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NEXTBOOK FEATURE
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Confronting the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict in the Jewish Studies Classroom
Jonathan Karp, assistant professor of history, SUNY-Binghamton
It's not bad that we're talking about all these other subjects, but this old-fashioned and more immediate problem of Israeli-Palestinian relations seems to have been pushed aside in this forum. I know Jewish studies and Jewish history academics talk about this privately all the time, but I wanted to break the silence that seems to prevail in public. I tried to think about how we could do this. The most straightforward way is to talk about the experience in the classroom.
We have a small department in Binghamton, and I teach a wide range of courses. My real area is 18th- and early-19th-century European Jewry. When I teach a modern Jewish history course, I touch on Zionism, but I don't teach classes on Israel. Still, the issue comes up. It creates a strange dynamic, because you are torn between satisfying the desires of your students—and maybe your own desires—to talk about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the sense that it's not germane.
It's presumed that different people have different points of view on this issue. People fear that there's destructive potential in bringing it out in the open. There's also a desire to protect objectivity, and this issue is so fraught that it threatens to tear away the veneer or reality of scholarly disinterest and distance. The fact is, we as academics are under tremendous pressure from students on both sides—from organizations like Hillel, from the controversies on campus. Let's think about what our responsibilities are. We won't agree on what they are, but at least we can begin our discussion.
Every year there's a hot spot brewing. I wish this were the burning issue, but I seriously doubt that it is. I'm not sure that the title itself will be provocative enough. Especially since it's scheduled Sunday morning at 9:00, the first session, I don't know how many people will show up.
More from the AJS Conference:
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in Ultra-Orthodox Society
Bi'ur Hametz and the Ancient Semitic Magic
Gefilte Fish and Beautiful Shoes: Soviet Jews Describe the Ideal Jewish Woman
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Kazimir Malevich
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and their Daughters
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The Rise of the Ladino Theater in the Ottoman Empire
About the Conference
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