Israel's Enlightenment Legacy and Its Enemies: A long Perspective

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Prof. Fania Oz-Salzberger, historian and writer, guest in the Studium generale program

Beginning with a short survey of Israel's current social, political and juridical crisis [as it will stand in June 2023], this lecture highlights Israel's liberal-democratic tradition, which hails from the cultural roots of Enlightenment and Haskalah. It explores the rise of anti-Enlightenment discourse, which in Israel was developed in tandem by both the radical left and the extremist religious right, as attempts to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict failed, and political moderates came under attack.

The speaker, Prof. Fania Oz-Salzberger, a historian of political thought and longtime participant in the Israeli public sphere, discusses the Israeli case of the global rise of internet-based populism, which brought the country to a dangerous democratic slippage. Will the European and Jewish Enlightenment legacy prevail, and how can Israel fight its own demons?

Fania Oz-Salzberger, historian and writer, Professor Emerita at the University of Haifa School of Law and the Haifa Center for German and European Studies (HCGES)

Moderation: Paul Chaim Koristka and Eliana Korn, students Bucerius Law School, members of the VJSNord (Verband Jüdischer Studierender Nord)

Welcome adress: Prof. Dres. h.c. Manfred Lahnstein, Kuratorium Zeit-Stiftung, former President of the German-Israeli Society and Chairman Emeritus of the University of Haifa

The lecture will be held in English.