Long before the founding of the State of Israel, Zionist leaders were already asking hard questions about how to live alongside Arab neighbors. In this session, we’ll explore three sharply different visions for Jewish-Arab relations from the 1920s and 1930s, through the writings of Martin Buber, Henrietta Szold, and Ze’ev Jabotinsky. We’ll dive into primary sources to see how these figures imagined coexistence, conflict, and the future—and we’ll consider how their ideas still shape the political landscape we live with today.

Lauren Cohen Fisher holds a faculty appointment in Jewish Studies at Colby College, where she teaches about Israel/Palestine and serves as the Director of Jewish Student Life. Using a pedagogical framework that explores controversial issues through the eyes of their stakeholders, Lauren seeks to understand how different demographic groups in Israel/Palestine understand their relationship to power, land, and to each other. She has served as an educational consultant for national and international organizations looking to redesign their Israel/Palestine education in a way that is intellectually rigorous and pedagogically sound. A trained facilitator, mentor, and educator, Lauren has developed curricula and trained educators across North America. Lauren lives with her partner and dog in the beautiful state of Maine.