@arethmann.bsky.social
Postdoc at the Martin Buber Society of Fellows in the Humanities and Social Sciences, Hebrew University of Jerusalem | Theory and History of Human Rights, Political and Legal Theory
Yesterday, Michael Walzer spoke at the Van Leer Institute for his 90th birthday. Among the well-wishers was @faniaoz-salzberger.bsky.social. He remains an important American voice—and someone who will not apologize for speaking in Jerusalem. I wrote a note about it.
www.hagalil.com/2025/12/mich...
both inside and outside Israel. Episodes like this are quickly instrumentalized to portray Israeli universities once again as a bastion of "leftist extremists," with all the political consequences such labeling entails. It is a shame. (3/3)
27.11.2025 06:42 — 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0(if it can even be called self-criticism rather than outright self-flagellation)—is on full display here. It illustrates the cult-like dynamics that have taken hold within the BDS movement. What worries me now is that the TAU administration will come under full attack from right-wing groups (2/3)
27.11.2025 06:42 — 👍 4 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0It is almost painful to read Peter Beinart's public statement on X in which he apologizes for having given a talk at Tel Aviv University. The degree to which one can submit oneself to humiliation—what a friend aptly described as a Stalinist-style exercise in self-criticism (1/3)
27.11.2025 06:42 — 👍 6 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
All the luck to them!
"In Jerusalem, there are people whose pub is their synagogue. They are familiar with it, they have been drinking there for 15 years."
www.haaretz.com/life/2025-10...
Impressive collection of Israeliana at Harvard. But there is also truth in how the article ends: "'In the present atmosphere, the thought that material like this is also in the hands of a foreign university, which completely controls its exposure and use, is somewhat disturbing.'"
t.ly/HrFnW
to attend the all-white William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans in 1960 after a federal court order to desegregate. She also spoke about her teacher, Mrs. Henry, who supported her by teaching her alone for an entire year.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbaH... (2/2)
Sometimes all it takes is one person who refuses to join a boycott. Yesterday, the American Archive of Public Broadcasting posted part of a November 14, 1997 interview with Ruby Bridges, in which she recalled how white parents boycotted the school when she became the first Black child (1/2)
15.11.2025 07:43 — 👍 4 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
This is good news: The Max Planck Center for Democracy, Security and Human Rights is being established at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem — joining the network of only 19 such Centers worldwide.
@maxplanck.de
“Did you stop to ask yourselves what change your decision has truly achieved?”
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/09/w...
In his talk, Dan Diner exemplified much needed restraint—avoiding hasty analogies—through Camus’ unfinished Der erste Mensch. He saw it as a masterly reflection on the tension between moral universalism and particular belonging. A novel that teaches without prophesying.
www.faz.net/aktuell/feui...
Breaking the rule of law in the name of the rule of law.
Recommend this Haaretz podcast with Eran Shamir-Borer — for over 20 years in the IDF’s International Law Dept, now heads the Center for National Security and Democracy at the Israel Democracy Institute.
www.haaretz.com/israel-news/...
In Haaretz, Steven Levitsky notes that while authoritarian shifts are unfolding in Israel, the situation remains reversible — in fact, more encouraging than in the U.S., where democracy eroded faster and pushback has been weak. Even in wartime, Israel can rely on a strong civil society.
t.ly/JmKoX
„Niemand ist so am Frieden interessiert wie die #Ukraine“
„Im Gespräch” mit dem Historiker Karl Schlögel, der Meister der Vororterkundung
www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/archaeologe-...
An interesting read while stuck in traffic.
"But there are also countries in regression, like the United States, where Trump has dismantled many systems. And there's Israel."
www.haaretz.com/israel-news/...
commemorating Hersh Goldberg (and the other hostages who never returned alive).
No graffiti saying "globalize whatever stupidity."
No hatred against Palestinian civilians.
Just a silent, sad message: We miss him. (2/2)
While Trump this week portrayed Hamas at one moment as some kind of security force—and the usual groups were quick to highlight Israel's alleged breaches of agreements without mentioning Hamas's failure to honor its own—I came across grassroots street installations in Jerusalem this morning (1/2)
18.10.2025 16:18 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
And as I am reading this and that article during my last weekend in the U.S., I am especially drawn to the hopeful news from the region to which I will soon return — news of a peace deal and, at long last, the release of hostages. I could not have wished for a better note on which to leave. (3/3)
11.10.2025 14:56 — 👍 4 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Thanks to Klaus Lederer and Alexander Karschnia, there is a some clarification in a recent taz article — it is in German, but anyone can easily translate it into English.
taz.de/Debatte-um-A...
P.S.: Poster from the film "Ein Gespenst geht um in Europa" (2013).
(2/3)
Over the last two years, while listening to comments — mainly from people in the academia and art world, and most recently at some GSA panels in Arlington — I began to wonder whether a new spectre is haunting Europe, this time bearing the name "antideutsch." (1/3)
11.10.2025 14:56 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
Leaving this cute city of Madison.
Big thanks again to Chad Goldberg for inviting me to the seminar “Politics, Culture, and Society”.
I am also very grateful to the institutions that supported the event, and to everyone who attended and asked such thoughtful questions.
I know people at these universities, but also because I have witnessed, almost by the hour over the past two years, what desolidarization within academia means. Perhaps at some point we will have to call for a boycott of ourselves—as the first step out of this barren way of thinking. (2/2)
04.10.2025 19:03 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
I wonder what it says about professors who, from their still safe havens in Europe and Canada, respond to their American colleagues only by calling for their institutions to be boycotted now. For me, solidarity looks different–not only because (1/2)
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/u...
Whilst the BUF did not become a mass political party, their existence demonstrates the popularity of fascism across Europe at the time.
Our online exhibition explores the individuals and organisations that have fought back against antisemitism in France, Britain and Germany buff.ly/iBFECQJ
Btw: The decision to publish it on Yom Kippur is also – to put it neutrally – interesting.
voelkerrechtsblog.org/jenseits-der...
As the saying goes, all good things come in threes—my third comment on the boycott topic today, this time from Germany. This appears to be another attempt to explain calls to boycott Israeli colleagues. Good luck in their efforts to foster constructive dialogue with supporters of the BDS movement.
03.10.2025 18:10 — 👍 5 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
Just following up on my boycott comment from this morning — in this case, a boycott would have made total sense.
03.10.2025 17:44 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
When boycott calls have made sense.
03.10.2025 17:41 — 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
These are indeed very important voices from Gaza. I hope they will be heard and taken seriously.
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/w...
Sad that this still needs repeating.
#antisemitism #Manchester
@faniaoz-salzberger.bsky.social
