On January 13th, the Israel/Palestine Committee of BWC held a meeting featuring Professor Hasia Diner speaking about the “History of Jewish Opposition to Zionism”.  You can listen to her talk and the Q&A session that followed here. (Unfortunately the video of the recording failed to capture Professor Diner, so the YouTube link is audio only.) Professor Diner told us about three important movements opposing Zionism in the period prior to World War II: Orthodox Jewry, Reformed Jewry and the Integrationists, and the Jewish Left, including Bundists and Yiddishists.

Hasia Diner is Professor Emerita at the Departments of History and the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University and has published numerous books and papers. She is also a visiting professor of Jewish Studies at the Harvard Divinity School.  Hasia is a BWC member and a member of Concerned Jewish Faculty and Staff.  Her talk is relevant to today’s political situation where opposition to Zionism is being equated with antisemitism by government bodies such as the Massachusetts Special Commission on Combating Antisemitism (SCCA) and the Trump Administration.  

Here are some of the links we posted during this session:

To read the BWC’s Israel/Palestine Principles: https://circleboston.org/israel-palestine-principles/

To join the Israel/Palestine Committee google group or for more information: email ipc@circleboston.org

Together for an Inclusive Massachusetts: https://inclusivemassachusetts.org/

Concerned Jewish Faculty and Staff (CJFS): https://www.concernedjewishfaculty.org/about

CJFS’s shadow report: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GqhRm2nVUaVq0EStzO2W346Y5tZZIwZj/view

Massachusetts Synagogue Network on Israel/Palestine: https://www.msnip.org/home

Hasia Diner: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasia_Diner

If you want to hear more from Professor Diner, we also recommend listening to her speaking two nights later at the Concord Carlisle For Informed Dialogue Forum on “Protecting Free Speech in K-12 and Beyond” which can be found here. (Professor Diner starts at 8 minutes 15 seconds in and continues to 29 minutes, 50 seconds.)  At this Forum, she talks about the IHRA definition of antisemitism, and gives examples of how it has chilled speech on University campuses.  She objects to the forced erasure of history that the IHRA definition requires, using, as an analogy, the idea that someone would teach that all residents of the 13 colonies in 1776 supported the American Revolution (it was about 1/3rd in support, 1/3rd against and 1/3rd didn’t care.)

The whole forum is worth listening to for more understanding of how to combat antisemitism with a solidarity-based and anti-racist framework and what the dangers are to students, teachers and parents if the recommendations of the SCCA were to be followed.

Any questions or comments, please send to ipc@circleboston.org.