Speaker
Jill H. Casid
Professor of Visual Studies in the Departments of Art History and Gender and Women Studies and Senior Fellow at the Institute for Research in the Humanities, UW–Madison
Dr. Jill H. Casid is a senior fellow at the Institute for Research in the Humanities and professor of Visual Studies in the Departments of Art History and Gender and Women Studies at UW–Madison. A queer feminist artist, theorist and historian of Jewish descent, Dr. Casid’s work — from their first monograph Sowing Empire: Landscape and Colonization (Minnesota, 2005) to published essays such as “With Palestine Still” for the Journal of Visual Culture’s Palestine Portfolio and most recently “Dear Lina” — has been engaged with contributing to suppressed histories of Jewish thought critical of the Zionist project and colonization. With the support of the UW–Madison Kellett Mid-Career Award, Dr. Casid is completing a film trilogy that draws on their own family’s Holocaust history for foreclosed solidarities while finishing a two-book project on ways in which we are made to live our dying on a dying planet that in a situation of forced disposability.
Speaking in
Jewish Identity Beyond Zionism: Understanding Jewish Diversity & Belonging
The last year has been enormously painful for our Jewish community at UW-Madison. This session brings together a diverse panel of Jewish faculty and staff experts on antisemitism, Holocaust remembrance, and Arab-Jewish and anti-Zionist Jewish history to shed light on the multifaceted discrimination faced by Jewish critics of Zionism. The panel will share the lived experiences of anti-Zionist Jews, Jews of color, and queer Jews on campus and discuss the need for a more inclusive Jewish community that recognizes and honors Jewish diversity. Drawing on observations from Gaza Solidarity Encampments at US colleges and universities, the panel demonstrates how community building among and across these marginalized voices fosters inter-faith equity and inclusion, engendering new dimensions of campus safety during a time of international crisis. The talks will also highlight the voices of Jewish students in the form of statements collected through interviews and surveys.
Session Objective
- Appreciate the important history and future of Jewish alternatives to Zionism
- Recognize the racial, ethnic, and political diversity of the Jewish community
- Distinguish antisemitism from anti-Zionism and other forms of political dissent from the State of Israel
- Explain why and how the conflation of antisemitism and anti-Zionism has been used to threaten Jewish safety