The Schusterman Center for Israel Studies and the Center for Jewish History in New York City partnered with the premier podcast, Tel Aviv Review, to share insights from the recent CJH/Brandeis conference, "Democracy and Its Alternatives," with a wider audience. The special series features interviews with several of our Institute for Advanced Israel Studies 2023-24 fellows. The Tel Aviv Review presents in-depth, long-form interviews with scholars, writers, and thinkers about their work and ideas that make up the debate in and about Israel.
Dr. Lihi Ben Shitrit, the director of the Taub Center for Israel Studies at NYU and editor of the forthcoming The Gates of Gaza: Critical Voices from Israel on October 7 and the War with Hamas, and Dr. Dahlia Scheindlin, author of The Crooked Timber of Democracy in Israel: Promise Unfulfilled assess what lies ahead for Israel: A sea change, or more of the same?
The already volatile situation of the Palestinian citizens of Israel has been exacerbated by the October 7th massacre and the war with Hamas that ensued. Dr. Ahmad Agbaria of the Department of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Texas, Austin, talks about how their status and democratic rights have been affected, and what role they might play in its aftermath.
The October 7th attack undermined some of the basic assumptions Israelis have had about the tenets of their sovereignty. Will the crisis send the country into a post-nation-state phase? Dr. Julie Cooper, Senior Lecturer in Political Science at Tel Aviv University, considers the possibilities.