Non-resident Scholar
Vinay Kaura is an Assistant Professor in the Department of International Affairs and Security Studies, Sardar Patel University of Police, Security and Criminal Justice, Rajasthan, India. He is also the Coordinator of University’s Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies; in this position, he coordinates long-term research and training programs for mid-level police professionals in India’s federal and state police organisations.
He is an adjunct professor on the Program on Terrorism and Security Studies (PTSS) at the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies in Germany. Besides, he is an alumnus of the NESA Center, National Defence University at Washington, DC.
âI am a Zionistâ: Our Herzlian Jew-Jitsu Moments Twenty Years Ago
From a full-time American historian, I became a Zionist activist too, trying to trigger a broader communal conversation about what Zionism can mean in the twenty-first century.
âI am a Zionist.â
That phrase has inspired me my entire life. Yet, on Israelâs Independence Day in 2001, when I published those words in the Montreal Gazette, it changed my life. This was my Theodor Herzl Moment â the turning point when I came out of the closet with my identity as a proud Zionist.
Twenty years ago, Israel was reeling. It was the first Yom Haâatzmaut since Yasser Arafat led Palestinian rejectionists away from negotiations and back to terrorism. I watched the mounting violence in horror from my academic perch at McGill University. The violence was agonizingly personal. One day, a 34-year-old reservist, Amir Zohar, was shot in the usually quiet Jordan Valley â it didnât help hi