Relations and Tensions between Jews and Non-Jews: Conceptual Challenges

Session Submission Type: Panel Session

Abstract

Although relations and tensions between Jews and their neighbors have been central to both the course of Jewish history and the field of Jewish studies for generations, the academic community remains divided over how best to study this dynamic.

Should scholars concentrate on moments of hostility and tension that periodically evolved to outbursts of deadly violence? Or does the focus on some of the more difficult aspects of the Jewish past end up constructing a “lachrymose conception” of Jewish history, one that the seminal historian Salo Baron struggled against throughout his long career at Columbia University?

And what about the use of ostensibly objective terms like “antisemitism” to delineate and decipher the past? Does the frequent use of this (and other) over-arching concepts in both the public and the academic spheres advance our understanding of relations and tensions between Jews and non-Jews? Or does the repeated turn to longstanding terms come with intellectual and political baggage that filters and shapes scholarly perspectives by binding them to preconceived notions and conclusions regarding Jewish society, history and fate?

These and related questions will be raised by three Zoom presentations of 12 minutes each and a discussion that together will probe critical scholarly questions that have significant contemporary implications.

David Engel of New York University will begin the panel by asking in what ways might (or might not) the many instances of adversity Jews have faced over the centuries, from hostile words and invidious caricatures to legal discrimination, expulsion, and deadly violence, be related to one another?

Building upon his earlier critique of exceptionalist/uniqueness narratives of anti-Semitism developed, Jonathan Judaken of Washington University, St. Louis will continue by considering a series of examples from the early medieval period to the present that offer new understandings of the linkages between anti-Black, anti-Muslim, and anti-Jewish heterophobia that emerge from relational understandings of the past.

Susannah Heschel of Dartmouth College will raise methodological questions for scholars of antisemitism, drawing from studies of anti-Black racism, gender, and history of emotions.

Guy Miron of the Open University of Israel will respond to the presentations.

The panel will be moderated by Scott Ury of Tel Aviv University.

Sub Unit

• Modern Jewish History in Europe, Asia, Israel, and Other Communities

Chair

• Scott Ury, Tel Aviv University

Individual Presentations

• Heterophobic Entanglements - Jonathan Judaken, Washington University in St. Louis

• Antisemitism through the Perspective of Racism, Gender and Emotions - H. Susannah Heschel, Dartmouth College

• Thinking about Adversity - David Engel, New York University

Respondent

• Scott Ury, Tel Aviv University

Zoom Host

• Zoom Host 14