Disrupting Injustice and Promoting Moral Imagination in Israel/Palestine

January 31, 2022

Conflict and Peace Fellows at Religion and Public Life (RPL) talk about their projects illuminating transnational solidarities, reimagining Jewish identity, Palestinian steadfastness (Sumoud), and cultivating moral imagination and creative possibilities for a just peace in Israel/Palestine.

Shared Resistance and Solidarity: A (Re)Newed Paradigm

Tuesday, February 15 | 12–1:00pm EST | Zoom

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Oriel Eisner, Topol Fellow at RCPI, and on-the-ground organizer with the Center for Jewish Nonviolence, in conversation with Neomi-Nur Zahor, Activist and Arabic teacher, and Basil al-Adraa, Activist and Journalist

RCPI Fellow Oriel Eisner in conversation with a Palestinian and an Israeli activist—talking about their experience engaging in immersive solidarity work and shared resistance in the last year as a part of a renewal of efforts in joint struggle against the Occupation.

Moderator: Hilary Rantisi, Associate Director, Religion, Conflict and Peace Initiative, HDS

Breaking Walls: Historical and Contemporary Mizrahi Feminist Struggles for Housing in Israel/Palestine

Tuesday, March 1 | 12–1:00pm EST | Zoom

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Sapir Sluzker-Amran, RCPI Fellow; Human Rights Lawyer and Co-founder of Breaking Walls Feminist Grassroots Movement, in conversation with Yali Hashash, Head of Gender and Criminology Department, Or Yehuda College

Sapir Sluzker Amran and Dr. Yali Hashash will explore the role of powerful civic grassroots movements in Israel/Palestine that center feminist-queer-class-race intersectionality and solidarity while challenging secular liberal thinking about feminist leadership. They will discuss the role of alternative and community archives by showcasing feminist activism from the 1950’s onwards and highlighting Mizrahi feminist struggles for housing in Israel/Palestine.

Moderator: Lihi Yona, JSD candidate at Columbia Law School focusing on employment law and race theory in Israel and the United States.

The Troubled Everyday in/of Gaza: Restoring Agency and Creative Possibility

Tuesday, March 8 | 12–1:00pm EST | Zoom

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Salem Al-Qudwa, RCPI Fellow and Architect, in conversation with Sara Roy, Senior Research Scholar at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University

Salem Al-Qudwa will showcase his work focusing on community and people with an emphasis on ethics, social injustice, and architecture in conflict zones such as the Gaza Strip. He will also introduce his work on gender and in-between spaces exploring barriers, exploitation, and the relationship of widowed women to space and architecture.

Co-sponsored by The Middle East Forum at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard

To Eat Alone Is To Die Alone: A Voyage into the Lives of Seeds and Their Communities

Tuesday, March 22 | 12–1:00pm EST | Zoom

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Vivien Sansour, RCPI Fellow; Founder of Palestine Heirloom Seed Library, in conversation with Riad Bahhur, Professor of History and Global Studies at Sacramento City College

Vivien Sansour will be sharing excerpts of her upcoming autobiographical book weaving a poetic narration of people, plants, and other food stories from Palestine to South America, taking us on her journey of establishing the Palestine Heirloom Seed Library and the projects that resulted from it. Professor Bahhur will explore with Vivien how stories inform our political and social realities on a global level and how they can be catalysts for a new conversation about indigenous knowledge and spirituality.

A Home for the Human Spirit: Cultural Activism and the Moral Imagination in the Inherit Art Project

Tuesday, March 29 | 12–1:00pm EST | Zoom

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Taurean J. Webb, RCPI Fellow; Instructor of Religion and Race at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, in conversation with Brian Bantum, Professor of Theology at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, and Lux Eterna, Australian-born Palestinian artist featured in exhibition

This presentation chronicles the evolution of the collaborative art exhibition, Ye Shall Inherit the Earth & Faces of the Divine. The exhibition featuring works of artists from the African Diasporic and Palestinian exilic communities, attempts to gesture towards some commentary about both the universality and specificity of conversations ranging from human rights, human dignity, and artistic production-as-a practice of resistance. Follow the Inherit exhibition on Instagram @inherit_exhibit22.

Decolonize Now: A Conversation about Radical Imagination and Justice in Palestine/Israel

*Wednesday, April 6 | 12–1:00pm EST | Zoom*

Noura Erakat, RCPI Fellow; Associate Professor at Rutgers University, Department of Africana Studies, in conversation with Marshall Ganz, Rita E. Hauser Senior Lecturer in Leadership, Organizing, and Civil Society at Harvard Kennedy School

Since the signing of Oslo, or the Declaration of Principles, in 1993, the question of Palestine has been rammed into the constricting paradigms of statehood and diplomatic negotiations. The peace process framework not only eschewed the consequential dimension of power from the question of Palestine but limited its possible futures by reducing it to a matter of, at best, equitable partitions. This conversation aims to peel back those debilitating frameworks to consider how other approaches like anti-racism, feminism, and anti-imperialism can help overcome restrictive binaries and lead to decolonial futures.

*Please note that this event falls on a Wednesday at noon EST

Walking Through the Twilight: A Visual Exploration of Contemporary Jewish Anti-Occupation Activism

Tuesday, April 12 | 12–1:00pm EST | Zoom

Mati Milstein, RCPI Fellow; American Jewish photojournalist and documentary photographer, in conversation with Awdah Al-Hathaleen, Activist, Oriel Eisner, Activist, and Emily Glick, Activist

Walking Through the Twilight is a photographic exploration of American Jewish activism in solidarity with Palestinians against the Israeli military occupation. The project explores the interplay between Jewish religious identity and activism, discussing issues of identity, faith, and action.

Moderator: Atalia Omer, Professor of Religion, Conflict, and Peace Studies at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at University of Notre Dame and T. J. Dermot Dunphy Visiting Professor of Religion, Violence, and Peacebuilding and Senior Fellow in Conflict and Peace at Harvard Divinity School

Yom Ha’atzmaut and the Colonization of American Judaism

Tuesday, April 19 | 12:30-1:30pm EST | Zoom

Brant Rosen, Topol Fellow at RCPI; Rabbi, Tzedek Chicago, in conversation with Daniel Boyarin, Hermann P. and Sophia Taubman Professor of Talmudic Culture in the Departments of Near Eastern Studies and Rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley, currently the Caroline Zelaznik Gruss and Joseph S. Gruss Visiting Professor in Talmudic Civil Law, Harvard Law School.

In conversation with Daniel Boyarin, Rabbi Brant Rosen interrogates the ways that Zionist hegemony is expressed through the Yom Ha’atzmaut (Israeli Independence Day) that has become a staple on the American Jewish holiday calendar, projecting themes of militarism, colonialism, and empire on to sacred religious tradition. He will also present an alternative framing of this day as a religious observance – one that expresses remembrance, repentance, and reparations.

“Sumoud” by Varvara Abd al-Razeq, courtesy of Dar Al-Kalima University — “Sumoud” by Varvara Abd al-Razeq, Dar Al-Kalima University

Expressions of Sumoud in Palestinian Higher Education

Tuesday, April 26 | 12–1:00pm EST | Zoom

Rana Khoury, RCPI Fellow; Vice President for Development at Dar Al-Kalima University, in conversation with Hilary Rantisi, Associate Director, Religion, Conflict and Peace Initiative, Harvard Divinity School

What is the role of Palestinian universities in the struggle for freedom and justice? Rana shares her exploration of developing a dedicated curriculum and the experience of Dar Al-Kalima University in shaping Palestinian students as cultural activists.