The Fear of Judaism in Israeli Culture

The Fear of Judaism in Israeli Culture

Tuesday, 24 May 2022 - 2:15pm to 4:00pm
Venue: 
Seminar Room 5, St Anne's College
Speaker(s): 
Gideon Katz (Ben-Gurion University) 
Chair: 
Yaacov Yadgar (OSGA and DPIR)
Series: 
Israel Studies Seminar

The fear of Judaism is an important theme in Israeli culture. By analyzing Israeli dystopias and essays we have the chance to “look” closely at this fear, and its images. The main one is the image on Judaism as the Israeli unconsciousness that ambush to the secular identity. This central image tells us something about the roots of the fear.

Gideon Katz is an associate professor in Ben-Gurion Research Institute at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. He is author of To the Core of Secularism: A Philosophical Analysis of Secularism in its Israeli Context, (Jerusalem, 2011), The Pale God – Israeli Secularism and Spinoza's Philosophy of Culture (Boston, 2011) and co-editor of Music in Israel (Sede-Boker, 2014). His book In Silence and out Loud: Leibowitz in Israeli Context (Open University Press, Ra’anana) has been recently published.