Daniela Tolchinsky is a PhD candidate in the Political Science Department of Hebrew University. Her research interests include the history of Zionism, Israel and Palestine, Jewish thought, justice, and critical theory. Daniela is trained as a political theorist, and her current work is in the field of political theology.

Daniela’s dissertation project emerges from a fundamental question: if the concepts that structure political modernity are derivative of Christian theology, as several scholars have argued, how are we to reconcile their adoption in the self-proclaimed nation-state of the Jews? In response to this question, the dissertation offers the concept of “conversion” as a novel lens through which to understand Jewish embrace of Zionist politics, especially after the Holocaust. Specifically, the dissertation seeks to argue that Jewish survival post-Holocaust was deemed (by both Jews and Christians) to be contingent upon the meaning of Jewish survival for universal salvation, the price of which has been Jewish conversion to Christian political theology.

Thinkers with which Daniela engages include Levinas, Derrida, Lacan, Hegel, Freud, among others. Daniela’s interdisciplinary approach bridges fields such as political theory, religious studies, psychoanalysis, critical studies of race, gender, and finance.

Daniela has been awarded the Kaete Klausner Scholarship, a selective fellowship awarded to Hebrew University doctoral students. She is also the recipient of the Telem Academic Grant, which is a selective grant program for Advanced Degrees in Political Science. Thus far, her writing has been published in Oxford Political Review and Under/theorized. She has presented her work across Israel, Europe, and the United States. Daniela has been part of the teaching staff in courses such as “Modern Political Thought,” “Quantitative Research Methods,” and “Historical Introduction to Contemporary Politics,” among others. She currently serves as an Associate of the Mimbres School for the Humanities.

Daniela holds an M.A. in Political Science from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and her thesis dealt with the conceptual relationship between group-level agency and collective justice. She holds a B.A. in Political Science and International Studies from the University of Chicago, where her thesis received honors for its critique of the conceptual approach underlying mechanisms for accountability in Argentina’s transitional justice process.