The Center for Jewish Studies Presents The Helen Diller Distinguished Lecture in Jewish Studies featuring Derek Penslar. Derek Penslar will be presenting his talk titled Is Israel a Settler-Colonial State?

Since the 1960s, referencing Israel as settler-colonial has been a common polemical practice, a means of delegitimization of the state of Israel and those who believe in its right to exist. But over this same period, scholars have done serious work on the relationship between Zionism, Israel, and settler-colonialism. This talk will separate the analytical from the polemic threads in the discourse on Israel and settler-colonialism. It will propose a new vocabulary, both more flexible and precise, to describe Israel and that can be more conducive to a just resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian struggle.

Derek Penslar is the William Lee Frost Professor of Jewish History and the Director of the Center for Jewish Studies at Harvard University. He has published a dozen books, most recently Theodor Herzl: The Charismatic Leader (2020; German ed. 2022); and Zionism: An Emotional State (2023). He is currently writing a book titled The War for Palestine, 1947-1949: A Global History. He is a past president of the American Academy for Jewish Research, a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and an Honorary Fellow of St. Anne’s College, Oxford.

Every year, the Jewish Studies Department honors Helen Diller, whose generous endowment continues to provide crucial support to Jewish Studies at UC Santa Cruz, by hosting a public lecture on campus by an internationally recognized scholar. See a full list of previous Diller lectures here.

This event is co-sponsored by The Humanities Institute.