Opening Event: Dr Sheree Trotter’s Speech
The time is right for this embassy to be established. We’ve all witnessed post October 7 an horrific rise in antisemitism and victim-blaming. Part of the reason for that, is the way that the modern form of antisemitism, anti-Zionism, has taken hold of the popular imagination. Jews have been divested of their rightful place as the indigenous people of the land.
A Light for the Indigenous Nations
There is no universally recognised definition of indigeneity. Indeed, there is much debate and a degree of fluidity on the question of definition. Some hold the view that a strict definition is “unnecessary and undesirable”. However, a number of criteria have been established and are generally accepted…
Mundine: Ignorance the Basis for Poisonous Prejudice
Hamas’s savagery on October 7 knew no bounds. From babies to the elderly, pregnant women, festival-goers and peace activists; the victims were killed, butchered and violated with unspeakable cruelty.
Forget The Jews
“Forget the Jews for a while and focus on your own backyard.” This unsolicited morsel of advice left me taken aback. I had just spent two weeks at Oxford attending a course on Critical Contemporary Antisemitism by the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy. Such a rebuke gave me cause for reflection. Why should an indigenous person from distant New Zealand care about what happens to Jews in the Middle East and elsewhere?
Jews and Cherokees: Indigenous case studies
In the western imagination ‘indigenous peoples’ are those who were dispossessed of their lands by Europeans in the early modern period, such as Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders, Polynesian peoples such as the Maori, and the pre-Columbian peoples of the Americas. Indeed, much of the terminology around indigeneity was coined to describe these peoples. But this doesn’t invalidate its use to better understand and protect other, equally applicable, peoples — including the Jewish people.
Are Jews Indigenous to the Land of Israel?
As an indigenous activist—I am a Métis from the Paddle Prairie Metis settlement in Alberta, Canada—there is one question I am most often asked by the public, one that can instantly divide a community due to its intense and arduous subject matter. Yet, regardless of the scenario, each time I hear the words, “Are Jews the indigenous people of Israel?”