Ilan Troen: “Israel/Palestine in World Religions: Whose Promised Land?"

Ilan Troen comes to the Duke Center for Jewish Studies as a special guest of the Lerner Chair and the Provost's Initiative on the Middle East in this discussion on his recent book, "Israel/Palestine in World Religions: Whose Promised Land?"
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The struggle over Israel/Palestine is not just another contest by competing nationalisms or an instance of geopolitical competition. It is also about control of sacred territory that involves local Jews, Muslims, and Christians as well as worldwide faith communities, each with their own interests and stake in what transpires. Troen's examination of this complex subject presents the multiple positions within the great monotheistic traditions. It demonstrates that the secular discourses in the public square concerning ownership privileges, historical precedence, political rights, and justice that have allegedly replaced religious claims actually coexist with, and often complement, the theological; all while considering the century-long tangle of secular and theological debates about Israel's legitimacy.

Ilan Troen is emeritus of both the Stoll Family Chair in Israel Studies (Brandeis, 2017), and the Lopin Chair of Modern History (Ben-Gurion University, 2007). He is the immediate past president of the Association for Israel Studies. He has served as dean of Humanities and Social Sciences at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and as director of the Ben-Gurion Research Institute and Archives in Sede Boker, Israel. He has authored or edited numerous books in American, Jewish and Israeli history. He is also the founding editor of "Israel Studies" (Indiana University Press), the leading journal in this new field and has co-edited the "Schusterman Series in Israel Studies" which has been superseded by the Indiana University Press series on Perspectives on Israel Studies.

His publications include "Jewish Centers and Peripheries: European Jewry Between America and Israel 50 Years after World War II" (1998); "The Americanization of Israel" (2001), with Glenda Abramson; "Divergent Jewish Cultures: Israel and America" (2001), with Deborah Dash-Moore; "Imagining Zion: Dreams, Designs and Realities in a Century of Jewish Settlement" (2003); with Jacob Lassner, "Jews and Muslims in the Arab World; Haunted by Pasts Real and Imagined" (2007); with Maoz Azaryahu (eds.), and "Tel Aviv, The First Century: Visions, Designs, Actualities" (2012).