After teaching Jewish history at the College of Charleston for nearly two decades, Joshua Shanes has stepped into a new role as the UC Davis Emanuel Ringelblum Distinguished Professor of Jewish History.
Over the summer, Shanes succeeded the late David Biale, the renowned historian who held that position for 22 years. Biale died last year at age 75 after battling metastatic prostate cancer.
As a scholar, Shanes has focused on the Jews of pre-Holocaust East Central Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries, as well as on early Zionist theory.
Shanes, who has identified as a Conservative, a Modern Orthodox and a Chabad-Lubavitch Jew over his lifetime, said he has developed a deeper understanding of his own religious identity through his scholarship. He has also come to believe that his role as a scholar includes helping others make sense of how historical events shape the modern Jewish world.
“Especially lately, people are constantly referencing fascism,” said Shanes, 53. “The best we can do as academics is give better tools to understand the past. If the comparisons are going to be made, let’s make them responsibly.”
Outside of academia, Shanes has written about antisemitism, Zionism and U.S. and Israeli politics in publications such as the Washington Post, the Forward, Slate and Haaretz.
He is a member of the Nexus Task Force, one of three major efforts that seeks to define antisemitism and its relationship to anti-Zionism. The other two are the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) and the Jerusalem Declaration. Shanes also helped develop a 2024 Nexus document focused on universities called “A Campus Guide to Identifying Antisemitism in a Time of Perplexity.”
His first book, “Diaspora Nationalism and Jewish Identity in Habsburg Galicia,” was published in 2012. He is currently working on a second book, which focuses on the history of Orthodox Judaism.
Keep reading or listen to the full interview below. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Was there anything specific about UC Davis that attracted you to pursue a position there?
It was very hard to apply for a job to succeed David Biale. His books, which he wrote in the 1980s, are still assigned readings in Jewish history courses. I got to know David because he and I were part of a group, which he basically founded, called the Jewish Studies Activist Network. It was founded in 2016 when Trump won the election for the first time. We were, as academics, very concerned about the political developments that were happening, both in terms of power and the election outcome, but also in discourse and rhetoric.
We had no idea what was coming eight years later, but even at the time we were concerned, and we wanted to harness our expertise for public good. I learned from him how to do that responsibly: When is it appropriate to intervene? When is it appropriate to write an op-ed or to make a petition or whatever it may be? So the idea of succeeding him, while humbling and scary, was also quite exciting and attractive.
Throughout your life you have explored different Jewish denominations. At this point have you homed in on a preferred practice?
I was raised Conservative, and I lived as a Modern Orthodox Jew for a while. I was in Chabad for over a decade, hard-core Lubavitcher — big beard, big coat, the hat, the whole deal. So I’ve lived in almost every Jewish world.
I continue to be observant. I have been keeping Shabbat and kosher and other rituals in the manner most associated with Orthodoxy for 32 years. I consider myself at this point nondenominational. I do keep Shabbat in a way that you probably associate with Orthodoxy. I do keep kosher, mostly in a way that you consider Orthodox. But I don’t feel I can call myself Orthodox anymore. I consider Orthodoxy to be completely bound up right now in right-wing politics, especially about Israel.
Your bio on the UC Davis website describes your research focus as the “process of Jews negotiating new identities under modernization.” Do you consider Zionism and Orthodoxy as the prisms through which you explore those new identities?
Yes. Modern Orthodoxy has become indistinguishable from Zionism in practically every way. Jews used to live in these autonomous communities — pre-modern societies that were not built on a nation-state model. It was a feudal society of castes.
In the 19th century, we had a new nation-state model, where Jews are being emancipated, given equal rights, and they’re being influenced by the Enlightenment. And therefore they’re thinking about new ways of living their lives. Jews are now a voluntary community, and Jews have to choose to do these things, and they are being swayed by different pulls.
Jewish Orthodoxy came up with an idea of hierarchy. The old version was: If you were not living a halachic life the way Orthodoxy understands it, you were not a Jew. But that didn’t work once most Jews were like that. So they said, “Since that doesn’t work, we’ll have a hierarchy instead,” where everyone accuses the other of being the “worst ones.”
Zionists do this also. Even 100 years ago, they said, “Anyone who’s not a Zionist, you’re a bad Jew, you’re an assimilationist, you’re a traitor,” etc. And the Orthodox took it back to the Zionists and said “You’re the traitor, because you’re advocating for a national, secular Jewishness.”
In January, The Conversation published your piece against Harvard’s adoption of the IHRA definition of antisemitism. How do you understand the major differences between how the IHRA, Nexus Group and Jerusalem Declaration define antisemitism?
What’s interesting is all three definitions talk about Israel a lot, and I think the reason for that is we all sort of agree what antisemitism is when it’s not about Israel. All the conflict comes when it’s about Israel.
Since Oct. 7, 2023, J. has reported extensively on antisemitism at Northern California college campuses. How do you reconcile those incidents with the Trump administration’s attempts to punish major universities for their handling of antisemitic incidents?
It’s quite clear this has nothing to do with fighting antisemitism or protecting Jews whatsoever. This is just an excuse. Let’s talk about ourselves — how do we judge? People often ask me, “How do I protest Israel without being antisemitic?”
If possible, I usually suggest that they avoid the term Zionism and Zionists because there are two ways to constructively think about Zionism: One is Zionism as actualized in the country of Israel, and the other, which is the primary meaning for most diaspora Zionists, is identity. It’s some sense of Jewishness and Jewish pride. I think that protesters often forget about that.
On the flip side of that, I tell Jews or other non-Jews who are Zionists and concerned about this: “Is the protest focusing on the state? Is it talking about equality? If it’s doing that, then they’re doing it right.”
If you’re concerned about a protest, it should be something that is not about the state, but attacking you as a Zionist, or you as a Jew, or thinking about some sort of global conspiracy of which Israel is the mastermind. If it’s doing those things, that’s antisemitic. I feel America has a hard time with the fact that there are people with ethnic connections to another place that aren’t responsible for that place. You, as a Jew and as a Zionist, have no responsibility for this foreign state.