Antisemitism and Its Impacts

Antisemitism has again reared its ugliness. Jews have experienced antisemitism throughout history on a spectrum from everyday slights to genocide. Today, old misconceptions are propelled by social media and controversies over Israel. A small minority, Jews have been an easy target and scapegoat for provoking anger and hatred by those motivated for power and influence. Plagued through history’s continuation of myths about Jews, how do we come to understand that scapegoating others ultimately undermines democracy? What would be a road map to change?

Speakers:

Dr. Kurt Braddock is an Assistant Professor in the School of Communication at American University, where he is also a faculty fellow at the Center for Media and Social Impact. Dr. Braddock’s research focuses on understanding the psychological effects of extremist communication, as well as how those effects can be undermined to prevent violence. His work has been published in several security and communication journals, including Terrorism and Political Violence, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, Communication Monographs, and New Media and Society.

Cathy Buerger is the Director of Research at the Dangerous Speech Project. She studies the relationship between speech and intergroup violence as well as civil society responses to dangerous and hateful speech online. She has a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Connecticut, where she remains a Research Affiliate of the university’s Economic and Social Rights Research Group. She is also the Managing Editor of the Journal of Human Rights.

Dr. Jeffrey Herbst has been president of American Jewish University since July 2018.  He was previously president and CEO of the Newseum and the Newseum Institute in Washington, DC. From 2010 to 2015, he was president of Colgate University.  Before that, he served as provost and executive vice president for academic affairs and professor of political science at Miami University in Ohio. For 18 years, he taught at Princeton University, where he also earned his bachelor’s degree summa cum laude in 1983. Herbst earned a doctorate in 1987 from Yale. He is the author of the award-winning “States and Power in Africa” and many other books and articles.

Roger Berkowitz, discussant/moderator, is Founder and Academic Director of the Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities and Professor of Politics, Philosophy, and Human Rights at Bard College. Professor Berkowitz authored The Gift of Science: Leibniz and the Modern Legal Tradition (Harvard, 2005; Fordham, 2010; Chinese Law Press, 2011). Berkowitz is editor of The Perils of Invention: Lying, Technology, and the Human Condition (forthcoming 2020) and co-editor of Thinking in Dark Times: Hannah Arendt on Ethics and Politics (2009), The Intellectual Origins of the Global Financial Crisis (2012) and Artifacts of Thinking: Reading Hannah Arendt’s Denktagebuch (2017).