Middle East studies come up trumps

While academic relations in many places are suffering from the consequences of October 7, the university's Chair of Israel and Middle East Studies is showing what is possible instead: a workshop attended by 42 international researchers, mainly from Jewish and Muslim backgrounds, dedicated to the ambivalences of Jewish-Muslim relations. For two days, the researchers dealt with topics such as “Mizrahi-Muslim Relations in the Middle East and North Africa”, “Knowing the Other”, “Jewish-Arab Relations in the Land of Israel/Palestine”, “Interreligios relations” and much more.

The workshop was organized by the Hochschule für Jüdische Studien Heidelberg and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, supported by the German-Israeli Foundation, in cooperation with the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, the Department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies and the Freigeist Research Group “Invisible Architects” at the University of Heidelberg, the BMBF (Federal Ministry of Education and Research), the DFG Research Training Group “Ambivalent Enmity” and the Chaim Herzog Center for Middle East Studies and Diplomacy at Ben Gurion University of the Negev.

One highlight was the keynote lecture on January 27 in the Alte Aula of Heidelberg University. Dr. Assaf David from the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem chose the title “Know your Enemy - Be your Enemy”. The lecture dealt with the change in Israeli discourse following the Hamas attack on October 7. It focused on the increasing demands to adapt Israeli Jewish ethics and military behavior to supposedly “Arab” norms and to question the traditional “Western logic” of the military security apparatus.