Rida Abu Rass

My family is originally from Tayibe, a Palestinian town in Israel. Seeking better career and educational opportunities, my family took the unconventional step of moving to Tel Aviv, where I grew up. One specific experience that had a tremendous impact on me is Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination in 1995 during a pro-peace rally that I attended with my father. After the assassination, I became increasingly interested in Israeli-Palestinian affairs. I spent the last two years of high school in Norway, as a part of the United World Colleges program, and I proceeded to do my BA at Brandeis University with majors in Philosophy and International & Global Studies. I am now doing my MA at Brandeis as well, in Global Studies. I am primarily interested in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, religious history, and political Islam, and I am currently writing my thesis on linking secularization theory with postmodernity.