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The Fraught Future of Jewish Studies
By Henry Srebrnik Between 1969, when the Association for Jewish Studies (AJS) was founded by forty-seven scholars in Boston, and now, the field of Jewish studies has enjoyed a meteoric expansion. The association, as David Biale, Professor Emeritus of Jewish History at the University of California, Davis, has noted in the winter 2024 issue of the Jewish Review of Books (JRB), it has some 1,800 members, and programs or individual positions exist at virtually every major North American university.
Benefiting from the postwar diminishment of antisemitism and the assimilation of Jews to American society, the scholarly study of the Jews found homes in university departments such as history, religious studies, and comparative literature.
Could that golden age have come to an end on October 7, 2023? “The sudden explosion of anti-Israelism, with its close cousin, antisemitism, has rendered the position of Jewish studies precarious.” It is too soon to know for sure, he states, “but it is hard to avoid the suspicion that something fundamental shifted on that Black Sabbath and its aftermath, not only in Israel but here in America.”
Jewish Studies programs at American (and Canadian) universities, with seed money provided by Jewish philanthropists, sprang up after the 1967 Six-Day War. And at first its faculty were “pro-Israel.” But Jewish communities never had control of these programs. And as the initial cohort of academics retired, their replacements were different – because the hiring process was, of course, largely in the hands of non-Jewish faculty in the humanities. So the successful candidates were more in line with the new zeitgeist of “interrogating” the “Zionist narrative” and giving prominence to non- or anti-Zionist perspectives among American Jews.
This was inevitable. Even the AJS has moved in this direction. (I am a member and have given papers at AJS conferences.) These programs and departments are, in the final analysis, at best “neutral” and agnostic on the Middle East and Israel.
Daniel B. Schwartz is a professor of history and Judaic studies at George Washington University in Washington, DC. In that same issue of the JRB, he recounted that on Oct. 9, a statement from the Executive Committee of the AJS arrived in his inbox. The heading of the email read simply, “Statement from the AJS Executive Committee.”
The statement was about the events of the previous weekend, but the email’s content-free subject line turned out to be symptomatic of what followed. “The members of the AJS Executive Committee,” it said, “express deep sorrow for the loss of life and destruction caused by the horrific violence in Israel over the weekend. We send comfort to our members there and our members with families and friends in the region who are suffering.” In a statement by the AJS, why word “Jews” was nowhere to be found.
“That we have come to the point where the AJS has to resort to such anodyne language,” he asserted, “is truly mind-boggling to me, and frankly shameful.” Why did the half-dozen distinguished scholars who form the Executive Committee of the AJS “feel obligated to obfuscate about the terrible events to which they were ostensibly responding?”
No wonder then, as Mikhal Dekel, Professor of English and the director of the Rifkind Center for the Humanities and Arts at the City College of New York, remarked, “For some of my Jewish colleagues, Israel and Israelis have crossed a threshold to become objects of hatred and disgust that mountains of intellectualized and reasoned essays cannot conceal. These emotions were on display on the very day of October 7, even before a single Israeli soldier entered Gaza.” Decades of BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) and other anti-Israel activism “around me hadn’t prepared me for that.”
Certainly the place of Jewish and Israeli-related courses in the wider world of the humanities will decline dramatically, as “anti-Zionism” takes hold across higher education. For example, Cary Nelson, Jubilee Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, told us in the February issue of Fathom, a British publication, that “after nearly two decades of trying, the Modern Language Association’s annual meeting finally succeeded in putting this academic group on record opposing Israel.”
The MLA represents about twenty thousand North American literature and foreign language faculty and graduate students. “This time they were riding a wave of anti-Zionist hostility that has swept the academy since Hamas wantonly slaughtered over 1,200 Israelis and foreign visitors in the largest antisemitic murder spree since the Holocaust.”
Nelson reported that at one MLA meeting, “when a member from Haifa referenced Hamas’s sexual violence there was reportedly audible hissing among the anti-Zionist members attending. Was it unacceptable to impugn the character of Hamas terrorists? Were some MLA members on board with Hamas denials?”
A recent trend has seen Jewish academics in Jewish Studies programs at universities like Berkely, Brown, Dartmouth, Emory, Harvard and elsewhere publish widely noticed books that are, at best, “non-Zionist” and in fact sympathetic to the naqba narrative of Arab-Jewish relations during and after the formation of Israel. But why should we be surprised? They are embedded in institutions where the “woke” Diversity-Equity-Inclusion ideology now prevails.
The new book by historian Geoffrey Levin, assistant professor of Middle Eastern and Jewish studies at Emory University in Atlanta, “Our Palestine Question: Israel and American Jewish Dissent, 1948-1978,” is one such work. He writes sympathetically about an early, formative era before American Jewish institutions had unequivocally embraced Zionism.
“The No-State Solution: A Jewish Manifesto” by Daniel Boyarin, the Taubman Professor of Talmudic Culture and rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley, aims to drive a wedge between the “nation” and the “state,” and “recover a robust sense of nationalism that does not involve sovereignty.”
“The Necessity of Exile: Essays from a Distance” by Shaul Magid, the Distinguished Fellow in Jewish Studies at Dartmouth, calls for “recentering” Judaism over nationalism and “challenges us to consider the price of diminishing or even erasing the exilic character of Jewish life.”
Derek Penslar, an historian at Harvard, last year published “Zionism: An Emotional State,” which described the situation in the West Bank as apartheid, even though over 90 per cent of Palestinians there are governed not by Israel but by the Palestinian Authority. The point of calling Israel an apartheid regime is to suggest that it must go the way of white-led South Africa.
They are among a spate of books dealing with the history of Jewish dissent over Israel and Zionism, including “The Threshold of Dissent: A History of American Jewish Critics of Zionism” by Marjorie N. Feld, and “Unsettled: American Jews and the Movement for Justice in Palestine” by Oren Kroll-Zeldin.
A cold khamsim is blowing across Jewish Studies in academia.
Henry Srebrnik is a professor of political science at the University of Prince Edward Island in Charlottetown, PEI.
Features
5 Ways to Carve Out Gym Time in Your Life
From rewriting your brain and sticking to a disciplined workout regime, find the top 5 ways to carve out adequate gym time in your daily routine.
A Brief Introduction
It can be a hassle to find the time to work out if you are busy with everyday responsibilities. By incorporating a few practical strategies into your daily life, you can start being consistent with your gym routine.
- Remember Your Motivation to Prioritize
If you’re trying to be consistent, you need to know why you started out. People may have different reasons to commit their time to the gym. Be it to build muscles, lose weight, deal with stress, or improve overall health, having a clear vision of your goal will help you stick to it. With your reason to start always on your mind, you will now have a reason to keep showing up, day in and day out. This helps cut out excuses and prioritize your wellbeing.
- Reduce Your Barrier to Start
The more hurdles you keep on your way to start, the harder it will be to continue with your habit. The easy solution is to cut down on the effort it takes to get started. Pick an accessible gym over a fancier one that you would need to go out of your way to visit. By picking a gym along the route of your daily routine, you can seamlessly incorporate working out as part of your day. Be it near your workplace or your home, the location makes hitting the gym convenient.
It also helps if you plan ahead. Be it your preworkout, your protein shake, or other health supplements from flexpharma.is, make sure you are restocking before you run out. Anabolic steroids are possibly one of the most popular items that have methandrostenolone. Injectables, fat burners, and fusion steroids are some of the trending fitness products that have been creating a buzz across the world.
Keep your gym bag ready to go and lay out your workout gear ahead of time so that you are left with no excuses.
- Get a Gym Buddy for Accountability
Nothing helps drive athletes more than having a sense of community and camaraderie. People interested in weight training already know about the importance of a spotter. Having a friend, a partner, or a peer in the gym will help keep you on track to consistency. This also provides a sense of community, making it more rewarding to attend workout sessions regularly and push each other towards breaking new personal records.
- Incorporate Workouts in Your Daily Activities
It is impossible to make it to the gym every day without fail, be it due to work, family, or other responsibilities. For those days, make it a habit to not skip your workouts. There are many home workout videos and apps available that offer a range of exercise options with little to no equipment. You can start with mini-workouts like planks or squats during short breaks. It can even be as simple as going for a quick stroll for five minutes while stuck at work if you are pressed for time. The easiest way to increase your fitness and stamina is through Sermorelin, Semaglutide, and other cutting-edge peptides to start with.
- Rewire Your Brain
Science talks about neuroplasticity and the power of the positive feedback loop. Without having to learn more about cognitive sciences, you can still make use of these hacks to trick your brain into enjoying training. For every achievement, celebrate yourself. Be it a happy shout of victory on breaking a personal record or getting a new flavor of protein bar, with every celebratory action, you reinforce the positive effect of being consistent at the gym. By creating a positive experience, you make it easier for your brain to stay engaged and consistent at the gym.
Conclusion
It takes careful planning to commit to gym life. While hard work is always rewarded in the gym, in order to get to the gym day in and day out, you also need to work smart. By removing the common hurdles and being dedicated, you can make sure you reach your personal wellness goal.
Features
When will we most likely see an NFL expansion team from Canada?
It’s currently the middle of August, meaning that the biggest sporting show in North America doesn’t start for another three weeks. On September 5, the curtain will come down on the new NFL season as the reigning Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs hosts Baltimore Ravens at Arrowfield Stadium.
It’s not just Americans that love football though, the game and in particular the NFL is hugely popular north of the border here in Canada. Every week millions of Canadians tune in to cheer on their favourite teams and keep refresh their phones to find out the latest NFL standings.
What though, are the chances of Canadian NFL fans checking their phones to see how a Canadian team is doing in the standings? Read on to find out.
The History of NFL Expansion into Canada
Broadly there are two camps in Canada when it comes to NFL expansion. Those on one side of the debate claim that they don’t need an NFL team and that having one would cause harm to their own domestic competition.
On the other side of the battlefield are those who claim that the NFL is more popular in Canada than its own domestic league and that it is baffling that millions of Canadians are forced to support American teams when they could be supporting one of their own in the NFL.
Traditionally the second camp has been winning the argument, but only just. Which explains why many attempts for an NFL expansion into the country have failed, as the physical barriers to overcome have been, at times, overshadowed by the ideological ones.
From around 1975 to 2015, there have been numerous attempts to set up a franchise in Canada – particularly in Toronto – but none have taken hold. The closest that we have gotten to NFL action north of the border was when the Buffalo Bills played six regular season games at the Rogers Centre between 2008 to 2013.
(The fans might have loved the Toronto series, but it’s safe to say the Bill’s players didn’t particularly enjoy it.)
What’s Stopping Expansion?
Currently the argument for expansion is gaining momentum, but despite that there are still substantial obstacles to overcome. The key one is that there is no current suitable venue that the NFL see as being able to sustain a franchise.
In terms of supporter numbers, Toronto is the only feasible location for an NFL franchise. With a metropolitan population in excess of 6 million and an estimated football viewing audience of just under a million, it is by far and away the standout contender to host an NFL team.
Unfortunately, The Rogers Centre has since been turned into an exclusively baseball venue since being used as a temporary home for the Bills back in 2013. The next alternative in Toronto is BMO Field, the home of MLS side Toronto FC.
Whilst the 31,000 seater stadium is perfectly serviceable for MLS, its capacity puts it at below half of the average capacity of an NFL stadium (70,000).
What the Future Holds for Canadian NFL Expansion
There are three possibilities for a Canadian NFL expansion. The first is that the 18,000 seat expansion to BMO field for the 2026 FIFA World Cup satisfies the NFL. That would bring the total capacity at the stadium to just under 50,000, which would still make it the smallest stadium in the NFL but only by around 10,000 seats.
Or, that the stadium can be further expanded to bring it into line with other NFL venues and thus remove one huge obstacle to expansion. The other alternative is that work begins on a purpose built venue with the backing of local businessman and American entrepreneurs who are keen to see NFL played regularly in Canada.
Potential Timeframes
If the first two stadium possibilities are possible then we could see a Toronto based NFL team at the end of the decade. That’s a best case scenario. The most likely however is that BMO Field is deemed unsuitable for the NFL, leaving another venue to be found.
Unfortunately, 70,000 seater stadiums aren’t cheap and finding someone to finance a project of that size without the guarantee of an NFL franchise is highly unlikely. Until then, it looks like we’ll have to continue backing our own domestic league and enjoying the NFL from afar…
Features
Common Online Casino Mistakes To Avoid
Online casino games can be a brilliant way to bring excitement to life in your spare time. These games have become hugely popular in recent years, but you will find that people often make the same mistakes. These mistakes can lead to financial losses, cybercrime, and an inferior experience, so it is important to be aware of what these mistakes are so that they can be avoided. This post will outline a few of the most common mistakes people make when playing online casino games and explain how to avoid falling into the same trap. Interested? Keep reading to find out more.
Ignoring Terms & Conditions
One of the biggest mistakes players make with online casino games is ignoring the terms and conditions. You should always take the time to read through these, paying close attention to things like the conditions of bonuses and restrictions in withdrawals. This will help you avoid any nasty surprises when playing games.
Not Researching Casinos
Another common mistake people make is not researching casinos. There are endless options for online casinos, but not all are equal, and there are even many that are unlicensed. Therefore, you need to research casinos and find one that is fully licensed and has positive reviews. The best casinos will have a massive selection of games to choose from, including blackjack online. A wide selection of games means it is hard to get bored, and you can always find something to play.
Chasing Losses
One of the most dangerous mistakes people make is chasing losses. This is where players will attempt to win back the money they have lost, which often means betting larger sums. This is a dangerous tactic and a slippery slope, so it is important to be aware of it and take measures to protect against it. The best way to avoid chasing losses is to set a budget before each session – if you spend that amount, you need to be able to walk away.
Not Understanding Games
It is always important to have a strong understanding of the game that you are playing. This will boost your chances of winning and your gaming experience. Therefore, you should always read the instructions when playing a game for the first time. For strategic games like poker, there is a lot of information online that will help you get to grips with the basics and learn strategies to use.
Weak Passwords
Cybersecurity needs to be a top priority when it comes to online casino games. The top casinos will have strong cybersecurity measures in place, but you also have a role to play. It is important to use strong passwords and multi-factor authentication to prevent hackers. It is also smart to avoid having large sums held in your online account in case someone hacks your account.
These are the most common mistakes that you will want to avoid when it comes to online casino games. By avoiding these mistakes, you can improve your experience and enjoy the excitement that these games can bring.
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