Podcast appearances and mentions of Kenneth S Stern

In this last episode of the 2023-24 academic year, Kenneth S. Stern, JD, Director of his alma mater Bard College's Center for the Study of Hate, leading expert on antisemitism and hate, and past speaker at Gustavus talks about his path from Brooklyn (NY) to Bard to Willamette Law School in Oregon; becoming involved in American Indian Movement co-founder Dennis Banks's thirteen-year legal case and eventually representing Banks before the United States Supreme Court in U.S. v. Loud Hawk, et al.; drafting the international "working definition of antisemitism" and criticizing what he sees as its misuse; conspiracy thinking and antisemitism; the student protests and encampments in response to Israel's ongoing retaliation in Gaza for the horrific Hamas terrorist attacks on October 7, 2023; his concerns about hate in the present moment; and some steps for countering it.   For helpful online materials about hate and how to counter it, see the Bard Center for the Study of Hate website, https://bcsh.bard.edu.   Note: Thank you for listening this past fall and spring, and please continue when the podcast resumes in September 2024.

SAPIR Institute Director Chanan Weissman hosted a conversation about the conflict over free speech on college campuses with Nadine Strossen, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), and Ilya Shapiro, the director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute. Strossen and Kenneth S. Stern co-authored “SJP Still Deserves Freedom of Speech” in Sapir‘s War in Israel special edition, while Shapiro recently published “Where Free Speech Ends and Lawbreaking Begins” in The Free Press.

Kenneth S. Stern is the director of the Bard Center for the Study of Hate. BCSH brings scholars from diverse disciplines to Bard College at its eight campuses , including New York City, Boston, California, and Germany to speak about the human capacity to hate and demonize others. Ken Stern is an award-winning author, attorney, and was most recently executive director of the Justus & Karin Rosenberg Foundation. Before that he was director of the division on antisemitism and extremism at the American Jewish Committee, where he worked for 25 years. His op-eds and book reviews have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, USA Today, the Forward, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, and elsewhere. Mr. Stern has appeared on the CBS Evening News, Dateline, Good Morning America, Face the Nation, the History Channel, NBC Nightly News, PBS, and many other television and radio programs, including National Public Radio's Fresh Air and All Things Considered, and WNYC's On the Media. Ken Stern has argued before the United States Supreme Court, testified before Congress (as well as before committees of parliamentarians in Canada and the U.K.), was an invited presenter at the White House Conference on Hate Crimes, and served as a member of the U.S. Delegation to the Stockholm Forum on Combating Intolerance.

Last month, a report from the pro-Palestinian group Independent Jewish Voices came out, titled "Unveiling the Chilly Climate – The Suppression of Speech on Palestine in Canada." Those cited in the report claim that the institutional adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism, otherwise known as the IHRA definition, has had a chilling effect on any open discussion of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. At the same time, there is a mirrored feeling among some Jewish students that if they talk about ties to Israel, or refuse to condemn—let alone support—Israel's actions, they'll be labelled racist and colonialist. On today's episode of Bonjour Chai, The CJN's weekly current affairs podcast, we're asking: How can these two dynamics exist at once? What evidence or data do we have that might shed light on how well founded both those fears are? And does evidence really matter to the emotional reality of the students involved? To help us unpack all this is Kenneth S. Stern, a lawyer, writer and current director of the Bard Center for the Study of Hate—who was also the lead drafter of the IHRA definition. After that, David and Ilana talk to Michele Freed of Resetting the Table about how to have less toxic conversations about Israel. Credits Bonjour Chai is hosted by Avi Finegold, Ilana Zackon and David Sklar. Zachary Kauffman is the producer and editor. Michael Fraiman is the executive producer. Our theme music is by Socalled. The show is a co-production from The Jewish Learning Lab and The CJN, and is distributed by The CJN Podcast Network. To learn how to support the show by subscribing to this podcast, please watch this video.

The publication of the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism sparked significant controversy, with the JDA statement standing in stark contrast to the commonly accepted IHRA definition. Tune in to this episode as we dive into the meanings of each definition and explore the benefits and drawbacks of both▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬★ MEET OUR GUESTS ★▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬Kenneth S. Stern is the director of the Bard Center for the Study of Hate and an attorney and award-winning author. For twenty-five years, he was the American Jewish Committee's expert on antisemitism, and he was also the lead drafter of the “Working Definition of Antisemitism." He has argued before the Supreme Court of the United States and testified before Congress. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, and The Forward. He has been a visiting assistant professor of Jewish Studies and a visiting assistant professor of Human Rights at Bard College. As a trial attorney before his AJC tenure, Stern was involved in several high-visibility cases, among them his defense of American Indian Movement co-founder Dennis Banks in one of the last post-Wounded Knee cases (his book about this case, Loud Hawk: The United States vs. The American Indian Movement won the prestigious Gustavus Myers Award). His book about the Oklahoma City bombing -- A Force Upon The Plane: The American Militia Movement and the Politics of Hate -- was nominated for the National Book Award.). He also has written books on antisemitism and on Holocaust denial. His most recent book is The Conflict Over the Conflict: The Israel/Palestine Campus Debate (New Jewish Press, 2020).Website: http://kennethsstern.com/Most recent book: http://kennethsstern.com/the-conflict-over-the-conflict/▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬Derek Penslar is the William Lee Frost Professor of Jewish History at Harvard University. He taught previously at the University of Toronto and the University of Oxford, where he was the inaugural holder of the Stanley Lewis Chair in Israel Studies.  Penslar takes a comparative and transnational approach to Jewish history, which he studies within the contexts of modern capitalism, nationalism, and colonialism.  Penslar's books include Shylock's Children: Economics and Modern Identity in Modern Europe (2001), Israel in History: The Jewish State in Comparative Perspective (2006), Jews and the Military: A History (2013), and Theodor Herzl: The Charismatic Leader (2020). He is currently writing a book titled Zionism: An Emotional State and is beginning work on a global history of the 1948 Palestine War. He is President of the American Academy for Jewish Research and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.Get in touch with Derekpenslar@fas.harvard.edu▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬Sulha Socialshttps://linktr.ee/theSulha​​▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬Adar's Socialshttps://linktr.ee/adarw​​▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

On this episode of Israel in Depth, Kenneth Stern, discusses the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's (IHRA) definition of antisemitism and the controversy surrounding it. Recorded February 18, 2021.

On this episode of Israel in Depth, Kenneth Stern, discusses the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's (IHRA) definition of antisemitism and the controversy surrounding it. Recorded February 18, 2021.