Author Archives: Charles Hirschkind

About Charles Hirschkind

Charles Hirschkind is an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the coeditor, with David Scott, of Powers of the Secular Modern and has published numerous articles on religious practice, media technologies, and emergent forms of political community in the Middle East.

Discourses of Palestinian Disappearance

Speaking to a group of Israeli high school students in 2022, Deputy Religious Services Minister Matan Kahana commented: “If there was a sort of button you could push that would make all the Arabs disappear, send them on an express train to Switzerland, I would press that button.” It has long been obvious, and has become more obvious since Israel’s campaign of annihilation in Gaza began last October, that most Israelis and many in the West wish, with Minister Kehana, that Palestinians—or what some refer Continue reading →