ORCID ID

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9573-6218

Date Awarded

2022

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (M.A.)

Department

History

Advisor

Kathrin Levitan

Committee Member

Hannah Rosen

Committee Member

Andrew Fisher

Abstract

Settlement and Sediment: Engaging Politicized Archaeology in the Israel/Palestine ConflictThis paper explores the ways in which cultural interest groups have used and manipulated folklore and archaeology to assert ownership over border-defining sites in modern-day Israel. The research draws on iterations of folklore over time, archaeological surveys, discrepancies between maps, and engages the work of other scholars whose work addresses the archaeological sites in question. This paper begins with the popular mythology behind the Masada fortress site, just south of the Judean desert, then builds the history of Masada’s archaeology into a larger conversation about the impact of Christian Zionist aims and actions. Furthermore, the paper is a call to action—an acknowledgement that archaeologists and historians have allowed ideology to overpower scholarship in this region, and an open discussion of how to potentially address this subject through the lens of conflict resolution. Segregation and Solidarity: Antisemitism, Private Schools, and the Conditionality of Jewish Whiteness in AtlantaThe second paper in this portfolio addresses the history of Black-Jewish allyship in Atlanta, particularly in the wake of the 1958 Temple bombing. Using a combination of memoirs, newspapers, and biographies about the major players in Atlanta’s Civil Rights Movement, the paper examines the conditionalities of Jewish privilege (and lack thereof) and the solidarity that developed between Atlanta’s Black and Jewish communities. One relationship emerges as a focus: that between the King family and the Rothschild family. The relationship between Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rabbi Jacob Rothschild serves as a micro-example of the conversations and conflicts developing across the American South. The Temple bombing forced an awareness of simultaneous Jewish vulnerability and privilege and helped create a path towards Black and Jewish advocates and allies to work together against a broken system of school segregation.

DOI

https://dx.doi.org/10.21220/s2-qnnp-8249

Rights

© The Author

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