"Re-Thinking the Left's Jewish Question" with Tony Michels

This is an Archive of a Past Event

“Between Race and Religion: Contemporary American Jewish Life” series with the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity.

Tony Michels, George L. Mosse Professor of American Jewish History, University of Wisconsin-Madison, in conversation with Clayborne Carson, Martin Luther King, Jr., Centennial Professor of History and Ronnie Lott Founding Director of The Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute, Stanford University.

Over the last century, the American Left's attitudes toward Zionism have been fraught with complications.  Core principles of internationalism, anti-imperialism, and solidarity have led Americans Leftists to support Zionism and the state of Israel in the mid-twentieth century, but oppose them in the early-twenty-first century.  What explains these extreme shifts?  What do they say about the Left and American Jews?  And does the past offer new possibilities for the present?