125 Scholars & Counting

HbN Guest: Dr. Maha Nassar

Forthcoming book: Palestine's People (tentative title)

About Our Guest:   Dr. Nassar⁠ is a professor of Middle Eastern history and Islamic Studies at the School of Middle Eastern and North African Studies of the University of Arizona. 

Her first monograph is titled Brothers Apart: Palestinian Citizens of Israel and the Arab World, and her forthcoming book is tentatively titled Palestine's People. 

In the news: Mr. Netanyahu announced that Israel will take control of Gaza's security - indefinitely!

In this episode (Nov. 8, 2023):  

• Did Palestinians have a distinct identity prior to the dominance of this region by Arab rulers?
• Were they called Palestinians? Was their homeland called Palestine? 
• Were Palestinians considered Arab before the rise of Islam? 
• What was the religion of Palestinians before Islam? 
• Were the Palestinians who converted to Islam different ethnically than those who adhered to Christianity? 
• From what period was the area called Palestine? 
• Was Gaza a distinct subset of the province of Palestine? 
• When and in what form did Palestinians establish a polity in this area?  
• Was Palestine a province of other kingdoms or empires? 
• How are Americans' notion of nationhood and peoplehood different than Palestinians? 
• Are there Jewish Palestinians? 
• Is there anything about the Crusades that changed the religious dynamic of this region? 
• Do the Crusades provide us with any lessons for our current moment? 
• Do we have robust scholarship into the history of the Palestinian people?
• If you wanted our audience to remember just one point about “the history of the Palestinian people”, what would it be?     

HbN Guest: Dr. Howard Lupovitch

Author of: Transleithanian Paradise: A History of the Budapest Jewish Community, 1738-1938

About Our Guest:  Dr. Lupovitch is a professor of history and the director of the Cohn-Haddow Center for Judaic Studies at Wayne State University. He specializes in modern Jewish History, specifically the Jews of Hungary and the Habsburg Monarchy.  He recently completed a history of the Jews of Budapest and is currently writing a history of the Neolog Movement, Hungarian Jewry's progressive wing. 

In the news: The Israel-Gaza War

In this episode (Nov. 1, 2023):  

•  What’s the difference between Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews? 
• So, why didn't the Jews of the diaspora speak Hebrew? 
• What is the story of the Medieval Jewish Kingdom of Khazar?
• What is this Jewish jurisdiction in Russia? 
• Why is the story of Jews in Spain the focus of so much attention? 
• How did Jews end up in Poland? And how did they thrive there (relatively speaking)? 
• What is so special about Persian Jews? 
• How important was conversion to the Jewish experience? How does one convert to Judaism anyway? 
• What did Jews call the countries in which they lived during the diaspora?
• What are some legacies of the Jewish diaspora - aside from the horrific experiences of persecution and the Holocaust? 
• If you wanted our audience to remember just one point about “the Jewish diaspora”, what would it be?   

HbN Guests: Dr. Michael Ptylik

Author of:  ⁠⁠Imagining David, the Man and King Looking Through the Lenses of Archaeology, History and the Jewish Tradition, and⁠ Canaanite and Judean Cities of Lachish, Israel⁠. 

About Our Guests:  Dr. Pytlik is a professor of in Anthropology and Judaic Studies, Director of Judaic Studies, and Director of the Cis Maisel Center for Judaic Studies at Oakland, University, in Rochester, MI. He teaches The Archaeology of Israel, God Through Jewish History, Written Tradition of Judaism, Introduction to Judaism, and Monotheistic Mysticism, World Religions, Life and Legends of King David, and more.  Since 2009 he has organized and led a group of Oakland University students to Israel for a tour and excavation field school.  He is interested in the formation of the Israelite state, the development of the synagogue, Jewish Theology, Hebrew and the archaeology of Israel. 

In the news: Gaza and Israel - violence & war

In this episode (Oct. 20, 2023): 

• From when were the Jewish people called Jewish? 
• What was their land called?  
• When did Jews form a polity? 
• So, was it Judaism or Yahwism? 
• When did Judaism become a religion? 
• When did Jewish people begin to leave Israel? 
• How much of the Bible about the Jewish people is myth? And how much of it is history? 

HbN Guest: Dr. Gideon Rahat

Author of: From Party Politics to Personalized Politics?: Party Change and Political Personalization in Democracies

About Our Guest: Dr. Rahat is the Gersten Family Chair in Political Science and the Chair of the Department of Political Science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His research fields are comparative politics and Israeli politics. His interests include political parties, electoral reform, the personalization of politics and candidate selection methods. He is a Senior Fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute.

In the news: Hundreds of thousands of protestors in Israel chanting "democracy or rebellion". Interestingly, both supporters and opponents of Mr. Netanyahu's judiciary overhaul claim they are "defending the soul of Israel's democracy."

In this episode (Apr. 14, 2023): 

• Why David Ben-Gurion, Israel's primary national founder and first prime minister, did not want a constitution for Israel? 
• A compromise: The Knesset will adopt basic laws and over time these basic laws will become Israel's constitution. 
• When was Israel's Marbury vs. Madison moment? 
• How does Israel's system of checks and balances compare to the United States? 
• Why Israel's Supreme Court is the country's only real check on government? 
• How does Israel's political spectrum compare to America's? 
• Dangers of personalization of Israel's politics and how it compares to America's personalized politics. 
• The prestige of the IDF in Israel's society. 
• Social identity and religion in Israel. 
• This is one of the most central crises of Israel - it's like war! 
• What does political conservatism mean? Hint: real conservatives are not on the far right. 

HbN Guest: Dr. Khodadad Rezakhani

Author of: ReOrienting the Sasanians: East Iran in Late Antiquity

About Our Guest: Dr. Rezakhani is a lecturer and a senior research fellow at Leiden University. He is a historian of Global Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages, with a focus on Central and West Asia from 500-700 CE. His research focuses on the Sasanian and Early Islamic economy of the Near East. 

In the news: At the Grammy Awards, Dr. Jill Biden presented the first ever Best Song For Social Change Award to "BARAYE", a song by Shervin Hajipour, who was arrested by Iran's regime. Dr. Biden stated that this "song became the anthem for the Mahsa Amini protest, a powerful call for freedom and women's rights"  

In this episode (Mar. 17, 2023): 

• So is it Persian or Iranian? The answer: it depends. 
• To answer that question, we talk about Germany and Deutschland. 
• Were ancient people in Ukraine within the family of Iranian peoples?  
• It's not the Persian New Year. It's the Iranian New Year. 
• In 1926 Persia was officially changed to Iran. 
• The Sasanian Empire - its concept of Eranshahr. 
• Why Hellenism is not a foreign element in Iranian history. 
• Talmud was written under Sasanian control in Mesopotamia. 
• The myths surrounding the fall of the Sasanian Empire. 
• Most historians have it wrong - Persia was not devastated by the war. Most of the Sasanian Empire was intact and economically viable. 
• The Persians didn't lose the war with Byzantium. They lost their emperor. 
• Muslims did not conquer Persia. 
• The Holy Cross in Persia. 
• Sasanian royal family in China. 

HbN Guest:  Dr. Janet Affary

Author of: Sexual Politics in Modern Iran

About Our Guest: Dr. Afary is a professor of Religious Studies at UC Santa Barbara, the Director of the Iranian Studies Initiative, and the Chair of Religion and Modernity. She is the author of many books, including Iranian Romance in the Digital Age: From Arranged Marriage to White Marriage (Sex, Family and Culture in the Middle East). 

In the news: Murder of Ms. Mahsa Amini by Iran's regime for the alleged improper wearing of her hijab. 

In this episode (Oct. 14, 2022): 

• In pre-Islamic Persia, the hijab was a status symbol - the richer the woman the more she covered her body. 
• Even in post-Islamic Iran, some classes of women were prevented from wearing the hijab due to their class, e.g., prostitutes
• In pre-Islamic Arabia, women did not wear the hijab
•  How Reza Shah, the founder of the Pahlavi Dynasty, forced Iranian women to unveil 
• Prior to cultural liberalization and women's education, most Iranian women got married before 13
• The Shah's White Revolution infuriated the clergy and conservative Iranians because advocated women's rights 
• Iran's two cultures - religious and modern 
• Sex in modern Iran - are there any virgins left in Iran? 

HbN Guest: Dr. Vali Nasr

Author of: The Dispensable Nation: American Foreign Policy in Retreat

About Our Guest: Dr. Nasr is a professor of Middle East Studies and International Affairs at Johns Hopkins University. From 2012 to 2019, he served as the Dean of Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies. He served as Senior Advisor to U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke between 2009 and 2011. Dr. Nasr has advised senior American policymakers, including the President, Secretary of State, senior members of the Congress, and presidential campaigns. 

In the news: U.S. and European negotiators announced they had completed a text for restoring the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, and that the ball is essentially in Iran's court to take it or leave it. See WSJ, 8/8/22.

In this episode (Aug. 12, 2022):  

• America's foreign policy strategy in the Middle East was military muscle over diplomacy. 
• The U.S. is not making long-term strategies. 
• In 2003, Iran's Supreme Leader and government reached out to the U.S., willing to discuss a range of issues. So what happened? 
• Today Baghdad. Tomorrow Tehran. 
• How Iranian hardliners were proven right about America. 
• Iranians joke about Mr. Trump's presidency. 
• Why do we have peace with Vietnam, but not with Iran? Dr. Nasr's answer is brilliant.  
• When the U.S. removed Saddam, the logic for having nuclear power fizzled in Iran. But... 
• After failed diplomacy, the Iranian conclusion was that if we want the Americans to take us seriously, we have to build a much larger nuclear program. 
• To Iranians, an international agreement is not worth the paper it's written on.  
• The Chinese have an interest in keeping Iran on its feet.