Memories in Dispute seeks to rethink the uses of memory, challenge the politics of fear, and point to ways of fighting racism, anti-Semitism, and ethno-nationalism.
In times of pain and uncertainty, it is central to count on transnational articulation and solidarity for the elaboration of collective strategies. We have seen how traumas have been used to justify violent actions and how new forms of nationalism have emerged from imaginary identity constructions. On the other hand, it is necessary to take back our memories, in all their diversity, in order to challenge policies based on fear, as well as to design and support other alliances in the diasporas.
The event takes place in this time of devastation in the Middle East and is situated in the midst of linguistic and political disputes over the meaning of anti-Semitism, which has been used as a tool by the far right in the last decade, thus weakening possibilities for articulation and action in the progressive field.
Thursday, 5 December
4:30 pm
Visit to the Memorial da Resistência [Resistance Memorial]
With Márcio Seligmann-Silva.
Meeting point: Memorial da Resistência, Largo General Osório, 66 – Santa Ifigênia, São Paulo
7:30 pm
Opening with Gary Younge
In conversation with Benjamin Seroussi and Emily Dische-Becker
Friday, 6 December
10-11:30 am
Changing the Game: The Legacy of the Jewish Left in Memory Politics
With Emmanuel Kahan, Estelle Tarica, and Santiago Slabodsky
Moderator: Benjamin Seroussi
While scholars and activists over the past few decades have paid significant attention to the possibilities and limits of Jewish memory politics, much of their discussions have focused on the use and abuse of Holocaust memory in particular. Rarely are such perspectives put into conversation with memories of Jewish struggles against dictatorships and fascism in Latin America, where the specific intersection of left political ideologies and Jewish communities–both in historical reality and in the antisemitic imagination–has familiar yet different meanings and functions.
This panel will therefore ask the following questions: What role does the Jewish left struggle against dictatorships and fascism play in contemporary collective Jewish memory? How has the intersection of left-wing ideology, on the one hand, and Jewish identity, on the other, been both mobilized and obscured over time, and to what end? Is there historical amnesia surrounding this intersection and how might it be comparable to the erasure of other groups’ collective memories? What are the limitations of invoking Jewish identity for leftist politics? What can the legacy of collective and individual Jewish left struggle afford us, beyond providing a counternarrative to the present rightwing drift in Jewish politics?
13.30-15.00 Imaginary memory, mythical projections and national identities
With Henrique Vieira, Michel Gherman, and Nicolas Panotto
Moderator: Emily Dische-Becker
A reconfiguration of Jewishness, Blackness and Whiteness has resulted in two competing political imaginaries of the present. On the one hand, the postracial promise of Brazil as a country of the future seeks to transcend and displace the constitutive history of slavery and indigenous genocide. On the other hand, Bolsonarism and its allies mobilize an imaginary Israel as a proxy figure for national and religious fantasies of military power and authoritarian sovereignty.
The panel will thus consider the following questions: How do these competing imaginaries converge or diverge with the European New Right’s redemptive model of an exclusionary Judeo-Christian civilization and the backlash against postcolonial and decolonial perspectives? What is the function of Christian mythical projections onto Israel with respect to global right-wing politics? What role can left Jewish and left Black Brazilian political visions play in disrupting and transcending these political imaginaries toward a new model of political action?
15.15-17.15 Comparison, empathy and solidarity: potentials and pitfalls
With Ben Ratskoff, Lia Vainer Schucman, Luciana Brito, Monica Grin, and Sonali Thakkar
Moderator: Gary Younge
Comparisons between histories and experiences of racialized groups can be empowering when they move beyond surface-level analogies and instead engage deeply with structural, historical, and cultural particularities. At the same time, empathy and identification can sometimes lead to oversimplification or obscure ongoing asymmetries and hierarchies. Finally, narratives and models of solidarity from certain contexts (e.g. the “Black-Jewish alliance” in the United States) can both mobilize and constrain solidarities in different contexts like Brazil, depending on if and how the application of such narratives and models outlook local histories, struggles, and conditions.
This roundtable will explore these issues and the following questions: What specific approaches to comparison allow deep understanding and foster solidarity without flattening differences or imposing hierarchies? What are the limits of analogy, empathy, and identification for nuanced listening and understanding? What are the narratives and models of comparison and solidarity that can emerge from here? How might these narratives and models challenge other frameworks?
17.30-18.15 Shabat shalom! Rituals as a political form
With Adriana de Nanã and Alexandre Leone
Introduction: Shoshana Brown
18.30-20.00 Beyond the politics of fear and fortress Judaism
A conversation between Audrey Sasson and Fadi Quran
We have two choices in front of us – the exclusionary nationalism status quo or something different – we need to be offering people an alternative. Fadi and Audrey’s political work offers a powerful vision of what that alternative can look like.
Saturday, 7 December
10:00-11:45 Connecting the dots of the transnational right: Europe, South Americathe US and the Middle East
With Eyal Weizman, Guilherme Casarões, Nacho Rullansky, and Ram V
Moderator: Alex Han
11:45-12:00 (ALMOST) CLOSING PLENARY
With Benjamin Seroussi and Emily Dische-Becker
12-1:30 pm Collective lunch
1:30-3 pm Diversity in Struggles: Alliances Against Inequalities
Closed activity for invited groups
In recent decades, we have seen the rise of the far right in Brazil and around the world. The left wing seems to be struggling to present itself as an option in the face of radical changes in the field of work, social organization, culture, and subjectivity. At the same time, new social movements have emerged to tackle inequalities previously left aside by left-wing institutions, historically guided by class-related positions and structures: anti-racist struggles, feminism, indigenous and socio-environmental agendas, transgender issues, in addition to access to land, transportation, and housing, among many others. For this round table, members of some of these movements will discuss these transformations, the crises they have generated and the alliances they demand.
15h15-16h45 Jewish Standpoint? Jewishness on the Left
Facilitator: Shoshana Brown
Closed activity for invited groups
Simultaneous translation available
What does it mean to do politics as left-wing Jews? For some years now, progressive movements around the world have put the identity of their members at the center of their political actions and reflections. For this round table discussion, we invited members of left-wing Jewish collectives that have emerged in recent years in Brazil, the United States, and the United Kingdom to share their experiences of raising Jewishness as a signifier and signified of their political action. How can we articulate along with progressive Jews and also with other non-Jewish groups on the left?