Laura Almagor

Junior Fellow (10/2015 - 08/2016)

A Forgotten Path. Jewish Territorialism as a Movement of Political Action and Ideology 1905-1960

The research project deals with the history of Jewish Territorialism as a movement of political action and thought and, more broadly, as an alternative Jewish way of becoming national during the first half of the twentieth century. The Jewish Territorialists, first organised in 1905 and represented during the interwar and post-war periods by the Freeland League for Jewish Territorial Colonisation, searched for places of settlement for Jews outside Palestine. Even though it did influence the Freeland League's post-war endeavours, the Holocaust did not constitute a watershed moment for the organisation's aims and ambitions. From its very foundation, the movement's members had voiced explicit concerns about the threat that increasing European antisemitism posed to Jewish lives, culture and tradition. This study of Territorialist history aims to shed new light on the richness of twentieth century Jewish politics, as well as on the contemporary global debates that defined these politics.

Laura Almagor is a PhD researcher at the European University Institute in Florence and was a visiting researcher at UCLA's History Department, as well as a fellow in the 20th Summer Institute of the Holocaust Educational Foundation of Northwestern University. Previously, she was affiliated with the Netherlands Institute for Military History. She has published on Jewish history, Dutch military history, and Second World War remembrance culture.