Mission Statement
Enriched with content provided by hundreds of faculty members across the world, Israel in the Academy aims to educate, inform, and empower those who believe in the existence and legitimacy of a secure and democratic homeland for the Jewish people and who are convinced that that goal can only be secured by providing for the aspirations of both Israelis and Palestinians. To make that possible we must bring an end to efforts to delegitimize Israel and to prevent the mutual empathy and dialogue that we see as essential to negotiating a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We also need to increase and enrich both historical knowledge and knowledge of the contemporary scene.
Israel and the Academy is a natural outgrowth of the MLA Members for Scholars’ Rights, a voluntary organization that stands for the universal principle of academic freedom. The group was founded to analyze and organize opposition to efforts within the Modern Language Association to abridge academic freedom through boycotts and other means. Israel and the Academy seeks to support such efforts across the humanities and social sciences while also providing pedagogical resources to further discourse and understanding surrounding modern day Israel and its historical context.
Advisory Board
Yael Aronoff (Michigan State University), Eli Avraham (University of Haifa), Russell Berman (Stanford University), Mark Clarfield (Ben Gurion University), Donna Robinson Divine (Smith College), Michael Gizzi (Illinois State University), David Greenberg (Rutgers), Yael Halevi-Wise (McGill University), Rachel S. Harris (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), Alan Johnson (Fathom), Ellen Kaplan (Smith College), Menachem Kellner (Shalem College, Jerusalem), Rebecca Lesses (Ithaca College), Jeffry V. Mallow (Loyola University), Deborah Dash Moore (University of Michigan), Sharon Musher (Stockton University), Cary Nelson (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), Ashley Passmore (Texas A&M University), Michele Rivkin-Fish (University of North Carolina), Ira Robinson (Concordia University), Wendy Sandler (University of Haifa), Shahar Sadeh (New York University), Brent Sasley (University of Texas at Arlington), Paul Scham (University of Maryland), Martin Shichtman (Eastern Michigan University), Naomi Sokoloff (University of Washington), Kenneth S. Stern (Justus & Karin Rosenberg Foundation), Ilan Troen (Brandeis University), Kenneth Waltzer (Michigan State University), Dan Rabinowitz (Tel Aviv University) & Shira Wolosky (Hebrew University of Jerusalem).
Explanation of Site Contents
In order to promote the goals outlined in the mission statement, we provide:
- a series of handy fliers addressing hot-button issues in debates and controversies on campus and community alike, including responses to the main arguments of the movement to boycott, divest from, and sanction (BDS) Israel
- substantial packets for more detailed reading and research on selected topics, from apartheid to “pinkwashing” to the two-state-solution
- Op-Eds and essays both new and reprinted that give access to individual voices addressing issues under wide discussion
- a large international library of syllabi for courses in both Israel studies and Jewish studies throughout history, from courses on ancient history to courses in Holocaust studies to courses on the Arab-Israeli conflict
- links to online resources in Israel studies and Jewish studies, from videos to archives to encyclopedias
- a news section for breaking issues and events