This is an Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility project of Leiden University (university wide) with Al-Quds University in Palestine.

This dossier is for all members of our academic community who want to contribute to an open dialogue and wish to find out more about the context of the Israel-Palestine conflict.

On the 1st of December Marcela A. Garcia Probert successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

This open access book investigates the transnationally connected history of Arab Christian communities in Palestine during the British Mandate (1918-1948) through the lens of the birth of cultural diplomacy.

Imaging and Imagining Palestine is the first comprehensive study of photography during the British Mandate period (1918–1948).

This project aims to revisit the relationship between the European cultural agenda and the local identity formation process, and social and religious transformations of Arab Christian communities in Palestine, when the British ruled via the Mandate. What was the role of culture in European policies…

This special issue of Contemporary Levant critically explores, at a micro and macro level, the structural role and religious, cultural and political interactions of the Greek-Orthodox, Melkite and Syriac communities in late Ottoman and Mandate Syria and Palestine.

From 1967 to 1982, the United Nations undertook several peacekeeping operations in the Middle East. In his thesis from the Institute for History, Diego Salama examines how these operations were connected and their impact on the region.

During the Second World War, on 26 November 1940, professor Cleveringa of Leiden University gave a speech to protest against the dismissal of two Jewish colleagues. Every year in November, to commemorate his brave speech, Cleveringa Lectures are read by (former) Leiden academics in cities throughout…

The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel exports the technology of occupation around the world, Antony Lowenstein, Verso Books, 2023

Researchers Karène Sanchez and Sary Zananiri tell us about their research project CrossRoads, which investigates Christian communities during British Mandate Palestine (1918-1948) through cultural and linguistic lenses. The project was awarded a VIDI grant by NWO in 2017.

On 8 June the Faculty of Archaeology and the Department of Antiquity and Cultural Heritage (DACH) of the Palestine Ministry of Tourism and Antiquity signed an agreement in Ramallah on the West Bank. The aim of the agreement is renewed and sustainable co-operation in the field of archaeology.

Western civil servants openly struggle with their government’s policies on the war in Gaza. During a meeting at Campus The Hague, three former civil servants told their stories.

Students for Palestine – a group of students from Leiden and The Hague – are holding a panel discussion in the Leiden University in The Hague Wijnhaven building on Tuesday 24 May entitled ‘Silencing Palestine’.

There’s been a lot of commotion about the ‘Apartheid in Israel’ panel discussion being cancelled. The organisers, Students for Palestine, wanted to hold this at Leiden University’s Wijnhaven building in The Hague on 21 March. The Executive Board would only allow the event to go ahead if guarantees…

Panelbijeenkomst

Conference, Panel Discussion

Since the horrific events of October 7, 2023, Leiden students have grappled with difficult questions about Israel, Gaza and Israel/Palestine conflict more generally. Drawing on her expertise in the history of the Jewish experience in the diaspora and beyond, Prof. dr. Sarah Cramsey has held multiple…

Debate

Sources for those who want to familiarise themselves with the region.

Lecture

Inaugural panel discussion

In this ‘Educatips’ column, Psychology lecturers share their most important lessons about teaching. This month: Sepideh Saadat guides a support group for students who struggle with the Israel-Hamas war. ‘Some of them feel guilty about enjoying life while their family is suffering.’

Discussing or giving a lecture about a war situation is no easy task. Nonetheless – or maybe for this very reason – students or lecturers do feel the need to have such a discussion during classes. We share here a number of tips and sources to steer the conversation or lecture in the right direction.

The project aims at contributing to the safeguarding of Palestinian cultural heritage and the enhancement of economic situation through tourism development, by presenting and managing one of the most important archaeological resources, the archaeological site of Tell Balata.

‘A Muslim and a Jew in the house of God.’ This is how historian Nadia Bouras introduced her recent conversation with colleague Sara Polak in Leiden’s Hooglandse Kerk. They discussed the rising tensions since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war. ‘Dare to ask each other questions.’

Before 1936, musical practices in Palestine relied heavily on colloquial poetry, especially in rural communities, which constituted most of the population. In this dissertation, Issa Boulos has examined historical records that revealed many differences and similarities between Palestinian communities…

This dissertation sheds light on politics, education and linguistic identity by studying the case of the College of Jerusalem, founded by the Brothers of the Christian Schools.

Fabio Cristiano contributed two chapters to the Routledge Companion to Global Cyber-Security Strategy, edited by Scott N. Romaniuk and Mary Manjikian.

Welcome to the |0100| blog where our team will be sharing insights from the field and contributing to the various discussions and debates around AI, Islam and scripting futures.

This is a Special Issue of the peer-reviewed journal 'Social Sciences and Missions', which provides a forum for exploration of the social and political influence of Christian missions worldwide.

Chapter by Fabio Cristiano and Emilio Distretti for the volume The Aesthetics and Politics of the Online Self, edited by Donatella Della Ratta, Geert Lovink, Teresa Numerico, and Peter Sarram for Palgrave Macmillan.

On the 23rd of June Arianna Sacco successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

Leiden University is under fire: it is allegedly doing too little to tackle antisemitism. Rector Hester Bijl responds to this accusation and to a video from 2014 on social media in which extreme remarks are made. ‘We can be short about such comments: they are unacceptable. The university is and always…

This volume considers the military architecture and its impact on local communities in Rome's eastern frontier, which stretched from the north-east shore of the Black Sea to the Red Sea.

Essays in Archaeology and Assyriology Dedicated to Diederik J.W. Meijer in Honour of his 65th Birthday

In Uprooting the Diaspora, Sarah Cramsey explores how the Jewish citizens rooted in interwar Poland and Czechoslovakia became the ideal citizenry for a post–World War II Jewish state in the Middle East. She asks, how did new interpretations of Jewish belonging emerge and gain support amongst Jewish…

Welcome to the Graduate School of the Faculty of Humanities.

Finding solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the not-inconsiderable task of the new Peace Academy in The Hague. Professor Maurits Berger and twelve students from different conflict zones are starting a creative thinking process that aims to discover the basic conditions for peace in the…

Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur for human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, visited Leiden Law School on 8 December within the scope of International Human Rights Day.

Master

Research in the History and International Studies 1900-present specialisation addresses the interconnectedness and interdependence of contemporary global political, economic and cultural developments from a multidisciplinary perspective which is rooted in the humanities.

The Leiden University Institute for History is responsible for the main part of the historical research carried out at Leiden University. The institute has a wide-ranging academic scope.

The Rijksmuseum van Oudheden (RMO) was due to open its doors to the small photography exhibit Frank Scholten: Archaeology and Tourism in the ‘Holy Land’ in April. Since the organisers, Leiden University and the RMO, have had to temporarily close, researchers Karène Sanchez and Sary Zananiri would like…

From memorials to the armed forces to memory stones for individual victims. It was only later that the Holocaust took a central role in Western remembrance culture, Cleveringa Professor Frank van Vree notes. ‘Nationalists and human rights activists both invoke the experience of the Holocaust.’

This project aims to revisit the ways in which religious minorities in the Middle East participated in, contributed to, and opposed the Arab nationalism of the post-war years, when the British and French ruled the region via the Mandates. Research question: How did religious minorities in the Middle…