On January 18, Sarah Imhoff delivered a lecture at UC Davis entitled “A Critical History of Zionism and Disability.” In it, she discussed how, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the Zionist movement often conceived of a Jewish state as a place that would be a safe haven for all Jews. But it also promoted an image of the New Jew—strong, able-bodied, and healthy. The presentation discussed how Zionist leaders in the US, Europe, and Mandate Palestine discussed disability, primarily as a criterion for excluding immigrants to the Yishuv (Jewish settlements in Mandate Palestine) or as an economic or health problem to be addressed. It also noted how some Zionists—some of whom were themselves disabled—offered alternative ways of thinking about disability.
The College of Arts