This event is both online via zoom (worldwide), and live in-person (in Newton, Massachusetts). A half-hour of time for Q&A follows the one-hour presentation.
About the Program
Gilad Cohen will explore the clashing political ideas of early Zionists including Moses Hess, Leon Pinsker, Theodor Herzl, and Ahad Ha'am.
In addition to these early constitutional thinkers, he will discuss the later notions of Jewish sovereignty that were espoused by Simon Rawidowicz, Mordecai Kaplan, and other peripheral Zionists of the late 20th Century.
These later thinkers adopted ideological systems from the earlier constitutional thinkers in ways that mainstream Zionists of today have not.
He will also touch on major trends in the contemporary academic study of Zionism, focusing on the imperial and multinational context in which the Zionist movement was founded.
About the Presenter
Gilli Cohen is a PhD candidate in the Department of Near Eastern & Judaic Studies at Brandeis University, and is a fellow of the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies.
He researches the intellectual history of Zionism, Jewish communal politics in the modern period, and the transnational context underpinning local Zionist organization before The State of Israel.
He is particularly keen to investigate the role that Zionist leaders, thinkers, and institutions played in the development of a modern Jewish politics distinct from previous centuries.
Before coming to Brandeis, Gilli was a Netziv fellow at the Pardes Institute for Jewish Studies, after receiving his MS (Master of Studies) from The University of Oxford, and his BA from McGill University.
