine, an upcoming academic conference that will discuss Zionism has garnered increased scrutiny, but organizers say that the current conflict is proof the conversation is needed now more than ever.
The conference, which is put on by the Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism’s (ICSZ) and will have sessions in Santa Cruz and New York on Friday and Saturday, will discuss “how the IHRA definition of antisemitism both amplifies and hides repressive power and state violence.”
In 2016, the 35-member International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) defined antisemitism as, among other things, “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.”
ICSZ director Emmaia Gelman, who is Jewish, says a goal of the conference is to examine Zionism, which she says is not inherently antisemitic.
“Conversations like this are being subjected to all kinds of new horrible claims of antisemitism,” Gelman says. “[The scholars at the conference] work is dedicated to anti-racism. We’re talking about people who think deeply about how racism, which includes antisemitism, is produced and the systems of power that produce it.”
Christine Hong and Jennifer Kelly, who both teach in UCSC’s Critical Race & Ethnic Studies department, helped found ICSZ and several other UCSC faculty members are part of the organization’s advisory board. Multiple UCSC departments and centers are co-sponsoring the upcoming event and a few UCSC faculty members are slated to speak.
In anticipation of the event, a group of seven UCSC faculty members wrote a letter to the UCSC Chancellor Cynthia Larive published in the Santa Cruz Sentinel, saying the conference’s topics “legitimize the hatred of Jews and Israel.” UCSC issued a statement in September making clear that the University does not endorse the event.
ICSZ director Emmaia Gelman, who is Jewish, says that since the violence that started last weekend, lecturers scheduled to speak at the conference have been threatened.
“The verbal attacks on people involved in this conference have already been incredibly vicious and disgusting,” Gelman says. “There have been racist emails directed at scholars of color who are involved in the conference. And so can that translate into physical danger? Absolutely.”
Because of the controversy Gelman says organizers are taking extra security measures to protect the speakers and attendees. She also says that the events that transpired over the weekend have sparked even greater interest in the conference, with more than 250 people registering at the two conferences in New York and Santa Cruz.
“People are really desperate to have to hear from people who have been doing research on Zionism to understand what’s going on,” Gelman says. “People viscerally feel that something is missing from this story.”
The nonJewish Communities mentioned in the Balfour Declaration were the majority of Palestine for a thousand years