Bulletin: Higher Education and Student Life

Articles

Theses

New Article: Sherrard, American Biblical Archeologists’ Responses to the Six-Day War

Sherrard, Brooke. “Mystical Unification or Ethnic Domination? American Biblical Archeologists’ Responses to the Six-Day War.” Journal of the Bible and its Reception 3.1 (2016): 109-33.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/jbr-2016-1002

 

Abstract

After the Six-Day War, members of the American Schools of Oriental Research experienced conflict over how and whether to maintain the organization’s policy on political neutrality. This article argues that ASOR members who supported Israel framed their views as theological, lauding the war for achieving a mystical unification of Jerusalem, while members who opposed the war’s outcome responded that appeals to theology and neutrality were being deployed to justify one ethnic group’s domination over another. I present two main examples, George Ernest Wright and Paul Lapp, and connect their scholarly views on objectivity versus relativism to their political views on the conflict. Wright, a biblical theologian, argued the Old Testament was an objective record of a religion revealed by God to the Israelites and defended the slaughter of Canaanites in terms that echoed justifications for Palestinian displacement. Conversely Lapp, who read the Old Testament as a polemical text, overtly connected his perspectivalism to his pro-Palestinian politics. In 1968 Wright clashed with ASOR residents, including Lapp, who protested Israeli plans to reroute a parade through recently captured areas of East Jerusalem. A reading of the correspondence record created after the protest analyzes the political implications of these differing scholarly positions.

 

 

 

New Article: Sherrard, American Biblical Archaeologists and Zionism

Sherrard, Brooke. “American Biblical Archaeologists and Zionism: How Differing Worldviews on the Interaction of Cultures Affected Scholarly Constructions of the Ancient Past.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 84.1 (2016): 234-59.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/lfv063

 

Abstract

A major critique of American biblical archaeologists has focused on biblical presuppositions they brought to their work, whereas Israeli archaeologists have been critiqued for promoting Jewish ethno-nationalism through their work. I maintain, however, that American archaeologists also participated in the debate over Zionism, implicitly (and not necessarily consciously) through writings about the ancient past, and explicitly through political activism. This article focuses on contemporaries William Foxwell Albright and Millar Burrows, who disagreed about Zionism. Burrows, who opposed Zionism, characterized the ancient world in terms of cultural interaction and fluidity, while Albright, who favored Zionism, characterized the ancient world in terms of rigid ethnic boundaries. Burrows published a book about Palestinian refugees; thus, his political involvement was no secret. Albright’s political involvement in favor of a Jewish state, which he later denied, is reconstructed here from archival materials. The terms of this debate still resonate, as demonstrated by the current controversy over archaeological theory at the City of David site in Jerusalem.

 

 

 

New Article: Masalha, Appropriation of Palestinian Place Names by the Israeli State

Masalha, Nur. “Settler-Colonialism, Memoricide and Indigenous Toponymic Memory: The Appropriation of Palestinian Place Names by the Israeli State.” Journal of Holy Land and Palestine Studies 14.1 (2015): 3-57.
 
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.3366/hlps.2015.0103

 

Abstract
Cartography, place-naming and state-sponsored explorations were central to the modern European conquest of the earth, empire building and settler-colonisation projects. Scholars often assume that place names provide clues to the historical and cultural heritage of places and regions. This article uses social memory theory to analyse the cultural politics of place-naming in Israel. Drawing on Maurice Halbwachs’ study of the construction of social memory by the Latin Crusaders and Christian medieval pilgrims, the article shows Zionists’ toponymic strategies in Palestine, their superimposition of Biblical and Talmudic toponyms was designed to erase the indigenous Palestinian and Arabo-Islamic heritage of the land. In the pre-Nakba period Zionist toponymic schemes utilised nineteenth century Western explorations of Biblical ‘names’ and ‘places’ and appropriated Palestinian toponyms. Following the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948, the Israeli state, now in control of 78 percent of the land, accelerated its toponymic project and pursued methods whose main features were memoricide and erasure. Continuing into the post-1967 occupation, these colonial methods threaten the destruction of the diverse historical cultural heritage of the land.

 

 

 

ToC: Israel Affairs 21.1 (2015)

Israel Affairs, Volume 21, Issue 1, January 2015

 

This new issue contains the following articles:

Articles
Ethnic Income Disparities in Israel
Pnina O. Plaut & Steven E. Plaut
Pages: 1-26
DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2014.984418

‘Mayhew’s outcasts’: anti-Zionism and the Arab lobby in Harold Wilson’s Labour Party
James R. Vaughan
Pages: 27-47
DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2014.984420

Israel Negev Bedouin during the 1948 War: Departure and Return
Havatzelet Yahel & Ruth Kark
Pages: 48-97
DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2014.984421

Good news: the Carmel Newsreels and their place in the emerging Israeli language media
Oren Soffer & Tamar Liebes
Pages: 98-111
DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2014.984422

From ‘Rambo’ to ‘sitting ducks’ and back again: the Israeli soldier in the media
Elisheva Rosman & Zipi Israeli
Pages: 112-130
DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2014.984423

Israel and the Arab Gulf states: from tacit cooperation to reconciliation?
Yoel Guzansky
Pages: 131-147
DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2014.984424

Building partnerships between Israeli and Palestinian youth: an integrative approach
Debbie Nathan, David Trimble & Shai Fuxman
Pages: 148-164
DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2014.984436

Book Reviews
Flexigidity: the secret of Jewish adaptability
David Rodman
Pages: 165-166
DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2014.937913

Russia and Israel in the changing Middle East
David Rodman
Pages: 166-167
DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2014.937914

Social mobilization in the Arab–Israeli war of 1948: on the Israeli home front
David Rodman
Pages: 167-169
DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2014.937915

These are my brothers: a dramatic story of heroism during the Yom Kippur War
David Rodman
Pages: 169-171
DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2014.937916

Jews and the military: a history
David Rodman
Pages: 171-173
DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2014.937917

The Jewish revolt: ad 66–74
David Rodman
Pages: 173-173
DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2014.937918

The city besieged: siege and its manifestations in the ancient Near East
David Rodman
Pages: 173-175
DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2014.937919

The forgotten kingdom: the archaeology and history of northern Israel
David Rodman
Pages: 175-176
DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2014.937920

Seminar: Azrieli Institute Student-Faculty Seminar (Nov 26, 2014)

poster for November seminar

Azrieli Institute of Israel Studies

Student-Faculty Seminars

Join us for our first seminar of the year!

Wednesday November 26, 2014

10:30AM-12:30PM

 

Jerusalem Art History Journal. An Undergraduate eJournal: The Process and Product

Dr. Loren Lerner, Project Director, Department of Art History

Pata Macedo, Journal Designer, Department of Design and Computation Arts

Israeli Archaeology in Jerusalem: National Heritage, Identity, and Partiality Charlotte Parent

Symbols and Motifs: Depictions of the Heavenly Realm in Mordecai Ardon’s At the Gates of Jerusalem Valerie Gauthier

Expressing Exile as a Shared Experience: The Work of Steve Sabella Stéphanie Hornstein

From the Depths of the Matrixial Sea: Reviving Loss and Memory in Contemporary Israeli Art Braden Scot

The Artistic Apocalypse: Three Religious Depictions of the End of Days Amanda Charlebois

Representations of Jesus in Early Christian Art Samantha Wexler

 

The Benefits of International Diversification:The Case of Israel in a Nexus of Market Development, Corporate Governance and Structural Change

Dr. Lorne Switzer, Department of Finance

ToC: Israel Affairs, 19.4 (2013)

Israel Affairs: Volume 19, Issue 4, 2013

Articles

Anatomy of decline: Anglo-Soviet competition in the Middle East, 1956–67

Moshe Gat
pages 603-622

DOI:10.1080/13537121.2013.829610
The impact of the cold war on the Thatcher government’s Middle East policy

Azriel Bermant
pages 623-639

DOI:10.1080/13537121.2013.829607

Ending the Second Lebanon War: the interface between the political and military echelons in Israel

Shmuel Tzabag
pages 640-659

DOI:10.1080/13537121.2013.829614
The ‘Annapolis Process’: a chronology of failure

Amira Schiff
pages 660-678

DOI:10.1080/13537121.2013.829612

War and peace in Judaism and Islam

Moshe Cohen
pages 679-692

DOI:10.1080/13537121.2013.829608

A reassessment of the 1967 Arab oil embargo

Joseph Mann
pages 693-703

DOI:10.1080/13537121.2013.829611

Paradigmatic changes in perceptions of disciplinary and multidisciplinary teaching in Israeli higher education system: fad or challenge?

Nitza Davidovitch
pages 704-712

DOI:10.1080/13537121.2013.829609

Election year economics and political budget cycle in Israel – myth or reality

Tal Shahor
pages 713-730

DOI:10.1080/13537121.2013.829613

Review Essay

The politics of the Israeli Pantheon

Nissim Leon
pages 731-734

DOI:10.1080/13537121.2013.829615

Book Reviews

60 years: Israel navy

David Rodman
pages 735-736

DOI:10.1080/13537121.2013.829616

Legacy: a genetic history of the Jewish people

David Rodman
page 736

DOI:10.1080/13537121.2013.829618

Mossad; Spies against Armageddon: inside Israel’s secret wars

David Rodman
pages 737-738

DOI:10.1080/13537121.2013.829619

Moshe Dayan: Israel’s controversial hero

David Rodman
pages 738-739

DOI:10.1080/13537121.2013.829620

Abdullah al-Tall, Arab Legion officer: Arab nationalism and opposition to the Hashemite regime

David Rodman
pages 739-740

DOI:10.1080/13537121.2013.829621

Israel: the will to prevail

David Rodman
pages 740-741

DOI:10.1080/13537121.2013.829622

The promise of Israel: why its seemingly greatest weakness is actually its greatest strength

David Rodman
pages 741-742

DOI:10.1080/13537121.2013.829623

Judah in the Neo-Babylonian period: the archaeology of desolation

David Rodman
pages 742-743

DOI:10.1080/13537121.2013.829624

Struggling over Israel’s soul: an IDF general speaks of his controversial moral decisions

David Rodman
pages 743-744

DOI:10.1080/13537121.2013.829625

Asset test: how the United States benefits from its alliance with Israel

David Rodman
pages 744-746

DOI:10.1080/13537121.2013.829617

Editorial Board

Editorial Board

Reviews: Bar-On, Moshe Dayan. Israel’s Controversial Hero

Bar-On, Mordechai. Moshe Dayan. Israel’s Controversial Hero. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012.

Book cover

Reviews