Narrating (Not) Belonging in Israel

Join Lilach Naishtat and Skyler Inman in conversation with Sarah Willen for talks on "Kibbutz Buchenwald: Writing as Collective Transformation" and "Anticipatory Impermanence: Eritreans Narrating Self and State in Israel".

Drawing on literary research with Buchenwald concentration camp survivors who united to establish Kibbutz Netzer Sereni in the wake of the Holocaust, and on anthropological research with Eritrean asylum seekers whom the State of Israel rejects and expects to “voluntarily” self-deport, this workshop will focus on the ways in which political conditions, together with language and narrative practices, shape forms of (not) belonging in Israel as a ‘Jewish state.’

This event will take place in the Elie Wiesel Center library (147 Bay State Road, Room 202). Space will be limited, so make sure to register. You can also request copies of the papers to read prior to the event or register for the small group lunch and discussion the next day.

Paper Abstracts:

Kibbutz Buchenwald: Writing as Collective Transformation: Kibbutz Buchenwald was the name chosen by a group of Jewish survivors who came together after their liberation from the Buchenwald concentration camp, united by the goal of establishing a kibbutz in the Land of Israel. Between 1945 and 1948, the group trained on farms in Germany and Palestine, eventually founding Kibbutz Netzer Sereni. During this formative period, they kept a collective diary that served as a vital medium for processing trauma, reconstructing identity, and imagining a new future.

This presentation explores the role of both collective and personal writing in the Kibbutz Buchenwald journal. Through close literary analysis, I examine how poetic devices enabled survivors to reflect on their experiences, shape their vision, and begin the work of self-transformation. More broadly, the talk considers collective writing as a response to catastrophe, drawing parallels with contemporary communal documentation by Kibbutzim following the events of October 7th.

Anticipatory Impermanence: Eritreans Narrating Self and State in Israel: What are the terms of engagement for Eritrean asylum seekers as they articulate their continued existence in the self-described Jewish state? In this paper, I examine instances of public and private speech on the part of my Eritrean interlocutors, paying attention to how issues of time, permanence, and impermanence arise. Drawing on ongoing fieldwork, I situate their speech in the context of Israel’s “Voluntary Departure” policy, which withholds permanent status from non-Jewish asylum seekers and encourages their departure. I use the phrase “anticipatory impermanence” to describe the ways my interlocutors rhetorically cope with the assumption of their own eventual disappearance from Israel. In dialogue with work in existential and linguistic anthropology, I show how the potentiality of Eritrean departure from Israel, often treated as an inevitability by the state and its representatives, shapes Eritrean narratives of self and collectivity, justice, and the idea of the state itself.

Speaker Bios:

Lilach Naishtat is a senior lecturer in the Literature Department at Kibbutzim College of Education, Tel Aviv, and a 2025–2026 visiting scholar at the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, University of Pennsylvania. She was a visiting scholar at the department of comparative literature at Harvard University (2019-2020). She has published six books, written academic papers, directed a documentary film, and curated several art exhibitions. Her fields of expertise include Romantic poetry, Holocaust testimonies, and collaborative reading and writing. Selected publications: Coleridge and Hebrew: Source, Translation and Lamentation (Indiana University Press, forthcoming August 2027); Rebuilding Together: The Story of Kibbutz Buchenwald Journal, 1945–1948 (HaKibbutz HaMeuchad and Yad Tabenkin Press, 2025); Who's Afraid of Christabel? A Story of a Reading Group (Hebrew; Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 2017); Their Jew: Right and Wrong in Holocaust Testimonies (The Hebrew University Press and The MOFET Press, 2016).

Skyler Inman is a Ph.D. candidate in Anthropology at Brandeis University. Her research looks at the everyday experiences and strategies of Eritrean asylum seekers living under Israel's "Voluntary Departure" self-deportation policy. She is specifically interested in how the policy shapes people's relationships with the idea of the future. Previously, she worked in radio journalism, and holds a BA in English from Yale University, where she graduated from the Creative Writing Program. Her current research is supported by a Dissertation Fieldwork Grant from the Wenner-Gren Foundation.

Sarah S. Willen, PhD, MPH is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Connecticut and Co-Director of the Research Program on Global Health and Human Rights at the university’s Human Rights Institute. A medical and psychological anthropologist, she uses ethnographic and interdisciplinary methods to explore morally complicated questions involving precarious migration, migration and health, health-related deservingness, and pursuits of human flourishing, among other topics. She is author of the multiple award-winning monograph, Fighting for Dignity: Migrant Lives at Israel Margins (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019), and Co-Founder of the Pandemic Journaling Project, a combined journaling platform and research study about the lived impact of COVID-19.

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