Today’s episode features a recording of Dr Alana Lentin speaking at our October 2023 conference titled Battling the IHRA Definition: Theory and Activism. Alana Lentin, also a founding collective member of the Institute, works on critical theorizations of race, racism, and antiracism. Her talk is titled “Zionist Claims of Indigeneity in the Racial Regime of Nativism.”

Dr Lentin explains how the IHRA definition fits into the broader landscape of repression within the so-called war on Critical Race Theory or the war on woke. She looks at Zionist claims of Jewish Indigeneity to Palestine in conjunction with Indigenous politics and settler colonial context of Australia. In October 2023, during our conference, Australia held a referendum called Indigenous Voice to Parliament which if passed would have established an advisory body comprised of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, to represent the views of Indigenous communities in Australian parliament. This referendum, that Dr Lentin references, ultimately failed to pass.

You can view the video of Dr Lentin's talk here.

Repost from July 2024.

This special episode features Lana Tatour, Barry Trachtenberg, Meira Gold, and Noa Greenberg. They discuss how IHRA functions as a tool of Zionist repression, whether IHRA’s use is acknowledged or it is quietly adopted. They conclude that the fight against IHRA is ultimately a fight against racism and colonialism.

Resources:

Coalition to End Zionist Repression

Lana Tatour, “Censoring Palestine: human rights, academic freedom and the IHRA”

Muhannad Ayyash, “The Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism is an orientalist text”

Harsha Walia, “Colonialism, racism and the IHRA”

Speakers bios:

Lana Tatour is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Social at the University of New South Wales. Her co-edited book, Race and the Question of Palestine, is forthcoming with Stanford University Press in 2025.

Barry Trachtenberg holds the Rubin Presidential Chair in Jewish History at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, NC. A historian of modern Jewish history, the Holocaust, and Jewish nationalism, he is the author of three books, most recently The Holocaust & the Exile of Yiddish (2022) and The United States and the Nazi Holocaust: Race, Refuge, and Remembrance (2018). He has published on issues related to American support for Israel, Zionism, Anti-zionism, and Antisemitism in venues such as Jewish Currents, the Forward, Electronic Intifada, and Mondoweiss. In 2017, he testified to the US Congress on the topic of antisemitism on college and university classrooms. In 2023, he submitted with colleagues expert testimony on a lawsuit filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights and in 2024 testified in the trial DCI-Palestine v. Biden seeking an emergency injunction to stop military and diplomatic support for Israeli government’s genocidal assault on Gaza. He is a member of the Academic Advisory Boards of Jewish Voice for Peace and the Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism. For more information see https://wfu.academia.edu/BarryTrachtenberg.

Meira Gold is historian of science, archaeology, race, and empire currently based in NYC. She has held teaching and research positions at NYU, York University, the European University Institute, and the University of Cambridge. She is a proud anti-Zionist Jew and an organizing member of NYU Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine.

Noa Greenberg is a member of CUNY for Palestine as well as Not In Our Name CUNY. They have been organizing around Palestine at CUNY for nearly 3 years. They are currently an undergraduate student at CUNY studying political science in the hopes of pursuing law later on.

This episode features Dr. Amira Jarmakani, who explains how the Zionist campaign to enshrine the IHRA definition of antisemitism and use it to count antisemitic incidents is a tactical move to counter the United Nations’ powerful assertion that Zionism is racism. That UN resolution was passed in 1975. Dr. Jarmakani explains how counting incidents works to turn our attention away from racism and state violence. Instead, it substitutes a depoliticized notion of hate, and uses it to demonize those who resist state violence in the U.S., Palestine, and around the world.

The transcript of this episode is on our website, along with a video recording of Dr Jarmakani’s talk – which took place at our 2023 conference also called “Battling the IHRA Definition: Theory and Activism.” On the website you’ll also find more resources on the IHRA definition, and on how it’s being resisted. The website is criticalzionismstudies.org.

Amira Jarmakani is a professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and affiliated faculty with the Center for Islamic and Arabic Studies and LGBTQ Plus Studies at San Diego State University. Dr. Jarmakani is a member of the Palestinian Feminist Collective and the advisory board of the Institute.

In today’s episode, we’ll hear from Jennifer Kelly, speaking at our October 2023 conference titled “Battling the IHRA Definition: Theory and Activism.” Jennifer Kelly is a founding collective member of the Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism and a professor of Critical Race and Ethnic Studies at UC Santa Cruz. Her talk is titled Christian Zionism, Tourism, and the IHRA Definition.

On our website, you can also find more resources about the IHRA definition and how to resist it.

You can view the video of Dr Kelly's talk here.

In this special episode, we share a talk on a new (really!) right-wing attack on Palestine-related organizations: a U.S. federal "anti-terror" bill that would strip progressive organizations of their ability to function, and wouldn't require scrutiny or due process. Legal scholar Darryl Li and policy expert Lara Friedman discuss the new legislation and its relationship to the avalanche of new proposed "anti-antisemitism" bills currently before Congress.

This conversation rests on Darryl Li’s recent report “Anti-Palestinian at the Core: The Origins and Growing Dangers of U.S. Antiterrorism Law”, published by Palestine Legal and the Center for Constitutional Rights, and Lara Friedman’s most recent legislative round-up which she publishes at the Foundation for Middle East Peace website.

This special episode maps the wide-ranging counterinsurgency against the anticolonial Palestine solidarity movement in the U.S., and opens a conversation on strategy for resistance. Lara Friedman, Amira Jarmakani, and Emmaia Gelman talk through campus safety narratives, Zionist “antisemitism watchdogs”, and a mushrooming landscape of federal and state legislation. This panel was recorded as part of the American Studies Association May 2024 Mini-Conference.

This week’s episode is accompanied by a trove of materials. In the show notes, listeners can access the slides for Dr. Jarmakani’s talk, Lara Friedman’s essential work on tracking legislation, and Emmaia Gelman’s article on “Astroturf Antisemitism Watchdogs” in Jadaliyya along with the zine that goes with it. We’re also linking to work from the Palestinian Feminist Collective on sophicide, Devin Atallah’s article “Beyond Grief,” the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition website, and a report on the politics of the IHRA definition from scholar Jamie Stern-Weiner.

Lara Friedman, Foundation for Middle East Peace

Amira Jarmakani, San Diego State University

Emmaia Gelman, Sarah Lawrence College

*** This episode was previously released on the feed of the Institute’s other podcast, Unpacking Zionism

In today’s episode, we’ll hear from Christine Hong, speaking at our October 2023 conference titled “Battling the IHRA Definition: Theory and Activism.” Christine Hong is a founding collective member of the Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism and a professor of Critical Race and Ethnic Studies at UC Santa Cruz. Her talk is titled Securitizing California’s Ethnic Studies.

Check out our website, criticalzionismstudies.org, to access the transcript and a video recording of this talk, as well as many more conference videos, transcripts, and papers, with new materials being regularly added. You can also find more resources about the IHRA definition and how to resist it.

Welcome to Battling the IHRA Definition. This trailer is a quick introduction into “the IHRA definition of antisemitism,” which has been weaponized by Zionist institutions and policymakers to equate criticizing Israel with antisemitism and equate Zionism with Jewishness. The IHRA definition is a tactic used by political actors — particularly the right — to obscure Zionist politics, paper over US and other imperial interests in dominating Palestine, and to attack the anti-genocide movement.

The IHRA definition has been adopted by institutions and corporations, used by media outlets, and become a widely-used talking point for smearing anti-Zionists, Palestinians, educators, human rights advocates, and more. And as popular resistance has grown for Palestine – popular resistance against Zionism – the IHRA definition is being used as a tool to attack it from many angles.

And that’s why we are Battling the IHRA Definition. Make sure to subscribe so you don’t miss new episodes.