SARATOGA SPRINGS – Avi Rubin, 2023 Greenberg Middle East Scholar-in-Residence at Skidmore College, will deliver a public lecture on Wednesday, Oct. 4, titled “The Battle Over Israel’s Fragile Democracy: Socio-legal Observations and Personal Experience.”

The lecture is set for 7:30 p.m. in Gannett Auditorium on Skidmore’s campus and is co-sponsored by the Office of Special Programs and the History Department. Admission is free and the lecture is open to the public.  

The lecture will address the 2023 judicial reform concept of the Israeli government, which was met with mass protests led by academics, lawyers, prominent figures in the high-tech industry and business sector, and civil society groups. It will also explore how the government’s subsequent decision to pass a law stripping the Supreme Court of its power to obstruct government decisions on the grounds of the doctrine of reasonableness resulted in a constitutional crisis.

 Rubin will offer observations on the judicial overhaul and its context from a socio-legal perspective. He will also share his personal experience as a university professor teaching sensitive topics in a volatile political period. 

Rubin received his doctorate in history and Middle East studies from Harvard University. Since 2006, he has taught in Israel at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Department of Middle East Studies. He specializes in the socio-legal history of the late Ottoman Empire and has published on various aspects of legal change in the age of modernity, where he explores themes such as legal codification, legal culture, cultural perceptions of the rule of law, political trials, and legal positivism. During his residency at Skidmore, he is teaching a course in the history department entitled, “The Great Transformation: The Emergence of Legal Modernity in the Middle East and Beyond.”

This year marks the Greenberg Middle East Scholar-in-Residence Series’ 20th anniversary, made possible by a gift from Jane Greenberg ’81. The series enables the college to host an Israeli scholar who, through teaching, lecturing, and participating in campus life, educates the community on a range of topics concerning political life in the Middle East. Skidmore may be reached by calling 518-580-5000.