Simon Gansinger is a graduate student in the Philosophy Department at the University of Vienna, where he specialises in Critical Theory and legal philosophy. Simon has organised academic lecture cycles on Critical Theory, antisemitism, and psychoanalysis, and he also works as a tutor, educating young adults on Israel, antisemitism, National Socialism, and racism. In 2009-10, he interned in the archive of Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, and in 2012-13 studied at the Jagiellonian University in Cracow.
Our Voice of the Fortnight is from the Times of Israel's 'Wartime Diaries' podcast. In the immediate aftermath of October 7th, Shai Davidai – an Assistant Professor at Columbia University – became an unlikely public defender of Israel. And truthfully, even he was surprised by this turn of events: As a committed left-wing Israeli, he had spent years criticizing the government, and often took to the streets to demonstrate against its policies. But the atmosphere he witnessed on college campuses (and specifically on his own campus at Columbia), compelled him to speak up and speak out.