International Conference: Religion and Nationality
The Israel Democracy Institute | 4 Pinsker Street, Jerusalem
On Sunday and Monday, June 19-20, 2011, IDI hosted an international conference that explored questions of religion and state in Israel, the Middle East, and Western culture. The conference was conducted under the auspices of IDI's Nation State project, headed by IDI Senior Fellow and Israel Prize laureate Prof. Anita Shapira. The full program of this event, which was conducted largely in English, can be found below.
IDI's International Conference on Religion and Nationality
was made possible through the generous support of
The Goldhirsh Foundation
Greetings
Opening remarks: Prof. (Emerita) Anita Shapira, Senior Fellow, Israel Democracy Institute; Department of Jewish History,Tel Aviv University
Session 1: Religion and State in the Middle East
Chairperson: Prof. Ofra Bengio, Department of Middle Eastern and African History, Tel Aviv University
- Religion and the Nation State in the Middle East: A Reassessment [English] - Prof. Itamar Rabinovich, Department of Middle Eastern and African History, Tel Aviv University
- The Islamic Republic of Iran: Between Ideological Constraints and the Needs of the Modern State [Hebrew] - Prof. Meir Litvak, Department of Middle Eastern and African History, Director of the Center for Iranian Studies, Tel Aviv University
Respondent: Mr. Mohanad Mustafa, The College for Academic Studies - Or Yehuda [Hebrew]
- The Turkish Predicament: Neo-Islam against the Nation State? [English] - Prof. Ehud R. Toledano, Chair for Ottoman and Turkish Studies, Department of Middle Eastern and African History, Tel Aviv University
- The Syrian State: Between Syranism, Arabism and Islam [Hebrew] - Prof. Eyal Zisser, Dean, Faculty of the Humanities, The Yona and Dina Ettinger Chair of Contemporary Middle Eastern History, Tel Aviv University
- Sunni Sectarian Agitation as a Means of Contesting the Nation-State in Pakistan: Implications for Islam and Liberal Democracy in a Religious Nationalist State [English] - Dr. Micha'el M. Tanchum, Department of Middle East and Islamic Studies, Department of Government, Law and Diplomacy, The Shalem Center
Respondent: Qadi Iyad Zahalka, Qadi in the Sharia Court of Haifa [Hebrew]
Session 2: Religion and State in Israel
Chairperson: Prof. (Emerita) Anita Shapira, Senior Fellow, Israel Democracy Institute; Department of Jewish History, Tel Aviv University
- A Robust Form of the Multicultural Predicament and the Need for Feeble Measures for Its Elevation: The Case of the Palestinian-Arab Minority in Israel [English] - Professor Michael Karayanni, Bruce W. Wayne Chair in International Law; Director, The Harry and Michael Sacher Institute for Legislative Research and Comparative Law, Faculty of Law Hebrew University of Jerusalem
- Civil Rights and Human Distress in a Jewish and Democratic State [Hebrew] - Prof. Shahar Lifshitz, Senior Research Fellow, Israel Democracy Institute; Faculty of Law, Bar-Ilan University
- Religion and Nationalism among the Mizrahi Ultra-Orthodox [Hebrew] - Dr. Nissim Leon, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Bar-Ilan University
Respondent: Prof. Frances Raday, Chair, Concord Research Center for Integration of International Law in Israel, The Haim Striks School of Law, COLMAN; Member, UN Human Rights Council Working Group on Discrimination against Women [English]
Session 3: Religion and State in Western Culture
Chairperson: Prof. Shulamit Volkov, Department of History, Tel Aviv University
- Church and State in a Bi-National, Multicultural Society: The Case of Canada [English] - Prof. David Cameron, Department of Political Science, University of Toronto
- Jews, the State and the End of the Christian Nation: The American Case [English] - Prof. Pierre Birnbaum, Professor Emeritus of Sociology and History, University of Paris I (Sorbonne)
Respondent: Prof. Eyal Naveh, Department of History, Tel Aviv University
- Transformations in French Secularism [English] - Prof. Philippe Portier, Professor of Political Science at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (Paris-Sorbonne), Head of the "Groupe Sociétés, Religions, Laïcités" (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)
- Family, Religion, and Modern Nationalism in Eastern Europe: A Theory and a Polish-Ukrainian Case [English] - Prof. Timothy Snyder, Department of History, Yale University
Respondent: Dr. Alexander Yakobson, Department of History, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem [English]
Session 4: Religion and State in Israel
Chairperson: Dr. Nabil Khattab, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Senior Researcher, Israel Democracy Institute
- Transcending Right and Left: Political Uses of the Hebrew Bible in Current Israeli Discourse [English] - Prof. Fania Oz-Salzberger, Faculty of Law, University of Haifa; Chair of Modern Israel Studies, Monash University
- Religion within the IDF: The Defense Force of a Jewish and Democratic State [Hebrew] - Prof. Asa Kasher, Professor Emeritus, Department of Philosophy, Tel Aviv University
Respondent: Professor Stuart Cohen, Department of Political Science, Bar-Ilan University
- God in Modern Democratic Constitutions [English] - Dr. Alexander Yakobson, Department of History, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
- Dilemmas in the Jewish Nation State: Between Religious and Civil Law [Hebrew] - Prof. Yedidia Stern, Vice President, Israel Democracy Institute; Faculty of Law, Bar-Ilan University
- "To Be or Not to Be(lieve)?": Judaism and Zionist Existential Uncertainty [Hebrew] - Dr. Uriel Abulof, Department of Political Science, Tel Aviv University
Respondent: Prof. Mordechai Kremnitzer, Vice President, Israel Democracy Institute; Professor Emeritus, Faculty of Law, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem [Hebrew]
CLOSING REMARKS