Donna Robinson Divine, at The Blogs

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May 8, 2023, 7:38 AM

קול דודי דופק [My Beloved Knocks]

Pre-eminent theologian Rabbi Joseph Soloveichik viewed Israel’s founding as imbued with religious meaning. Acknowledging the brilliant diplomacy of Zionist leaders that gathered the votes to confirm the UN Partition Resolution, the Rav, as he was called, also saw the...

Apr 18, 2023, 7:43 AM

Let’s talk ‘dugri’ about the reforms

Is there any feeling more surprising than optimism regarding Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians when the country is marking its 15th week of turbulence? At the very moment when pundits claim half the population of the country is at...

Apr 3, 2023, 8:14 AM

Are ‘things falling apart’ in Israel?

The pundits got one thing right about Israel’s judicial reform proposals—final votes in the Knesset on its core elements would not be taken during the winter legislative session. But they got almost everything else wrong. For that reason, it...

Mar 20, 2023, 7:50 AM

Judicial Overhaul: What Can Be Learned From The Arguments

On March 16, Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana celebrated his birthday, a date he shares with James Madison, American President, and a principal author of The Federalist Papers. Among the classical languages Madison knew was Hebrew. I wonder if any...

Feb 14, 2023, 9:24 PM

Restored to the national throne after five elections in the last three and a half years, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu finds himself in the midst of crises his election was intended to end: spiraling terror attacks, massive protests, and...

Jan 29, 2023, 7:05 PM

The judicial reforms: Why take the risk?

Defenders of the judicial reforms proposed by Israel’s Minister of Justice with the strong backing of the country’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, have grounded the legitimacy of the initiative in the recent election—described by them as a virtual referendum...

Sep 6, 2022, 3:33 PM

An academic mission not entirely impossible

My personal encounter with academic censorship began in the Fall of 1989 when Smith College’s newly appointed Diversity Officer summoned me to her office asking why I had included the following question on an exam in one of my...

May 20, 2012, 3:57 PM

Benjamin Netanyahu: Machiavelli’s new prince

Netanyahu's latest political masterstroke would have done Machiavelli proud

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About Me

Donna Robinson Divine is the Morningstar Family Professor of Jewish Studies and Professor of Government emerita at Smith College, where she taught a variety of courses on Middle East politics. Able to draw on material in Hebrew, Arabic, and Turkish, her books include Women Living Change: Cross-Cultural Perspectives; Politics and Society in Ottoman Palestine: The Arab Struggle for Survival and Power, Postcolonial Theory and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, Exiled in the Homeland: Zionism and the Return to Mandate Palestine, and Word Crimes: Reclaiming The Language of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.