An international conference on the legacy of
Prof. Shmuel Noah Eisenstadt, commemorating the hundredth anniversary of his birth, was held at The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Jerusalem on May 8, 2024. Eisenstadt, a world-renowned sociologist, made outstanding scholarly contributions to sociology and other social and human sciences. He helped us understand the nature, formation, and development of civilizations and cultures, the diversification of modernity, and the interplay between society’s cultural and structural features.
In his keynote lecture, Prof. Björn Wittrock reviewed Eisenstadt's works and contributions. Prof. Larry Diamond discussed the past seventeen years, in which the world has been in a deepening democratic recession, and Prof. Luis Roniger talked about the destructive rise of populism. Prof. Adam Seligman and Prof. Yaacov Yadgar spoke about the persistence of tradition in secular contemporary times, in view of the critical place of belonging in relation to human rights. Prof. Yoav Peled expressed his pessimism about resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in view of the disappearance of the Green Line and Israel's continued deterioration, while Prof. Moshe Hellinger insisted on the possibility that Israel could become more Jewish and more democratic at the same time if it adopts the universal values of Judaism. These are some highlights of the conference, which ended with a moving talk by Eisenstadt's son, Michael Ajzenstadt, about his father.