Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion with his personal secretary Yitzhak Navon and Teddy Kollek (left). President Yitzhak Ben-Zvi and Knesset Speaker Yosef Sprinzak (right) attend the first Bible Quiz. (Photo: Government Press Office; cropped.) CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.
University of Illinois at Chicago Associate Professor Rachel Havrelock will discuss Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion's focus on interpreting the book of Joshua in his efforts to enshrine the Bible as the central text in Israeli life.
Tuesday, February 28, 201712:00 PM - 1:30 PM360 Royce Hall
Sponsored by the UCLA Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies and co-sponsored by the Y&S Nazarian Center for Israel Studies, Center for the Study of Religion, and the Department of Near East Languages and Cultures.
About the Talk
In the name of enshrining the Bible as the central text in Israeli life, Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion convened a study group at his residence dedicated to interpreting the book of Joshua. The study group participants asserted that the true meaning of the Bible could only be unlocked by Jews living in their ancient homeland. However, a web of conflicted interpretations emerged from the group and Ben-Gurion’s concluding address set off a fierce debate regarding the basis of citizen rights that has yet to be resolved.
About the Speaker
Rachel Havrelock is an Associate Professor of Jewish Studies and English at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her work focuses on gender, biblical interpretation and the modern Middle East and the overlap of these three distinct subject areas.
She has authored and co-authored a number of books, including River Jordan: The Mythology of a Dividing Line, which combines her knowledge of biblical studies, literary and political theory and the politics of interpretation. River Jordan examines the long history of the Jordan as a border and moments when it was not considered a dividing line. In her book, Havrelock shows how biblical interpretation impacted the formation of early Christianity and Judaism and in more recent times, the nature of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Her current research into the political interpretation of the book of Joshua is for a work that will be entitled The Joshua Generation: Politics and the Promised Land. Her work outside of academia includes writing blogs for The Huffington Post. She also wrote and directed the hip-hop play From Tel Aviv to Ramallah about the daily lives of young people in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and co-hosted the Discovery Channel's series on Jesus as a historical figure.
Havrelock completed her BA at the University of California, Santa Cruz and her PhD at the University of California, Berkeley.
RSVP online at the UCLA Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies.
Sponsor(s): Younes and Soraya Nazarian Center for Israel Studies, Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, UCLA Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies, Center for the Study of Religion