Promoting Civil Campus Discourse on Israel/Palestine in Charged Times

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Abstract

The 2023-24 academic year has been marked by unrest on college campuses caused by numerous sources, including but not limited to political divisions, racial and economic inequality, religious difference, and perhaps most tangibly, the tension surrounding the current war between Israel and Hamas. While concern around antisemitism on campus tends to dominate the communal agenda, we wish to explore a different question which receives relatively less attention. How are faculty and staff on college campuses working with Jewish, Muslim and other students able to reduce unrest and to promote solidarity, community, and empathy? This roundtable will spotlight efforts to promote civic engagement, civil discourse, and problem-solving rather than name-calling, recrimination, and hatred. Participants’ expertise and personal experience center around current Israel/Palestine campus activities that are taking place both in the classroom and outside of it. This includes ethnographic research on the recent protest encampments found on dozens of campuses, the development of effective pedagogical techniques to engage with Israel/Palestine in the classroom, and the establishment of a successful Israel/Palestine student dialogue group. All of our work seeks to complicate the paradigm of simply identifying antisemitism on campus. We offer reflections on the value of moving beyond the framework of the oppression of Jews, to an examination of the possibilities of how Jews, Muslims, Israelis, Palestinians can work in solidarity to jointly counter polarization and intolerance on campus.

The roundtable will be centered around these series of questions:

To what extent do Jews participate in campus protest encampments and what can we learn from this about cross-cultural and transnational solidarity? How realistic is it to have healthy conversations about Israel/Palestine in the classroom during these charged times? What are effective pedagogical approaches for teaching about these difficult themes? With increasing political polarization on university campuses, how can we as faculty help promote civil discourse on Israel/Palestine? What appetite is there among students for respectful conversation? What are the opportunities and challenges of facilitating student dialogue groups?

Sub Unit

• Pedagogy & Professional Practice

Moderator

• David Freidenreich, Colby College

Discussants

• Randal Schnoor, York University

• Nazita Lajevardi

• Lauren Cohen Fisher, Colby College

Zoom Host

• Zoom Host 15