The Official ISCA Podcast

Sunday, February 18, 2024. In this episode, Françoise Ouzan discusses "Being a GI Jew in World War II: Coping with Hostile Attitudes in the American Military." Dr. Françoise S. Ouzan is a Senior Research Associate at the Goldstein-Goren Diaspora Research Center of Tel Aviv University. She is the author or editor of 11 books, including, most recently, How Young Holocaust Survivors Rebuilt Their Lives (2018) and True to My God and Country: How Jewish Americans Fought in World War II (2024), both published by Indiana University Press, Studies in Antisemitism. Music: "Pleasant Porridge" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Sunday, January 21, 2024. In this episode, Jacob Kovalio discusses "The Global Phenomenon of Conspiratorial Antisemitism." Jacob Kovalio is a researcher in Japanese, Chinese, Asian, and global history, nationalism, antisemitism, and Jihadism. Through the Transnistria compulsory work camp, Romania. and Israel, he reached Canada in 1986. He holds BA degrees in History and Development Economics from the University of Tel-Aviv and MA in Chinese History and a PhD in Japanese History, both from the University of Pittsburgh. He has taught and given lectures at the University of Tel-Aviv, the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, the University of Victoria [Canada], and in Japan, China, and Korea. Since 1987, he has been teaching Japanese/Chinese/Asian History at Carleton University in Ottawa. In 2021 the Government of Japan awarded him the Order of the Rising Sun Gold Rays with Rosette for his contributions to Japanese scholarship and Canadian-Japanese relations. Among his publications are The Russian Protocols of Zion in Japan: Yudayaka/’Jewish Peril’ Propaganda and Debates in the 1920s,” (2009), Japan in Focus (1994), ed. “Arnold J. Toynbee and Japan,” (in Japan in Focus) “Antisemitism and racism in Japan” online democracy.” Dr. Kovalio has spent six years in Japan; he is fluent in Japanese, Hebrew, Romanian, Russian, and other languages. "Pleasant Porridge" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Sunday, January 14, 2024. In this episode, Richard Landes discusses "Jewish Anti-Zionism and Masochistic Messianism." Richard Landes was trained as a medievalist at Princeton University (MA 1979, PhD 1984). His work focused on apocalyptic beliefs and millennial movements (Heaven on Earth, 2011), initially around the year 1000 (Peace of God, 1986; Relics, Apocalypse and the Deceits of History, 1996; Apocalyptic Year 1000, 2003). He developed the concept of “demotic religiosity,” an orientation that prizes 1) equality before the law, 2) dignity of manual labor, 3) access to sacred texts for all believers, and 4) moral integrity over social honor. But he increasingly focused on contemporary movements (Paranoid Apocalypse,2006), especially Global Jihad. He made a series of documentaries in 2005/6 titled “According to Palestinian Sources…,” which document the extensive staging of footage (Pallywood), the staging of the Al Durah footage (Making of an Icon), and the impact of that fake broadcast as “news” by Western news media (Icon of Hatred). In 2015, he retired from Boston University where he was a Professor in the History Department and lives with his wife in Jerusalem. He is currently completing a book titled They’re so Smart cause We’re so Stupid: A Medievalist’s Guide to the 21st When he completes this book, he plans to return to his medieval work (While God Tarried: Disappointed Millennialism from Jesus to the Peace of God, 33-1033). "Pleasant Porridge" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Sunday, December 10, 2023. In this episode, Corinne Blackmer discusses "Queer Anti-Zionism: Antisemitism in LGBTQ Communities Then and Now." Corinne Blackmer is professor of Judaic Studies and English and director of Judaic Studies at Southern Connecticut State University.  She has published a large array of articles on diverse subjects, from pinkwashing, contemporary Israeli literature, and the Hebrew Bible, to Jewish women’s modernism, Jewish ethics, and Jewish women’s graphic novels.  She has co-edited with Andrew Pessin a volume on antisemitism, Poisoning the Wells: Antisemitism in Contemporary America, and recently authored (Wayne University Press), Queering Anti-Zionism: Academic Freedom, LGBTQ Intellectuals, and Israel/Palestine Campus Activism, which was a finalist in the National Jewish Books Award.  She lives with her wife and family in New Haven Connecticut. "Pleasant Porridge" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 

Sunday, December 3, 2023. In this episode, Dave Rich discusses "Everyday Hate: How Antisemitism is Built into our World, and How We Can Change it." Dr. Dave Rich is one of the United Kingdom’s leading experts on antisemitism. He has worked for almost thirty years for the Community Security Trust, a Jewish charity that protects the UK Jewish community and writes about antisemitism and extremism for a range of national and international media. Dave is a research fellow at the London Centre for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and is on the editorial board of the Journal of Contemporary Antisemitism. Everyday Hate is Dave’s second book, following The Left’s Jewish Problem: Jeremy Corbyn, Israel, and Antisemitism. Music: "Pleasant Porridge" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Sunday, November 12, 2023. In this episode, Izabella Tabarovsky discusses "Soviet Antizionism and Contemporary Left Antisemitism." Izabella Tabarovsky is a Senior Advisor at the Kennan Institute (Wilson Center), a research fellow at the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism & Policy (ISGAP), a founding fellow of the London Centre for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism (LCSCA), and a contributing writer at Tablet. Her research and writing focus on Soviet antizionism and contemporary left antisemitism, Soviet Jewry, Holocaust in the USSR, and Stalin's repressions. Her paper, “Demonization Blueprints: Soviet Conspiracist Antizionism in Contemporary Left-Wing Discourse,” appeared in the Journal of Contemporary Antisemitism in the summer of 2022. Her book on late-Soviet antizionist campaigns will be published by Routledge as part of an LCSCA series on contemporary antisemitism. "Pleasant Porridge" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Monday, November 6, 2023. In this episode, Ellie Cohanim discusses "Is Antisemitism an Integral Part of the Islamic Republic of Iran's DNA?" Ellie Cohanim is a Senior Fellow with Independent Women's Forum (IWF), is host of "Global Perspectives with Ellie Cohanim" for Jewish News Syndicate (JNS),and is a National Security Contributor to Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN). Ellie Cohanim served as U.S. Deputy Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism at the U.S. Department of State by appointment of the President of the United States and the US Secretary of State. She is an expert on Iran, Israel, the Middle East, the Abraham Accords, and US foreign policy. Ms. Cohanim was the State Department’s first Iranian-born Envoy and led diplomatic initiatives which resulted in forging groundbreaking partnerships in the Arab world to combat antisemitism, anti-Zionism, and Islamophobia. Ms. Cohanim also persuaded the first-ever Muslim faith group to adopt the IHRA working definition of antisemitism, all as part of the Abraham Accords efforts. As Deputy Envoy, Ms. Cohanim was the lead official for the State Department in creating and implementing policy on countering antisemitism in the Near East and Western Hemisphere regions. She also worked closely with Jewish communities in Venezuela, Chile, Argentina, and Colombia in confronting local issues of antisemitism. "Pleasant Porridge" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Sunday, October 29, 2023. In this episode, Yehudit Barsky discusses "Islamist Antisemitism in the United States: Recent Developments." Yehudit Barsky is a Middle East specialist who researches the nexus between Islamist movements and antisemitism. Her research interests encompass radicalization methodologies in antisemitic extremist movements, and the intersection between recruitment systems of jihadist, white supremacist, and other extremist movements. She is a research fellow at the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy and is the author of Islamist Antisemitism in the United States (INSS, 2023) and Terrorist Incidents and Attacks Against Jews and Israelis in the US: 1969-2016 (CSS, 2016). "Pleasant Porridge" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Sunday, October 22, 2023. In this episode, Christopher Leighton discusses "Contending with Christian Supersessionism: When Best Intentions Falter." Christopher Leighton is the Founding Director of the Institute for Islamic, Christian, Jewish Studies (ICJS) in Baltimore, Maryland. In addition to his thirty-three years of inter-religious leadership at the ICJS, he has served as an Adjunct Professor at Johns Hopkins University and St. Mary’s Seminary and University. He has published numerous articles and edited Bill Moyer’s resource guide Talking about Genesis (Doubleday 1996) as well as Irreconcilable Differences (Routledge 2001). His latest work, A Sacred Argument: Dispatches from the Christian, Jewish, Muslim Encounter, is forthcoming. He has lectured and conducted seminars in cities around the country. He is a graduate of the Princeton Theological Seminary (M.Div.) and is an ordained Presbyterian minister. He has studied extensively at the Baltimore Hebrew University, Yad Vashem, the Jewish Theological Seminary, and Columbia University-Teachers College, where he earned his doctorate in Philosophy and Education. Since his retirement, Chris lives with his wife Betsy, and their two dogs in New Harbor, Maine. "Pleasant Porridge" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Sunday, October 15, 2023. In this episode, John Pawlikowski discusses "Removing the Shadow on the Cross: Rooting Out Antisemitism from Christian Teaching." John is a member of the Order of Friar Servants of Mary (Servites) and was ordained at the University of St. Mary of the Lake. One of the founding faculty members of the Catholic Theological Union (CTU), he served on the faculty from 1968 until his retirement in 2017. For nearly fifty years, John has been an active participant in the Christian-Jewish Dialogue as well as the wider interreligious dialogue. He served for six years as President of the International Council of Christians and Jews and has served several terms on the board of the Parliament of the World’s Religions.  He was deeply involved in the development of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., having served four terms on its board by presidential appointment. On the social ethics front John has worked with the Office of Justice & Peace at the National Conference of Catholic Bishops on its Energy Statement and its Pastoral Letter of the Economy.  He has been a participant in three United Nations international conferences on world peace, on alternative energy, and on human trafficking.  He was a member of the U.S. governmental team that negotiated the termination of the United Nations Trusteeship for Micronesia. In 2014 the Catholic Theological Society of America conferred on John its annual John Courtney Murray Award. He was awarded fellowships by Cambridge University (UK), The Catholic University of Leuven (Belgium), and the Graduate Theological Union (Berkeley, CA) and awarded Honorary Doctorates by Hebrew Union College, Dominican University, and the Catholic University of Australia. "Pleasant Porridge" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/