Speaker: Dafna Hirsch, Department of Sociology, Political Science and Communication,The Open University of Israel

Description: How has the Arab dish of hummus become a (Jewish) Israeli passion? And how should we think of the relationship between the field of politics and practices of food consumption? While the Israeli appropriation of hummus, and other Arab dishes, appears like a clear case of “culinary colonialism,” I argue that although the culinary field is not detached from politics, consumption and signification patterns do not simply reflect political relations. Rather, they are shaped by the articulation of several power structures, the relationship between Jews and Arabs being only one of them. Focusing on the case study of hummus, this lecture will emphasize the role of various agents and cultural intermediaries in promoting both consumption and signification patterns of the dish, one of the most important among them being the food industry.

About the Speaker: Dafna Hirsch is a faculty member at the Department of Sociology, Political Science and Communication at the Open University of Israel, and currently a visiting scholar at the Department of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health and The Taub Center for Israel Studies at NYU. Her studies focus on the culture of everyday life in Mandate Palestine and Israel in historical perspective. Her book 'We Are Here to Bring the West': Hygiene Education and Culture Building in the Jewish Community of Mandate Palestine just came out in Hebrew.