Speaker
Amanda Shubert
Teaching Faculty in English, UW–Madison
Dr. Amanda Shubert is teaching faculty in the Department of English at UW–Madison. A Jewish person of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and Eastern European descent, Dr. Shubert is an expert in the literature and culture of the nineteenth-century British Empire. Her current research focuses on the experience of Arab Jews in British India, highlighting her family history in Iraq, Syria, and Calcutta in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Her first monograph is forthcoming from Cornell University Press and her research has been supported by grants and fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies, the American Philosophical Society, and the Social Science Research Council.
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