Professor Dov Waxman, director of the UCLA Y& S Nazarian Center, has been quoted in “Israeli Annexation Plans: The West Bank Faces a New Reckoning,” published online in German-based Der Spiegel (June 30, 2020).
Professor Dov Waxman, director of the Y&S Nazarian Center for Israel Studies, is quoted in Israel's Haaretz discussing how young American Jews' view Joe Biden's candidacy for president. In the article published May 20, 2020, Waxman is quoted saying that "younger Jews, putting aside maybe some of the Orthodox, are overwhelmingly more liberal than older American Jews, and some polls show they are also relatively more liberal than other Americans in their age group."
Professor Dov Waxman, director of the Y&S Nazarian Center, was quoted in a Jewish Journal piece published Wednesday about anti-Semitic conspiracy theories amid the global pandemic, including some scapegoating Israel. “We have to recognize,” Waxman told the paper, “that this is a moment of potentially great danger because it has all the ingredients for a surge of anti-Semitism: a fatal, invisible threat that crosses national borders, widespread social disruption and economic hardship, and heightened public fear and anxiety.”
Professor Dov Waxman, director of the Y&S Nazarian Center for Israel Studies, published an opinion piece January 29, 2020, with The Forward regarding President Trump's peace plan for the Middle East. The piece in the Jewish daily examined whether the long-awaited plan is the historic breakthrough Trump has touted, even though the proposal doesn't meet core demands of the Palestinians. "It will certainly not bring Israelis and Palestinians peace, since the latter will overwhelmingly reject a plan that is so heavily skewed in Israel's favor," wrote Waxman.
Y&S Nazarian Center Postdoctoral Fellow Assaf Bondy is slated to receive the 2020 Allen Ponak Award at the International Labour and Employment Relations Association (ILERA) Congress next summer in Toronto. The Canadian Industrial Relations Association, host of ILERA 2020, gives out the award to recognize research excellence across several disciplines relating to employment relations among master, Ph.D., and post-doctoral students. Bondy received his Ph.D. in Labor Studies from Tel-Aviv University in Israel. He is a sociologist who studies the political-economy of labor and industrial relations systems in advanced economies.
Research Fellow Dr. Liron Lavi's co-authored paper "The Representation Deficit and the Crisis of Democracy: Shifting the Focus to Subjective Perceptions" was presented at the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) conference in Wrocław, Poland (September 2019). The paper explores subjective perceptions of political representation in Israel from a comparative perspective. It was co-authored by Liran Harsgor and Michal Shamir.
Dr. Assaf Bondy (Postdoctoral Fellow 2019-2020), a sociologist who studies labor issues, earlier this month published an article “Disputing Strikes – Solidarity as an Answer to the Challenges on Strikes” in Telem, an Israeli-Hebrew journal. In face of harsh attacks on the right to strike in Israel from both sides of political spectrum, the paper analyzes strikes' legitimacy as depending on their solidaristic goals, suggesting political activists should embrace strikes as an important tool for wide social change.
Visiting Assistant Professor Daniel Stein Kokin presented his project "'Kol ha-Nekudot'/'All the Points'/'Kull al-Nuqaṭ' An Interactive, Online Map of Israel and the Palestine Territories" at the June 24-26 Association for Israel Studies Annual Conference held at Kinneret College in Israel. Center Postdoctoral Fellow Shaiel Ben-Ephraim gave a talk titled "Neither Vertical nor Horizontal: The Failure of the 1974 Plan for a Jordanian Disengagement" and also participated in a book roundtable on Gerald M. Steinberg and Ziv Rubinovitz's work "Menachem Begin and the Israel-Egypt Peace Process: Between Ideology and Political Realism." Former Visiting Lecturer and Graduate Student Research Fellowship recipient Melissa Melpignano also gave a talk titled “Let the Sunshine in? Dancing Sabra in the IDF Pahad Dance Troupe."
Dr. Omri Asscher presented research at the National Association of Professors of Hebrew's International Conference on Hebrew Language, Culture and Literature yesterday. Dr. Asscher's talk - "Israel faces itself in the (Jewish American) mirror" - addressed Israeli responses to Jewish American moral critique.
Undergraduate students from UCLA and across the country participated in the Center's 2nd Undergraduate Scholars Conference in Israel Studies held on June 2nd.
In the 2019-20 academic year, the Nazarian Center's visiting professors and postdocs significantly contributed to the center's mission of advancing public knowledge and academic scholarship about Israel. Tuesday, June 16, 2020
Supported by a grant from the UCLA Arts Initiative, a group of students recently performed an exploration of, and response to, the infamous anti-Semitic forgery "The Protocols of the Elders Zion." The academic presentation was developed by Dr. Daniel Stein Kokin, a scholar affiliated with UCLA Y&S Nazarian Center and Arizona State University.Thursday, June 4, 2020
After a year of political deadlock and three elections, Israel is on the brink of finally getting a new government. Y&S Nazarian Center for Israel Studies research fellow Liron Lavi explains what motivated Israelis to vote time and again and why, despite predictions, voter turnout actually increased, especially among Arab citizens of Israel.Monday, March 30, 2020
Y&S Nazarian Center postdoctoral fellow Scott Abramson looks at Israeli sympathy for the Syrian Kurds in light of recent American policy.Monday, December 16, 2019
UCLA Law School student and study abroad scholarship recipient Amit Liran shares insights from his semester abroad at Tel Aviv University where he immersed himself in Israeli and international law in and outside of the classroom.Monday, March 18, 2019
Thanks to a scholarship from the Y&S Nazarian Center, transfer student Sebastian Feldman was able to study abroad in Israel - an experience he hoped for, but didn't expect would be possible.Thursday, February 28, 2019