New Course Focused on Israel Announced

A new 1-credit course with an optional study tour to Israel will start this fall at DIS.

March 4, 2010

That a European study abroad program should focus on Israel by offering a new course - entitled “Israel: The Challenge of Contested Territory” - and integrated study tour may seem a little unexpected, but we believe the examination of Europe’s influence on Israel, historically and in a current context, and Israel’s impact on the European agenda is a worthwhile and academically exciting one.

The relationship between Europe and Israel is a highly complex and multifaceted one, and one which comes laden with the substantial historical burden of the Holocaust. Since the inception of the state of Israel, the fraught relationship between Israel and its Middle East neighbors, between Judaism and Islam, has consistently set its own agenda in the halls and chambers of Europe’s political institutions and within public debate.

Starting with an examination of the European background of the Jewish desire for statehood, the Christian support for a Jewish homeland and the impact of European colonialism in the attempt to exploit both Jewish immigration and Arab aspirations for its purposes, this course offers a fresh angle on Israeli nationhood and its European heritage.

The analysis of the Israeli’s political relationship with Europe, which this course provides, opens up many interesting and thought-provoking issues, heightened by Israel’s importance in the cultural, religious and ideological divides between Europe and the Arab world.

Read more about the course, and study tour >>