Fall 2018
Thursday, October 4, 2018
Double Amnesia: Rethinking the History of Zionism and Human Rights
James Loeffler, Jay Berkowitz Professor of Jewish History at the University of Virginia
The year 2018 marks the seventieth anniversary of two momentous events in twentieth-century history: the birth of the State of Israel and the creation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Both remain tied together in the ongoing debates about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, global antisemitism, and American foreign policy. Yet the surprising connections between Zionism and the origins of international human rights are completely unknown today. Drawing on his recent book, Professor Loeffler will discuss what international law’s forgotten Jewish past reveals about the current crisis and uncertain future of human rights.
Please RSVP.
5:30 pm – 7:30 pm
105 Law Building Berkeley Law
Tuesday, October 30, 2018
Trump, Netanyahu and the Midterm Elections: How the Campaign and Results Will Affect the US-Israel Relationship
Allison Kaplan Sommer, Journalist
The mantra of American supporters of Israel has always included the word “bipartisan.” Traditionally, Israeli leaders over the decades have worked hard to cultivate friends on both sides of the aisle to ensure that economic, military and political support for the Jewish state remains rock-solid. In turn, both Republican and Democratic leaders have bent over backwards to outdo one another in declarations of support for Israel to win key voter groups and major political donors. But as extreme partisanship has utterly transformed politics in the Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu era, the old rules of the U.S.-Israel relationship no longer apply. How has that affected the 2018 midterm campaign? And how might the results transform the relationship even further?
Allison Kaplan Sommer has been living and working as a journalist in Israel since 1993 and has been a staff writer at Haaretz since 2012. She is the former Washington DC correspondent, feature writer and critic for the Jerusalem Post, and has written on a freelance basis for numerous U.S. publications, including the New Republic, Politico, The Forward and the New York Daily News. Originally from Rhode Island, she earned her B.A. in English and Theater at Wesleyan University and her M.A. from the Columbia School of Journalism. In 2016, she received the 2016 B’nai B’rith World Center Award for Journalism and in 2017, she received Simon Rockower Award for Journalistic Excellence. In Fall 2017, she was the Arnold Distinguished Visiting Chair in Jewish Studies at the College of Charleston.
Please RSVP.
5:30 pm – 7:30 pm
110 Law Building Berkeley Law