Upcoming, Updates, News, Resources
And Remember: We Need ICSA!
5-11-26
UPCOMING
(1) Just six days away, the first ever major gathering of that anti-antizionist crowd:
THE WORLD SYMPOSIUM AGAINST ANTIZIONISM!
Sunday May 17
Toronto, Canada
Featuring an incredible lineup of amazing speakers, including a keynote by Ben Shapiro, it promises to be enlightening, energizing, and the launch of the movement to finally say STOP! ENOUGH! Tafsik! to antizionism. (I’m thrilled to be participating myself.)
More details, and register here:
https://tafsik.com/event/wsaa/
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(2) The talented folks at the Movement Against Antizionism have developed a fantastic training module to equip people to understand and respond to antizionism. It’s fascinating intellectually as well has helpful for activists, so I recommend it strongly. Next sessions coming up May 14 and May 28.
Register at: https://cal.com/maaztrainaus
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(3) The terrific people at Indiana’s Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism asked me to mention this event, which I believe is in person in the Oakland area. I’m glad to do it, because Jean Améry was one of the earliest and the best to understand the new danger that antizionism was posing, way back in the late 1960s and 1970s, and is a brilliant writer to boot.
Virtuous Antisemitism: What the Writings of Jean Améry Can Teach Us About Anti-Zionism, Antisemitism & the Left Today
Date: Sunday, May 31, 2026
Time: 2:00–4:00 PM
Location: Temple Sinai (Oakland, CA)
Marlene Gallner, German scholar of antisemitism and editor of the recently published collection of Amery’s essays in English: “Antisemitism, Anti-Zionism and the Left,” presents Amery’s central themes and theses, and their ongoing relevance to discussions and debates on this topic today. Marlene will be joined in conversation with Temple Sinai member, Karen Fiss, professor of cultural history and scholar of the rise of fascist antisemitism among the European intellectual elite.
More details and registration:
https://www.oaklandsinai.org/event/virtuous-antisemitism-what-the-writings-of-jean-amery-can-teach-us-about-antizionism-antisemitism-and-the-left-today.html
Alvin Rosenfeld, at Indiana, wrote a terrific introduction to Améry in anticipation of the publication of Gallner’s book, back in 2021:
https://fathomjournal.org/jean-amery-as-a-critic-of-the-anti-israel-left/
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UPDATES
(1) ICSA’s Foundational Encyclopedia is taking shape nicely! The Call for Papers is here:
I’ve tentatively filled the major gaps, but stay tuned as I continue to work my way through the 70+ proposals I received.
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(2) ICSA has passed 200 scholars on the roster and is about to pass 3900 on the substack. The movement is growing!
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NEWS
Last week we reported on the outrageous incident at the New School, where the student government voted to defund its campus Hillel due to Hillel’s alleged “complicity” in (fill in the libel). The university put out a statement overriding that move (without actually condemning its bigoted nature), but then the student government doubled down insisting they had the power to do this. Stay tuned on that one.
The key moral: Antizionism has repeatedly been used as a weapon to target local Jews, as happened in this incident.
At the same time just a few short miles up north, the same playbook is being used in the frozen tundra known as Canada. Already several Jewish charitable groups have lost their tax-deductible status because of their “complicity in” (fill in the libel), but now there is an organized campaign to go after all the Jewish schools in Ontario. The technique is the same: As registered charities they must follow various rules and regulations, and the charge is that due to their “complicity in” (fill in the libel) they are violating those rules. (And make no mistake: these schools rely on their tax status to raise money to function. This is an attack on organized Jewish life in Ontario.)
Basically they make Zionism toxic by accusing Israel of (fill in the libel). Then they are aiming to delist Jewish schools because of their affinity for Zionism.
Playbook coming soon to a city near you.
https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/article-894476
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RESOURCES
Material is coming out fast and furious, happily – let’s keep it coming!
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(1) Rebecca Dinar weighs in at E-Jewish-Philanthropy on the importance of “changing the frameworks,” with a shout-out to ICSA. This does an excellent job of explaining the ultimate rationale between groups like ICSA. (Disclosure: Samson Charitable Fund is ICSA’s fiscal sponsor, and she is explaining why!)
Rebecca Dinar
“Whoever Shapes the Frameworks Shapes the Future of Jewish Life”
https://ejewishphilanthropy.com/whoever-shapes-the-frameworks-shapes-the-future-of-jewish-life/
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(2) A British journalist nails it, expressing the problem with antizionism so articulately and painfully so you don’t have to …. Though we should not only share this piece widely, we should study it as a master class in how to do things.
Allister Heath
“Antizionism is a Totalitarian Conspiracy Theory Rotting the West From Within”
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(3) Naya Lekht, a leader in the anti-antizionism movement, has composed a long piece touching on many of the most important themes of this burgeoning field of study, along with an original angle of seeing the Nakba narrative so essential to antizionism as being yet another of the classic “libels” of that movement:
Naya Lekht
“The Nakba as Libel: How a Narrative Engine Drives Antizionism”
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(4) Simon Lucas returns with the mind of the philosopher cutting to the essence of academic antizionism:
Simon Lucas
Academic antizionism as secularized religious dogma
Abstract: This essay argues that contemporary academic antizionism increasingly functions less as a mode of scholarly inquiry than as a secularized form of religious dogma. Drawing parallels to mythic narratives, replacement theology, ritualized confession, and heresy policing, it contends that antizionist discourse often substitutes moral certainty and ideological conformity for empirical rigor, thereby undermining the university’s commitment to open-ended truth-seeking and critical inquiry.
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That’s it, for now.
Remember: We need teams of scholars producing reams of scholarship about antizionism.
We need ICSA.
Has anyone heard of Maureen Galindo, a candidate for the US House in San Antonio TX? She recently won a Democratic-party run-off. She appears to be a wee bit psychotic when it comes to Jews.--eg, she wants to open an ICE-style prison for "American Zionists" and it's her "perception" that "Zionist billionaires" run not only Hollywood but the world. Frightening that she's come this far in a local election, and needless to say, it doesn't bode well.