Speaker
Lola Loustaunau
Assistant Professor in the School for Workers, UW–Madison
Dr. Lola Loustaunau is an assistant professor in the School for Workers at UW–Madison. A labor sociologist focused on migration and collective organizing, Dr. Loustaunau has been conducting research on the physical and mental health impacts of precarity and displacement among migrant women, and teaching workshops for adult learners in the community using liberatory approaches to pedagogy. She is a member of Voces de la Frontera and is a board member of Workers Justice Wisconsin, an interfaith labor organization. As a Latin-American diasporic Jew, she is interested in the relationship between bordering regimes, displacement, health, and collective resistance. In her time in Wisconsin, she has also been involved in public teaching regarding antisemitism and diasporic experiences of Jewishness.
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