Scholars Circle Lectures

1. THE 10/7 HAMAS ATTACK: When Sexually Assaulted Women are not Believed

This lecture explores the silence of international organizations and female-led civil society groups regarding the abuse of Israeli women by Hamas through gender-based violence. It presents evidence of sexual violence and contrasts the denial and questioning of these crimes with international responses to wartime sexual abuse in other contexts, such as the DRC, Iraq, Rwanda, and Nigeria.

2. VEILED THREATS: Women and Jihad

Women in patriarchal societies are assumed to be controlled by men: fathers, husbands or another male relative. Although extremist groups often control different aspects of women’s lives, from their religious obligations or dress, Jihadi women have asserted themselves in myriad ways. The talk lifts the veil of the secret world of women in Jihadi groups to explain the motivation and challenge misperceptions about women’s agency by exploring the range of roles of the women involved in Jihad. Bloom explains how women are used and abused, deployed and destroyed, and the many ways in which their roles in terrorism have evolved over the past three decades.

Bridging Cultures: Discovering Commonalities between Jewish and Hindu Traditions

This lecture focuses on comparative Jewish and Hindu indigeneity, theology, and ritual; anti-semitism and Hinduphobia; and school textbook and curriculum controversies in the United States

Upholding lsrael’s Rights: Challenging Anti-Palestinianism
This lecture will provide background on the concept of anti-Palestinian racism (APR), the efforts to institutionalize the term, how APR is being used to shut down criticism of antisemitic protests and what we can do about it.

1. How Israel Compares: Why Fair-Minded People Should Support Israel and Why
Scapegoating Israel Is Genocidal Anti-Semitism
Israel should be judged by comparison with other states involved in similar conflicts — conflicts
in which both sides claim rights of self-determination on the same homeland territory. We
compare Israel’s goals, methods, and threat levels to those of Turkey in detail, and make briefer
comparisons between Israel and the dozens of other states involved in similar conflicts.
On this basis, Israel is among the most moderate countries, while facing by far the greatest
threat. Almost all other states, and all of Israel’s enemies, pursue far more extreme goals and
use far more extreme methods, while facing far lesser threats. Israel’s enemies, in fact,
embrace the most extreme form of anti-semitism — openly pursuing the genocidal goal of
annihilating Israel and its Jews.

2. Refuting the Ideological Assault on Israel: Why Israel’s Enemies Are the True
Oppressors
Israel’s enemies use labels, slogans, and arguments claiming that Israel has no right to exist
and no right to defend herself. This presentation explains why these ideological attacks are false
or unreasonable, and why standard criticisms of Israel apply far more accurately to Israel’s
enemies. We compare the methods of Israel and Hamas in the five Gaza conflicts, since Hamas
conquered Gaza from the Palestinian Authority in 2007. We also discuss the common mass
media criterion that uses total numbers killed to determine which side is more legitimate — a
criterion that, once applied consistently to all, is obviously unfair and unreasonable. It is Israel’s
enemies that are highly imperialistic and intolerant and that routinely violate human rights and
the laws of war.

3. Israel’s Evolving Struggle for Survival: Old and New Threats
Since 1948, Israel’s survival has been continuously threatened. The military threat is always the
most fundamental and immediate: Israel survives and her Jewish population avoids massacre
and expulsion only because her borders, air space, and sea links are militarily defended. We
also evaluate four other types of potentially existential threats — economic, demographic,
diplomatic, and ideological. We then discuss how supporters of Israel can help in the fight
against the combined diplomatic and ideological threats.

4. How Israel’s Enemies Threaten the Entire World: Understanding the Global
Alliance of Islamic Extremism and the Radical Left
Israel faces two main enemies: Islamic extremists among the Palestinians, in the broader
Middle East, and throughout much of the world; and the radical left, to some extent among the
Palestinians and in the broader Middle East, but especially throughout the rest of the world.
Both Islamist extremists and radical leftists seek to use dictatorial state power to impose rigid,
intolerant, and collectivist ways of life within territory they control, while using a combination of
violent and peaceful methods to expand their control over the rest of the world. Both Islamic
extremists and radical leftists are global threats, seeking to victimize most other states and
peoples in the same way as they target Israel and Jews. All victims and enemies of the Islamic
extremist-radical left alliance must recognize the common threat and create the broadest
possible united front against it.

5. Anti-Semitism Old and New: Understanding Persistence and Change in Today’s
World
Anti-semitism is a hostile bias or double-standard toward Jews or the only Jewish state, Israel.
What are the most important pre-modern and modern sources of anti-semitism? Earlier
ideological sources of anti-semitism, originating in intolerant forms of Graeco-Roman, Christian,
and Islamic identities, have changed more in the Christian world than in the Islamic world. In the
more secularized, modern West, anti-semitism has been adopted by both far-right extreme
nationalism and, perhaps more surprisingly, radical left Marxism and communism. Across time,
a more constant motivation has been political expediency — diverting popular frustrations toward a convenient scapegoat. Today, there is an unprecedented alliance between Islamic extremist
and radical left streams of anti-semitism.

1. Beyond the Frontlines: A Quick Guide to the Middle East After WWI: 
In this talk we will put the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into its regional context. Looking at the ideologies, motives, and actions of the players, the Zionist movement, the Palestinian national movement, neighboring Middle Eastern states, other national minorities in the Middle East, the European powers, and the international community.

2. Legal Dimensions: Navigating the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict on the Global Stage 
Today many claim that Israel is committing genocide and war crimes against the Palestinians. This talk focuses on the origin of international law, the international legal basis for the State of Israel, and how international law applies to this war and the conflict between Israelis, Palestinians, an other states in the Middle East.

3. The Abraham Accords 
Many commentators have argued that Hamas timed its October 7 attack to derail the Abraham Accords. What are these accords and why do they matter?

4. The Left and the Conflict
Why are American and European progressives so favorable to the Palestinians’ maximalist claims? Why are so many students convinced Israel is a white European settler colonial and apartheid state? This talk explains the origins of the embrace of wide sections of the left in the West and Europe of the Palestinian national movement and what to do to counter it.

5. Dialogue Diplomacy: Guidelines for Conversations on the War and the Middle East 
In a war, both parties are also involved in the war for the hearts and minds of the world. In this talk, I will discuss what points about the conflict will persuade people of good will who want a peaceful Middle East for both Israelis and Palestinians and what points will antagonize them based on my experience with the Tel Aviv Institute in the fight against anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism.

From Vulnerability to Violence: The Pathways to Radicalization

How do “normal” people turn to political violence or become terrorists? Are there risk factors that can help identify future terrorists before they strike? Is there a profile for a terrorist? Political radicalization is a psychological process of increasing extremity of beliefs, feelings, and behaviors in support of intergroup conflict and violence. Across individuals, groups, and mass publics, twelve mechanisms of radicalization are distinguished. For ten of these mechanisms, radicalization occurs in a context of group identification and reaction to perceived threat to the ingroup. Case studies of infamous terrorists such as Osama bin Laden, Abu Mussab al Zarqawi, Anders Brevik and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev help exemplify the twelve mechanisms, and recent political events, from the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 to the right-wing radicalization that fueled January 6 riot in Washington DC offer important historical context. The distinction between radical attitude and radical action and the role of mental health in political violence are highlighted in this lecture.

Deadly Disinformation: The Role of Ideology in Political Violence

In this lecture you will learn how viral disinformation of misleading content is designed to manipulate public opinion and spread rapidly online, often fueling radicalization and political violence.

1. How Campuses Turned Against the Jews
To those following campuses, the trajectory (against Israel, and against Jews) has been
clear for many years, but even so the intensity of the responses to October 7 — when the masks
fully came off and enormous campus rallied openly celebrated the mass slaughter of
Jews — was shocking. In this webinar we’ll examine the long strategy by which this was accomplished, by means of a combination of lies, the BDS movement, and contemporary progressive ideology. This will be something of an overview of the long process; the next one will be more focused on the current moment.

2. ‘Decolonization’ and Murder, and the Rejection of ‘Settler-Colonialism’
Islamist groups such as Hamas are openly genocidal against the Jews, but how do so many campus constituents, students and faculty, end up seemingly siding with the Hamas program? The answer: a certain ideology has taken hold in the academy over the past twenty years, and it leads those in its group to actively cheer the murder of Jews. In this webinar we’ll look at the ideas of “Settler Colonialism,” “Decolonization,” and associated ideologies, and reject the fundamental charge against Israel used to justify the hostility.

3. Paradox of Prejudice: When Anti-Racists Display Racism
‘Anti-racism,’ “diversity,” “inclusion” are all the rage in the academy, but a personal
encounter with a self-professed “anti-racist” after October 7 reveals that such vaunted ideals apparently do not extend to the Jews. In this webinar we’ll examine this encounter and uncover the reasons that ultimately make people who are committed to anti-racism into racists against the Jews.

4. Decoding Hamas: Who They Are and Why It Matters
In this webinar we’ll examine the history and ideology of Israel’s most murderous terrorist group, and examine the threat they pose not merely to Israel but to the entire free world. Grasping this is essential for understanding why the current conflictis existential in nature for Israel, and why we must support it without limit in its efforts to eradicate this group. Once we understand that we’ll be in a position to make better sense of exactly how Israel is prosecuting its current war.

5. Setting the Record Straight: Dispelling Myths Surrounding Israel
Here we examine each of the major lies about Israel told on campuses, and then not only refute each one but show that in every case it’s Israel’s enemies that are actually guilty of the charges: “genocide,” “ethnic cleansing,” “settler colonialism,” “apartheid,” “Jewish supremacy,” and nearly every single thing most people believe about Gaza prior to October 7.

6. Preparing for the Coming Wave of Campus Divestment Campaigns 
One outcome of the spring wave of anti-Israel encampments on campuses was that many universities agreed to entertain the outrageous demand for divestment from Israel. The debate over divestment is now likely to be at the forefront of the coming fall wave of campus protests. In this talk Dr. Pessin will provide many arguments against divestment while looking at some case studies of successful responses, hoping to provide defenders of Israel and Jews with the resources to respond to the campaign.

7. A New Kind of Response to Anti-Israel Claims
Amidst the barrage of accusations against Israel, a central belief held by anti-Israelists is that the 1948 founding of Israel was a monumental injustice — an “original sin”— that supposedly legitimizes their efforts to oppose and dismantle the state. Defenders of Israel and the Jewish people must, of course, refute the many false claims to undermine this narrative, which we have done in previous lectures. But in this lecture, let’s pretend for a moment that the anti-Israel claims were true. I propose an additional, strategic approach: to demonstrate that even if we hypothetically accept the false premise that Israel’s founding involved a grave injustice, the current anti-Israel campaign is still unjustified and morally indefensible. This new strategy offers a powerful new tool for countering the rhetoric of those who seek to delegitimize Israel.

1. The Impact of Conspiracy Theories on Academic Institutions: A Critical Analysis
Explore how conspiracy theories from various ideologies infiltrate academic
settings, the consequences for intellectual discourse, and their potential to shape
societal beliefs.

2.  Unmasking Jewish Conspiracy Theories: How Anti-Semitism Emerges from the Campus to the Public Sphere
Investigate how conspiracy theories originating in academic environments, particularly
from far-right and far-left ideologies, find their way into mainstream culture, impacting
business, entertainment, and social discourse.

3. From Campus to Culture: The Pervasive Influence of Academic Conspiracy
Theories on Mainstream Beliefs
Investigate how conspiracy theories taught in universities permeate cultural norms and
values, affecting not only minority communities but also shaping broader societal
perspectives on morality, truth, and shared beliefs.

4. Empire of Untruths: Tracing the Historical Roots of Academic Conspiracy
Theories and Anti-Semitism
Investigate the historical connections between conspiracy theories, anti-Semitism, and
the notion of empire. Explore how certain ideologies perpetuate false narratives that
contribute to the marginalization of specific communities.