Zionism and its Critics

The CSULB Jewish Studies Program, in partnership with the Academic Engagement Network, is delighted and proud to bring Dr. Sara Hirschhorn to our campus on Wednesday morning, April 10^th, at 9 am, in the Anatol Center (AS 119).  As Dr. Hirschhorn is in Haifa this year, she will be speaking via Zoom to the students and faculty present.  Her talk is “Zionism and its Critics.”

Zionism today is a little studied, yet much maligned ideology. For some, it is the truest expression of Jewish sovereignty and a holy enterprise. For others, including member-states of the United Nations, Zionist has been derided as racism. Yet, what is Zionism? (Or more accurately, what are the various streams of Zionisms?). In this talk, Dr. Hirschhorn will briefly examine the proponents and opponents of the ideology of Zionism, or Jewish nationalism, from the late nineteenth century to the present.  Her talk will also examine the evolution of Zionist thought in the post-state period and will conclude with a discussion of two contemporary debates on “Zionism is Racism” and the relationship between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism.

Dr. Sara Yael Hirschhorn is currently a Visiting Professor at the Ruderman Program in American Jewish Studies and a Senior Researcher at the Comper Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Antisemitism and Racism at the University of Haifa.  She is also a ’22-’24 inaugural fellow at the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) Center for Antisemitism Research and a fellow at the Jewish People Policy Institute.  She was previously appointed as the Visiting Assistant Professor in Israel Studies at Northwestern University (2018-2022) and the University Research Lecturer in Israel Studies at the University of Oxford (2013-2018).  Her research, teaching, and public engagement activities focus on Diaspora-Israel relations, the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, and the Israeli Ultranationalist Movement.  Her first book, City on a Hilltop: American Jews and the Israeli Settler Movement (Harvard, 2017), was the winner of the 2018 Sami Rohr Prize in Jewish Literature Choice Award and a finalist for the 2017 National Jewish Book Award.  She is currently working on a new manuscript entitled “New Day in Babylon and Jerusalem: Zionism, Jewish Power, and Identity Politics Since 1967,” which will offer a transnational history of the post-Six Day War period.  Apart from her academic work, Dr. Hirschhorn is an internationally recognized public speaker, writer, educator, media commentator, and consultant on contemporary Jewish/Israel affairs.