The Official ISCA Podcast

Sunday, September 10, 2023. In this episode, David Bernstein discusses "Does Radical Social Justice Ideology Fuel Antisemitism?"  The author of Woke Antisemitism: How a Progressive Ideology Harms Jews, David Bernstein is the founder of the Jewish Institute for Liberal Values (JILV), which opposes illiberal ideologies and supports liberal values in and out of the Jewish community. He is also a co-founder of the Institute for Liberal Values, a consortium of like-minded organizations supporting liberal principles. He is past President and CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs and the former executive director of the David Project. He spent 13 years at the American Jewish Committee in senior roles. David is a prolific speaker, podcaster, and writer, having written hundreds of opinion pieces in the Jewish and general press. Music: "Pleasant Porridge" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 

Sunday, September 3, 2023. In this episode, Dan Michman discusses "'Antisemitism': The Origins, Structure, and Contested Reception of the Term."  Dan Michman is Professor (Emeritus) of Modern Jewish History and the former Chair of the Arnold and Leona Finkler Institute of Holocaust Research at Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan; he is also Head of the International Institute for Holocaust Research and Incumbent of the John Najmann Chair in Holocaust Studies at Yad Vashem, Jerusalem. His publications, available in twelve languages, cover a broad range of topics regarding the Shoah, its historiography and representations,  its impact on Israel, world Jewry, and the Western world, and on modern Jewish history and antisemitism. Prof. Michman’s recently (co)-authored and (co)-edited books include Pinkas: Geschiedenis van de joodse gemeenschap in Nederland (A History of the Jewish Community in the Netherlands, (1999); Post-Zionism and the Holocaust: The Role of the Holocaust in the Public Debate on Post-Zionism in Israel (I: 1993–1996, II: 1997–1998) (1997, 2007); Holocaust Historiography: A Jewish Perspective: Conceptualizations, Terminology, Approaches and Fundamental Issues (2003); Encyclopedia of the Righteous Among the Nations: Belgium (2005); De la mémoire de la Shoah dans le monde juif (2008); Holocaust Historiography in Context: Emergence, Challenges, Polemics and Achievements (2008); The Emergence of Jewish Ghettos During the Holocaust (2011); Adolf Hitler, the Decision-Making Process Leading to the “Final Solution of the Jewish Question,” and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Hajj Amin al-Hussayni: The Current State of Research (2017); Getting it Right, Getting it Wrong: Recent Holocaust Scholarship in Light of the Work of Raul Hilberg (2017); Les Juifs d'Afrique du Nord face à l’Allemagne nazie (2018); Emotions, Imaginations, Perceptions, Egos, Characteristics: Egodocuments in Dutch Jewish History (2021); Holocaust Historiography between 1990 to 2021 in Context(s): New Insights, Perceptions, Understandings and Avenues – An Overview and Analysis (2022); Jewish Solidarity : The Ideal and the Reality in the Turmoil of the Shoah (2022). Music: "Pleasant Porridge" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 

Sunday, May 7, 2023. In this episode, Magda Teter discusses "Christian Supremacy: Reckoning with the Roots of Antisemitism and Racism." Magda Teter, Professor of History and the Shvidler Chair of Judaic Studies, is a scholar of early modern history, specializing in Jewish history, Jewish-Christian relations, cultural, legal, and social history, as well as the history of transmission of historical knowledge in the premodern and modern periods. Teter is a fellow of the American Academy for Jewish Research and the author of Jews and Heretics in Catholic Poland (Cambridge, 2005), Sinners on Trial (Harvard, 2011), Blood Libel: On the Trail of An Antisemitic Myth (Harvard, 2020), and two edited volumes, as well as numerous articles in English, Hebrew, Italian, and Polish. Teter’s work has been supported by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, YIVO Institute, and the Yad Ha-Nadiv Foundation (Israel), among others. She has been a Harry Starr Fellow in Jewish Studies at Harvard University, an Emeline Bigelow Conland Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies also at Harvard University, and the Mellon Foundation fellow at the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library. In 2012-2016, she served as the co-editor of the AJS Review and in 2015-2017 as the Vice-President for Publications of the Association for Jewish Studies. And in 2020-2021, Teter is the NEH Senior Scholar at the Center for Jewish History.  Music: "Pleasant Porridge" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Sunday, April 30, 2023. In this episode, Ruth Cohen-Dar explores the topic "What is Israel's Role in the Fight Against Antisemitism?" Ruth Cohen-Dar was born in the Negev to a mother who was a third generation Jerusalemite and a father of Greek descent. They were a family of pioneers, who established a village near Ashkelon. She served in the Israeli Army for three years as an officer, after a year of volunteering as a community worker in a rural community in the Negev. Cohen-Dar holds a B.A. and M.A. in Political Science from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. She has worked at the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs since 1986 and was posted abroad on three occasions, the last time as Deputy Ambassador in Poland. Since 2020 she has served as the Director of The Department for Combating Antisemitism and Holocaust Remembrance, as well as the Co-Chair of Israel's delegation to the IHRA (International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance).  Music: "Pleasant Porridge" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Sunday, April 23, 2023. In this episode, Meron Medzini discusses "Anti-Semitism and Philo-Semitism — Their Role in the Birth of Israel." Professor (Emeritus) Meron Medzini was born in Jerusalem in 1932. After high school, he served as an infantry officer in the Israeli army and then traveled to the United States to obtain university degrees. He holds a BA from City College of New York (1957), MA from Georgetown University (1960), and Ph.D. from Harvard (1964) in Asian Studies. Between 1962 and 1978, he served as director of the Israel Government Press Office and in that capacity was spokesman for Prime Ministers Levi Eshkol, Golda Meir, and Yitzhak Rabin. He has pursued an academic career, teaching for four decades at the Hebrew University School for Overseas Students and in the Department of Asian Studies. He also taught at Tel Aviv University and lectured in various universities abroad. He is the author of nine books. His Golda – A Political Biography (De Gruyter Verlag, Berlin, 2016) won the Israel Prime Minister's Prize. His book on Japan and the Jews during the Holocaust was translated to English and Japanese. He also authored some 100 articles in academic publications in Israel and abroad. In 2016, the Japanese Government awarded him the Order of the Rising Sun for promoting Israel-Japan Cultural relations. He resides in Jerusalem. Music: "Pleasant Porridge" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License⁠http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Sunday, April 16, 2023. In this episode, Jarrod Tanny discusses "Antisemitism in the Academy and the Fate of Jewish Studies: An Insider's View." Jarrod Tanny is Associate Professor of History and the Charles and Hannah Block Distinguished Scholar in Jewish History at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. Between 2008 and 2010 he was the Schusterman post-Doctoral Fellow in Jewish Studies at Ohio University. He received his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley, focusing on Russian and Jewish history. Originally from Montreal, Canada, he completed an M.A. at the University of Toronto and a B.A. at McGill University. His monograph, City of Rogues and Schnorrers (Indiana University Press, 2011), examines how the city of Odessa was mythologized as a Jewish city of sin, celebrated and vilified for its Jewish gangsters, pimps, bawdy musicians, and comedians.  In 2012, Dr. Tanny published an essay called “Between the Borscht Belt and the Bible Belt: Crafting Southern Jewishness through Chutzpah and Humor,” in the journal Southern Jewish History. Most recently, he published “Curb Your Orgasm: Larry David and the Schlimazel as Sexual Deviant,” in Jewish Film & New Media: An International Journal. He is currently working on a larger study on Jewish humor in post-World War II America and its place within the larger context of the European Jewish past. Tanny just completed writing a book tentatively titled The Babylonian Seinfeld, a satiric take on the hit TV series, in which the great rabbis of the Talmudic era sit gathered in the Yeshiva to discuss and debate the issues raised in each Seinfeld episode. He has also published numerous opeds on antisemitism in The Forward, Tablet Magazine, The Times of Israel, The Jewish Journal, and The Jewish Review of Books. Tanny’s growing concern over the rise of antisemitism on college campuses and the seeming indifference of faculty led him to establish the Jewish Studies Zionist Network, an association for Jewish Studies scholars who are pushing back against the demonization of Israel and its supporters in the academy.  Music: "Pleasant Porridge" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Tuesday, April 4, 2023. In this episode, Walter Russell Mead discusses the subject "The Arc of a Covenant: The United States, Israel, and the Fate of the Jewish People." Walter Russell Mead is the Ravenel B. Curry III Distinguished Fellow in Strategy and Statesmanship at Hudson Institute, the Global View Columnist at The Wall Street Journal, and the James Clarke Chace Professor of Foreign Affairs and Humanities at Bard College in New York. He is also a member of Aspen Institute Italy and board member of Aspenia. Before joining Hudson, Mr. Mead was a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations as the Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy. He has authored numerous books, including the widely recognized Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How It Changed the World (Alfred A. Knopf, 2004). Mr. Mead’s latest book is entitled The Arc of a Covenant: The United States, Israel, and the Future of the Jewish People. Music: "Pleasant Porridge" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Sunday, March 26, 2023. In this episode, Tammi Rossman-Benjamin discusses "Antisemitism and the Politics of Ethnic Studies of California's K-12 and Higher Education Classrooms." Tammi Rossman-Benjamin is co-founder and director of AMCHA Initiative, a non-profit organization that investigates, documents, and combats antisemitism at institutions of higher education in America. She has written numerous articles about academic anti-Zionism and antisemitism and has lectured widely on these developments and the growing threat they pose to the safety of Jewish students on university campuses. She was a faculty member in Hebrew and Jewish Studies at the University of California Santa Cruz from 1996-2016. Music: "Pleasant Porridge" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Sunday, March 5, 2023. In this episode, Linda Maizels discusses "The American Political Left's Response to Antisemitism." Linda Maizels is an independent scholar who earned her PhD from the Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. Her article on campus antisemitism appeared in the book Contending with Antisemitism in a Rapidly Changing Political Climate, edited by Alvin H. Rosenfeld and published by Indiana University Press in November 2021. Her most recent book, What is Antisemitism? A Contemporary Introduction, was published by Routledge in September 2022.  Music: "Pleasant Porridge" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Sunday, February 26, 2023. In this episode, Gideon Botsch discusses "Current Developments of Antisemitism in Germany's Far-Right." Gideon Botsch studied political science at the Free University of Berlin and earned his diploma in 1997 with a thesis on the continuity of National Socialist concepts of Europe in early right-wing extremism in the Federal Republic of Germany. In 1999, he received a doctoral scholarship from the Hans Böckler Foundation. In 2003, he was employed at the Otto Suhr Institute for Political Science with the dissertation "Political Science" supervised by Peter Steinbach and Johannes Tuchel. From 2000 to 2004, he was a lecturer at the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the Free University of Berlin. In 2004/05, he was a research associate at the Wannsee Conference House Memorial and Educational Site, where he helped design a new permanent exhibition. Since 2004, he has been a lecturer at Touro College Berlin. Beginning in 2006, he has been a research associate for antisemitism and right-wing extremism research at the Moses Mendelssohn Center for European-Jewish Studies, which is affiliated with the University of Potsdam, where he also worked as a lecturer. In 2007, he became managing editor of the Journal for Religious and Intellectual History. Since 2010, he has been a tutor of the Hans Böckler Foundation. In 2012, he presented a comprehensive overview of the history of the extreme right in the Federal Republic. Botsch has been an adjunct professor at the Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences at the University of Potsdam since 2018. He is a member of the German Association for Political Science (DVPW), the Society for Intellectual History (GGG), and the Association of Historians in Germany (VHHD). Music: "Pleasant Porridge" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/