The Transnational Law Institute and the Department of History would like to invite you to a lecture by Professor Yakov Rabkin, Département d'histoire, Université de Montréal entitled ‘In Praise of Clarity: Israel’s New Nation-State Law’. 

Abstract:

The Zionist movement and the state of Israel that it embodies have often been qualified as discriminatory. These accusations have provoked debates and confusion. The new law passed by the Knesset earlier this year clarifies what Israel is and does. It enables its citizens, Palestinian non-citizens under its control, and the rest of the world to formulate realistic expectations and policies with respect to Israel, and thus may contribute to a workable solution to one of the more durable crises in modern times. This paper analyzes the new law from this policy perspective..

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Biography:

Yakov M. Rabkin is Professor of History at the Université de Montréal, where he has taught since 1973. His areas of interest include contemporary Jewish history and the history of science. He has published and edited five books and more than three hundred articles. His book, A Threat from Within: A Century of Jewish Opposition to Zionism (Palgrave Macmillan/Zed Books) is now available in fifteen languages, including Hebrew. It was nominated for the Governor General’s Award in Canada and the Hecht Award in Israel, was featured at the Rendez-vous de l’histoire in Blois, France, and was included in a list of best non-fiction books of the year by Japan’s daily newspaper Asahi Shimbun. More recently, he authored What is Modern Israel? (Pluto Press, also published in French, Japanese and Russian). Earlier this year, he co-edited a collective volume entitled Demodernization: A Future in the Past (ibidem Press), which explores this new concept in a variety of spatial and temporal contexts.

Fluent in five languages (English, French, Hebrew, Russian and Spanish), Yakov Rabkin is an active, long-time participant in inter-faith dialogue and a frequent commentator on international affairs in both print (The Australian, Baltimore Sun, Globe and Mail, La Presse, Le Devoir,Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, International Herald Tribune, France Ouest, Jerusalem Post,Haaretz, Milenio, Rebelión) and electronic media (Radio-Canada, CBC, PBS, Télé-Québec, CTV, Radio Ville-Marie, RTV Belge, Radio France, Arutz 7, 24iNews). He has also been interviewed for several films on Jewish and Israeli history.