Emmaia Gelman is guest faculty in Social Sciences at Sarah Lawrence College and the founding Director of the Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism, which examines the political and ideological work of Zionist institutions beyond their direct advocacy for Israel. Her research and writing investigate the history of ideas about race, queerness, safety, and rights, and their production as political levers in the realm of hate crimes policy, surveillance, anti-terror measures, and war. She is at work on a critical history of the Anti-Defamation League (1913-1990) as a Cold War neoconservative institution, and an edited collection of essays by organizers and academics on the ADL’s present political work, its origins, and its historical evolution. Her writing has been published in the Critical Ethnic Studies Journal, Boston Review, Newsweek, the Forward, Jewish Currents, Abusable Past, Truthout, and many other outlets. She is the co-chair of the American Studies Association Caucus on Academic and Community Activism, and a longtime activist in New York City on Palestine, policing, antiracism, and queer issues.
