Holocaust memory has played a significant role in shaping international geopolitical agendas in the Middle East, particularly after 1967, influencing narratives that serve political and economic interests. This has often side-lined the needs of Holocaust survivors and overshadowed other injustices, such as the Palestinian struggle for their rights. Criticism of these dynamics is frequently silenced through accusations of antisemitism, while the memory of the Holocaust is used by some to justify the Israeli occupation and secure impunity. The speakers explore these issues, offering a critical perspective on how history is politicized.
Academics or journalists, our three guests are Israeli women who, through their research and writings, convey a precise, well-founded, and uncompromising message. Drawing on their work, analyses, and experiences, they will help us better understand the role of antisemitism and the memory of the Holocaust in today’s political and moral debates.
The discussion will be moderated by Jewish Call for Peace, with ample time dedicated to audience questions.
The following topics will be addressed:
Merchandising the Holocaust or the killing of history, Amira Hass Amira Hass is a journalist and author based in Israel. Renowned for her columns in the daily newspaper Haaretz, Hass has dedicated much of her career to covering Palestinian affairs in Gaza and the West Bank, where she has resided for nearly three decades. As the daughter of Holocaust survivors, her perspective is deeply rooted in a history of resilience and activism. Hass's work primarily focuses on the impacts of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, providing a voice to the marginalized and often overlooked realities of Palestinian life under occupation.
Holocaust education: the rhetoric of victimhood and power, Prof. Nurit Peled-Elhanan Nurit Peled-Elhanan already came twice in Luxembourg to speak on Israeli textbooks and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This time, she will give us an insight on the central place of the Holocaust in Israeli school and curriculum. Nurit Peled-Elhanan is a (retired) lecturer in Language Education, Social Semiotics and Multimodality in the Hebrew University and in the David Yellin Academic College in Jerusalem, Israel. She has studied the various aspects of Israeli discourse of education. She is the author of Palestine in Israeli school books. Ideology and propaganda in education (2012). Her 2023 book, Holocaust Education and the Semiotics of Othering in Israeli Schoolbooks received the Publisher’s Prize from Common Ground Research Networks, USA. She received several awards for her advocacy of human rights, among which is the Sakharov Prize for Human Rights and the Freedom of Thought, awarded by the European Parliament.
Antisemitism in the genes: remembrance and ignorance in racial constructions of European minorities, Dr. Hilla Dayan Discussing the return of “integration problem” discourse following the recent events in Amsterdam covered as “pogrom” against Jews, Hilla Dayan will tackle the phenomenon of European ignorance about aspects of the holocaust and Jewish history that are more multiculturally sensitive. She will share reflections on antidotes to the dominant antisemitism discourse that can inform memory cultures in major holocaust cities like Amsterdam. Hilla Dayan is a political sociologist and lecturer at Amsterdam University College, teaching Global Politics, Empire and its Afterlives, Democracy in Crisis and Sociology of the Other. She wrote her PhD at the New School for Social Research New York on Israel’s regime of separation.
Direct oral translation from English to French
Dinner
After the event, attendees are invited to continue the conversation over dinner at the Culture Bar.
To join, please reserve your table directly with the restaurant in advance.
Culture Bar
61 Rue de Clausen
1342 Clausen Luxembourg
+352 26 43 21 89
Organised by the Collectives for Palestine and ANPI Lussemburgo