Tamir Sorek, professor of history at Penn State University specializing in Palestinian politics and culture in the State of Israel, discusses his book The Optimist: A social biography of Tawfiq Zayyad, the story of one of the foremost Palestinian politicians and intellectuals in Israel of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s

Dr Rob Geist Pinfold, a lecturer at Durham University’s School of Government and International Affairs, discusses his book Understanding Territorial Withdrawals: Israeli Occupations and Exits, offering a cross-section examination of several cases of territorial expansion and realignment throughout Israel’s history.

Joseph Berger, formerly a New York Times journalist, discusses his book Elie Wiesel: Confronting the Silence, the first English-language biography of the iconic Jewish intellectual and Holocaust author.

Isabel Kershner, Israel reporter for the New York Times, discusses her new book The Land of Hope and Fear: Israel’s Battle for its Inner Soul.

This episode is made possible by the Israel office of Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, which promotes peace, freedom, and justice through political education.

The Arab community in Israel is at a crossroads: the most right-wing government in the country’s history, and its plan for a judicial overhaul, casts doubt on the fragile relations between the state and its largest minority, as well as their perception of their citizenship and what it stands for. Dr. Arik Rudnitzky, the head of the Konrad Adenauer Program for Jewish-Arab Cooperation at Tel Aviv University’s Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, unveils data of a new comprehensive survey.

This episode is made possible by the Israel office of Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, which promotes peace, freedom, and justice through political education.

Lerna Ekmekcioglu, Professor of History and Gender Studies at MIT, specializing in Turkish and Armenian history, discusses Armenian demands for a “national home” in the newly founded Turkish Republic, in the 1920s.

Sidra DeKoven Ezrahi, Professor (Emerita) of Comparative Literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, discusses her book Figuring Jerusalem: Politics and Poetics in the Sacred Center, a reading of five constitutive Jewish texts that paints a comprehensive and thought-provoking portrait of Jerusalem as a physical and symbolic place.

Kimmy Caplan, Professor of Jewish History at Bar Ilan University, discusses his co-edited book Contemporary Israeli Haredi Society: Profiles, Trends and Challenges, building on an analysis combining sociological observations with a historical long-view.

This episode is made possible by the Israel office of Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, which promotes peace, freedom, and justice through political education.

Hagar Kotef, Professor of Political Theory at SOAS, University of London, discusses her book The Colonizing Self: Or, Home and Homelessness in Israel/Palestine, analyzing the concept of “home” as both a physical endeavor and an object of attachment, against the backdrop of the Zionist settlement and the dispossession of Palestinians that it entailed