Vortrag: „Kontingenz. Das jüdische Palästina und der Zweite Weltkrieg“

In Kooperation mit dem Institut für Zeitgeschichte der Universität Wien

Welcome: Univ. Prof. Dr. Oliver Rathkolb
Moderator: Univ. Prof. Dr. (em.) Mitchell Ash

"Der Vortrag befasst sich mit einem Kernbestand der
jüdisch-palästinischen Erfahrung während des Zweiten Weltkrieges: Der
Bedrohung des Yishuv durch die im Sommer 1942 sich Ägypten nähernden
deutsch-italienischen Panzerarmee unter dem Kommando von Rommel. Dabei
wird es unumgänglich sein die Lage des Mandatsgebiets im Kontext des
Weltkrieges als Ganzem zu beschreiben. Geschichtstheoretisch handelt der
Vortrag, am empirischen Gegenstand, von Telos und Kontingenz und dabei
wesentlich um die Frage historischen Vergessens“

Univ-Prof Dr Amos Morris-Reich
"Helmar Lerski’s ‘Jewish and Arab Types’ Project:Political and Aesthetic Perspectives"
This talk addresses the “failed” project of arguably the most prominent art photographer working
in British Mandate Palestine:the 1930s “Jewish and Arab Types” project by German-born Swiss American Jewish art photographer Helmar Lerski. Lerski’s project involves at least two significant
political contexts. The first is racial photography within science, art, and popular culture, and the
second is Zionism. The talk will pay special attention to Lerski’s photographic method and to its
relationship to the aesthetic and political question of “light” in 1930s Palestine. The talk will attempt
to develop the argument that, in opposition to most recent (especially American) historiography,
aesthetic rather than political categories can better explain Lerski’s motivations, method, and the
grounds of “failure”.

Location: Institut für Kunstgeschichte, Universitätscampus (Altes AKH),
                       Spitalgasse 2, 1090 Wien, Hof 9
Date and Time: 25 October 2022, 7 p.m. (19Uhr)

Words of Greeting: Univ.-Prof. Dr. RaphaelRosenberg,  Department of Art History
Moderation: em. Prof. Dr. Mitchell G. Ash, President of the Center for Israel Studies Vienna

The lecture will be presented in English

Biography:
Amos Morris-Reich is The Geza Roth Chair of Modern Jewish History, the Director of The Stephen
Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and Racism, and a Professor at The Cohn
Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas, Tel Aviv University.
His book Photography and Jewish History: Five Twentieth Century Cases has just appeared in October 2022 with Penn University Press. His previous book is Race and Photography: Racial Photography as Scientific Evidence, 1876 – 1980 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016)

Registration required.
Please register via this contact address: office@center-for-israel-studies.at

Words of Welcome and Moderation: Prof. Dr. Mitchell Ash, President of the Center for Israel Studies Vienna

The recent elections in Israel are likely to produce the most right-wing government in the country’s history. Commentators on this outcome have written that one reason for the left parties' disastrous performance is that voters no longer think that a two-state solution has any chance of success and have therefore punished liberal and left parties for continuing to maintain what the right calls a conciliatory attitude toward the Palestinians. Einat Wilf sees a connection between this analysis and her own view that the West in general, by indulging Palestinian illusions, has stood in the way of peace.

Einat Wilf studied at Harvard University (B.A.) and at Insead (MBA), and received her PhD in Political Science from Wolfson College, University of Cambridge in 2008 with a study of the World Jewish Congress‘ campaign against the Swiss Banks. She served in the Knesset (Avoda, Labour) from 2010 and co-founded the party Ha’Atzma’ut in 2011, which however did not enter the Knesset elections in 2013. She is now an author and political consultant. Among her numerous publications are:
-My Israel, Our Generation (2007)
-Winning the War of Words: Essays on Zionism and Israel (2015)

-Telling Our Story: Essays on Zionism, the Middle East, and the Path to Peace (2018)

Her most recent book (with Adi Schwartz) has just appeared in German translation: Der Kampf um Rückkehr. Wie die westliche Nachsicht für den palästinensischen Traum den Frieden behindert hat (2022). 

The lecture will be presented in English