Tel Aviv University

Ra'anan Rayeen is a professor of history and the Alexander Grass Chair of Jewish Studies at the University of Florida, Gainesville.

He is former vice president of Tel Aviv University.

Branan Reyn is a member of Argentina's National Academy of History and the author of numerous books.

Linda Erker is head of the Public History Department, the Documentation Center of Austrian Resistance in Vienna, Austria, and a lecturer at the University of Vienna.

The personal narratives of these individuals and their interconnected circles are meticulously interwoven with the sweeping geopolitical, cultural, and intellectual currents that defined post-war Europe and Latin America, particularly during the formative years of Cold War tensions.

Ra'anan Rayeen is professor of history and the Alexander Grass Chair of Jewish Studies at the University of Florida, Gainesville.

He is formerly the vice president of Tel Aviv University.

Raim is a member of Argentina's National Academy of History and author of numerous books.

a theorist in the areas of math and sciences, as well as in Bible studies.

And Dalia, Dr. Dalia Scheinlin, is also trained in Tel Aviv University and holds a Ph.D. political science, is a well-known political analyst in Israel, as well as a pollster, leading figure in Haaretz as well, where she has a column, and an author of a great book.

So a lot to follow in these two guests, and I want to thank you for joining us and coming here to Pittsburgh.

I want to start off with a question for both of you, and that is we find ourselves yet again in a precarious situation.

Second year was at Harvard.

The third year was at University of Tel Aviv.

And then we did the fourth or fifth year because I think we missed a year because of COVID.

And then we were at the Sorbonne in Paris.

And for all these reasons, it was necessary.

And of course, Israel had become a key plank in the arsenal of British and American capitalism within the middle east so it had a vested interest in supporting it so what they got to do together was that there was a person called dina porat and this was around 1990 actually 1998 1999 she had a project in tel aviv university called the anti-semitism project and that they they devised this definition deliberately to conflate criticism of Israel and anti-semitism and that would do two things it would manufacture an increasing rate of anti-semitism and and what you'll see is every time Israel represses the Palestinians every particular campaign every time it has a war every time it invades other countries there's antagonism to those policies because they are unjust because they are illegal, because they are aggressive wars, because they are based on apartheid and discrimination and racism.

So there's anti-Israeli sentiment.

And now using the IHRA definition, you generate statistics that say, no, no, this is a rising anti-Semitism.

One of my favorite spots, by the way.

The charred beams were uncovered during excavations by the Antiquities Authority and Tel Aviv University in Jerusalem.

within a building that collapsed by the intense fire at the time of the first temple's destruction.

What likely preserved the beams for approximately 2,600 years was plaster that melted from the building's wall, sealing the burnt wood beneath it.

There were like 50 or 60 of them, if not more.

So I asked them, I said, are you part of Tel Aviv University? Are you part of Hebrew University? And they said, no, we're all coming in from a West Bank settlement.

And I thought they were going pretty fast.

So I called the MX Shabbat organization, and they said, yeah, a lot of the archeology and biblical Israel has been taken over by this organization.