28 January 2020.  Filmscreening ”Bureau 06: Architects of the Eichmann Trial”

Panel discussion with film director Yoav Halevy (Open Doors Films Israel), H.E. Ambassador Mordechai Rodgold, Dagi Knellessen (Junior Fellow at the Vienna Wiesenthal Institute)and film expert Dr. Thomas Ballhausen.
Welcome: Dr. Monika Sommer, Director House of Austrian History

About the film: “…This is the dramatic story of Bureau 06, the team of police investigators formed for the sole purpose of investigating and preparing the grave charges brought by the Jewish people
against Adolf Eichmann, during the trial that took place in Jerusalem, 1961…”

 

    

14. November 2019. Amnon Rechter. Why Do Cities Kill Themselves?

Welcome: Marie-Therese Harnoncourt-Fuchs

 

Rechter Architects-A Story of Three Generations the oldest architectural firm in Israel
Our architectural practice was formed in the 20’s by Zeev Rechter returning from studies
in Paris and designing a series of buildings from housing in Tel Aviv to public building
like hotels in Herzelia and the Dead Sea and the Concert Hall in Jerusalem.
In 1949 his son, Yacov Rechter, joined the firm and together they collaborated on the
design of important public buildings like the “Mann Auditorium” in Tel Aviv, The
Resort Hotel in Nazareth and Law courts in Tel Aviv.
In 1960 after Zeev Rechter death Yacov Rechter continued to develop and design many
significant and versatile projects that included Hospitals, Hotels, University Projects,
Housing, Town Planning Schemes and other major projects like the Center for the
Performing Arts in Tel Aviv.
In 1973 Yacov Rechter won the Israel Prize for Architecture for the design of the
Hotel in Zichron Yacov.
In 1989 his son, Amnon Rechter, received the Architectural Association diploma and
the Royal Institute of British Architects Part II. From 1994 he is a partner in the firm.
After Yacov’s death in 2001, Amnon continued to design major projects in Israel and
abroad, in 2008 Amnon received the prestigious award “Most influential architect
in Israel” for a theatre project.
Today we continue to design major landmark projects, Auditoriums,
Hospitals, Law-Courts, Hotels and Civic Centers.
Rechter architects is widely regarded as one of the top firms in Israel.

                                         

 

     

             

    

23 October 2019.  Book Presentation:  “Jitzchak Rabin. Als Frieden noch möglich schien.” An evening event with the author Prof. Itamar Rabinovich in conversation with Dr. Doron Rabinovici

Prof. Itamar Rabinovich, a longtime advisor and friend of Jitzchak Rabin, authored the most recent biography of Jitzchak Rabin.
On the occasion of the publication of the German translated version we were pleased to set up an evening event in cooperation between The Friends of the Tel Aviv University Austria, the Diplomatic Academy Vienna and the Israel Institute Washington, DC. . Prof. Itamar Rabinovich in conversation with Dr. Doron Rabinovici at the Vienna School of International Studies  (the Diplomatic Academy Vienna)
Chair: DI Alexander Gertner (on behalf of Dr. Hannes Androsch, Honorary President of the Friends of the Tel Aviv University)
Welcome: Ambassador  Emil Brix, Director of the Vienna School of International Studies  (the Diplomatic Academy Vienna)

Prof. Itamar Rabinovich, President of the Israel Institute Washington DC and founding member of the Center for Israel Studies Vienna. Professor Emeritus of the Tel Aviv University, Global Professor at the New York University. Former President of the University of Tel Aviv. Ambassador of Israel to the US and Chiefnegotiator at the peace talks with Syria.

Dr. Doron Rabinovici, author and historian. Member of the Board of the Center for Israel Studies Vienna.  Member of the Board of the Grazer Autorinnen – Autorenversammlung and Speaker  Republikanischer Club – Neues Österreich gegen Antisemitismus, Rassismus, Homophobie und Rechtspopulismus.

 “Mr. Rabinovich, the distinguished Israeli scholar and diplomat . . . easily establishes that the prime minister was a man of great complexity. . . . Even the warm esteem in which he holds Rabin does not prevent Mr. Rabinovich–a scholar with an abiding commitment to historical accuracy–from presenting a portrait of his friend in full.”–Elliott Abrams, Wall Street Journal

 

 

 

 

      

25. September 2019. Dr. Hanno Loewy: Totem und Tabu Israel „ausstellen“ im Museum

Jüdische Museen in Europa machen zumeist einen Bogen um Israel. Allenfalls werden dann und wann israelische Künstlerinnen und Künstler ausgestellt, doch große thematische Ausstellungen bleiben bis heute eher eine Seltenheit.

Und wenn, dann sind Ausstellungen über Israel und Palästina immer wieder ein Politikum. Einerseits spiegelt sich darin die Polarisierung israelischer Innenpolitik – und die grundlegende innerjüdische Debatte um Diaspora und Nationalstaat. Doch seitdem rechtspopulistische Politiker in Europa und den Amerikas ihre Liebe zum „nationalen Projekt“ der Juden entdeckt haben, wird auch in der nichtjüdischen Öffentlichkeit das Bild Israels zum heiß umkämpften symbolischen Gelände – in dem es schon lange nicht mehr nur um traditionelle antisemitische Vorurteile geht. Seitdem der Islam als neues und zugleich traditionell aufgeladenes Feindbild in Europa entdeckt wird, ist der Staat Israel zum wohlfeilen Einsatz in den politischen Kontroversen der Gegenwart geworden: um ethnischen Nationalismus vs. offene Gesellschaft, um liberale vs. illiberale Demokratie, um die Rhetorik des christlich-jüdischen Abendland, die gegen Einwanderung und Asyl für Flüchtlinge in Stellung gebracht wird. Wenn jüdische Museen sich auf das Territorium dieses Minenfelds begeben, ist öffentlicher Streit nicht weit – und er kreist um viele Fragen zugleich: Wieviel Kritik an Israel ist „erlaubt“? Welche Aufgabe hat ein Museum? Und was überhaupt ist „jüdisch“ an einem „Jüdischen Museum“ das mit öffentlichen Mitteln betrieben wird und im öffentlichen Auftrag agiert?

Hanno Loewy, Direktor des Jüdischen Museums Hohenems, reflektiert am Beispiel einiger Ausstellungen und sich an ihnen entzündender Konflikte unterschiedliche Strategien der Annäherung an eine offenkundig umstrittene Materie.

Hanno Loewy, geb. 1961 in Frankfurt, Dr. phil. Film- und Literaturwissenschaftler. Von 1995 bis 2000 Gründungsdirektor des Fritz Bauer Instituts für Holocauststudien in Frankfurt, seit 2004 Direktor des Jüdischen Museum Hohenems. Zahlreiche Veröffentlichungen zur Jüdischen Geschichte und Gegenwart, zur Film- und Medientheorie, zur Fotogeschichte und zur Geschichte und Rezeption des Holocaust. Darunter: Holocaust: Grenzen des Verstehens (Reinbek 1992), Taxi nach Auschwitz (Berlin 2002), Béla Balázs: Märchen, Ritual und Film (Berlin 2003), Gerüchte über die Juden. Antisemitismus, Philosemitismus und aktuelle Verschwörungstheorien (Essen 2005), Hast Du meine Alpen gesehen? Eine jüdische Beziehungsgeschichte (mit Gerhard Milchram, Hohenems 2009), Jukebox. Jewkbox! Ein jüdisches Jahrhundert auf Schellack & Vinyl (Hohenems 2014)

     

 

2 June 2019.  Prof.  Anton Pelinka: “Israel: Demokratie aus der Vielfalt” – Festvortrag anlässlich des Jerusalemtages.

Prof.  Anton Pelinka was  full professor at the University of Innsbruck, Austria, from 1975 to 2006 and visiting professor at Harvard University (Schumpeter Fellow), Stanford University (Austrian Chair), University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, the University of New Orleans, and the Université Libre de Bruxelles (Institute for European Studies).
From 2006–2018 he was Professor of Nationalism Studies and Political Science at the Central European University in Budapest.  At the Spring Term 2019, he was teaching “Comparative European Politics” at the  European Forum, Center for Austrian Studies, at the Hebrew University.

His research fields include Comparative Politics and Democratic Theory. His immediate research focus will be on democracy and transnational politics. For the period of 2018 to 2023, he will be a member of the University Board of the University of Innsbruck.

Among his publications: Austria. Out of the Shadows of the Past (Boulder: Westview, 1998); The Politics of the Lesser Evil. Leadership, Democracy and Jaruzelski’s Poland (New Brunswick: Transaction, 1999); The Haider Phenomenon in Austria (ed.with Ruth Wodak; New Brunswick: Transaction, 2002); Democracy Indian Style. Subhas Chandra Bose and the Creation of India’s Political Culture (New Brunswick: Transaction, 2003).
and:
Israel. Ausnahme- oder Normalstaat? (Wien: Braumüller Verlag, 2015)

Welcome: Peter Florianschütz, President of the Austrian-Israeli Society

This evening was organised
in cooperation with: :
The Austrian – Israeli Society

with the support of:
The Embassy of the State of Israel
KKL – Austria

 

29 April 2019.  Dr. Irit Dekel: New Approaches to Holocaust Memory

What ethic of remembrance is appropriate to the multilayered landscape of memory and its plurality?

How are Holocaust memories performed in contemporary Israel? How do they shape, and how are they shaped by, the institutions that are tasked with studying, preserving and presenting them? How are these reciprocal relations, reflect changing attitudes toward politics?   Finally, how do new studies of antisemitism, racism, and ethnic cleansing in the 20th century affect those memories and popular sentiments toward their possible change in the era after the survivors?  Dr. Dekel will discuss these questions and the centrality of Holocaust memory for understanding the access that majority and minority groups have to cultural capital as well as to citizenship.   She will focus on Israel and compare major cultural changes and currents to those in Germany and the United States.

Dr. Irit Dekel:  She received her PhD in Sociology from the New School for Social Research in 2008, MA in Sociology from the New School for Social Research; BA and MA in Sociology and Anthropology from Tel Aviv University. Dekel studies memory politics and diversity around Holocaust memory in Germany, the idea and experience of home and exile in Israel and Germany and debates in regard to religious, ethnic and cultural pluralism in Europe. Irit Dekel was  Visiting Professor for Israel Studies at University of Virginia  in 2016-17.  She teaches on Israeli politics and culture, Collective Memory, marginality and perceptions of home, migration and return in Israel.
Currently she is Senior Research Associate at the University of Jena, Germany.

Welcome: Dr. Eleonore Lappin-Eppel, Deputy President of the Board of the Center for Israel Studies

Dekel I. (2013) Mediation at the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin. Palgrave Macmillan Memory Studies Series, London.

See also: ORF.at: https://orf.at/stories/3120802/
and: WINA Magazin: https://www.wina-magazin.at/wir-erinnern-uns-ja-staendig/

 

This evening lecture was organised
in cooperation with: :
Faculty of Historical and Cultural Studies at the University of Vienna (FSP: Diktaturen-Gewalt-Genozide)
The Austrian – Israeli Society

with the support of:
Zukunftsfonds der Republik Österreich
Nationalfonds der Republik Österreich für Opfer des Nationalsozialismus

20 March 2019.  Prof. Haim Harari: “Education in the Age of Knowledge-Lessons from Israel”

The internationally known physicist and former president of the Weizmann Institute of Science, Rechovot (Israel), Haim Harari was invited to give a lecture as part of the Lecture Series 2019 of the Center for Israel Studies Vienna at the University of Vienna. The lecture, entitled “Education in the Age of Knowledge-Lessons from Israel” was a plea not only for education but also an appeal for recognizing the value of education much beyond the stereotype of gaining knowledge only. Not only emphasizing science and technology but also the humanities and art Prof. Harari made a clear recommendation for an interdisciplinary/multidisciplinary approach towards education. His main message was: we have to speak three languages: our mother tongue, the global language (at the moment English) and the language of mathematics. Moving beyond the classical discourse on education, Harari underlined that education as an investment, encouraging decision-makers to generate a setting where education is of highest priority. This investment is needed for intellectual quality as well as for ensuring democracy. We were most grateful that Ambassador of Israel h.E. Talya Lador-Fresher and the incoming designated Ambassador of Austria to Israel h.E. Dr. Hannah Liko were present at this very remarkable evening.

CV of Prof. Haim Harari 

Introduction: Susi Shaked, President of the Center for Israel Studies Vienna
Welcome: Ambassador Dr. Eva Nowotny, Chair of the Board of the University of Vienna

 

28. Jänner 2019.  Mag. Wolfgang Sotill: “Vom Mangel zum Überfluss : Wasser in Israel”
(in Kooperation mit der Österreichisch-Israelischen Gesellschaft) 

Nach dem Katastrophenjahr 2008 hat Israel radikal umgedacht und verlässt sich in seinem Wassermanagement seither nicht mehr auf die Natur. An Beispielen von Reisfeldern in der Wüste erläutert uns Wolfgang Sotill den technologischen Fortschritt dieses an Erfindungen
reichen Landes.
Mag. Wolfgang Sotill studierte katholische Theologie in Graz und Jerusalem und unternimmt
jedes Jahr zahlreiche Bildungs- und Forschungsreisen nach Israel. Derzeit ist er Mitarbeiter der
Kleinen Zeitung in Graz und Landwirt. Er schreibt regelmäßig Beiträge für die Zeitschrift der Österreichisch-Israelischen Gesellschaft Shalom.

        
20 November 2018. “The Arab Donor Project. A Decade of Experience”, Dr. Amal Bishara, (Hadassah Medical Center, Jerusalem)

Dr. Amal Bishara received her PhD degree from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
After a postdoctoral training in the US she started working at the Tissue Typing Unit, Hadassah Medical Center, Jerusalem. Since1993 she held the position as Laboratory Supervisor; from 2007 until 2018 she worked at Hadassah Registry as Primary Coordinator. Her research projects are mainly on the topics of Bone Marrow/ Peripheral Blood Stem Cell Transplantation (BM/PBSCT); tests to choose the best donor; cells involved in graft versus host disease which is the most frequent complication post BM/PBSCT; involvement of HLA and other genetic systems such receptors expressed on NK cells, in the post-transplantation complications, investigation of the interaction between primary fibroblast cultures and natural killer (NK) cells from stem cell transplants with and without graft versus host disease (GVHD) as well as immunology of solid organ transplantation.
Dr. Bishara published 40 pear reviewed articles in the H&I and related topics. In addition, more than 75 abstracts were presented at national and international meetings. She is a member of the American Society for Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics, the European Federation of Immunology, the Israel Transplantation Society as well as the Israel Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics Association. Her national and international positions include Member of the Israeli Ministry of Health committees for Lung, Heart and Kidney Transplantation, efi inspector since 2009, Commissioner for 08a efi region since 20014, and member of efi accreditation committee. In addition, she holds an Honorary Diploma from the European Board of Transplantation Immunology.
2008 she established with Prof. Chaim Brautbar and Dr. Shoshana Israel, the Arab Donor Registry that is part of the Hadassah Registry, responsible for all the activity of this outreached registry. She conducted interaction with the community, with the media, recruiting donors and so on. As of April 2018 this registry contains 37,000 Arab donors. For this activity, she was chosen as “Outstanding Women Scientist “ one of 13 women scientists in the Middle East by the Program of the environment, Science, Technology and Health regional office at the USA embassy in Amman and received a leadership award by the American National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) October 2013.

 

Introduction: Susi Shaked, President Center for Israel Studies
Welcome: Ass. Prof. Dr. Gerda Leitner, MedUni Wien, Head of “Universitätsklinik für Blutgruppenserologie und Transfusionsmedizin”, University of Vienna

 

Summary of The Arab Donor Project 2008-2018

 

22 October 2018 “Israel – die ersten 70 Jahre” Univ. Prof. (em.) Rolf Steininger (University of Innsbruck)

   

Univ. Prof. (em.) Dr. Rolf Steininger, Studium der Geschichte und Anglistik in Marburg, Göttingen, München, Lancaster und Cardiff , 1971 Promotion und 1976 Habilitation an der Universität Hannover, dort bis 1983 Professor; von 1984 bis zur Emeritierung 2010 Leiter des Instituts für Zeitgeschichte der Universität Innsbruck, seit 2008 auch an der Freien Universität Bozen; seit 1989 Senior Fellow des Eisenhower Center for American History der University of New Orleans, seit 1995 Jean Monnet- Professor; Gastprofessuren in Tel AvivQueensland (Australien) und New Orleans, Gastwissenschaftler in Ho Chi Minh-Stadt (Saigon), Hanoi und Kapstadt; 2011 Tiroler Landespreis für Wissenschaft; zahlreiche Veröffentlichungen und preisgekrönte Hörfunk-, Film- und Fernsehdokumentationen zur Zeitgeschichte; mehr Informationen unter www.rolfsteininger.at