Soifer, Aviam (Faculty Emeritus)
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/10125/34758
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Item type: Item , Item type: Item , Item type: Item , In Memoriam: The Many Sides of Hugh C. Macgill(2022) Pomp, Richard; Wiesbrod, Carol; Newmyer, Kent; Mann, Bruce H.; Kay, Richard; Soifer, Avi; Fisher, TimothyItem type: Item , Presidential Election Reform: A Current National Imperative(2022) Soifer, Aviam; Bohnhorst, Mark; Morrow, Kate E.; Hundt, ReedItem type: Item , Gaping Gaps in the History of the Independent State Legislature Doctrine: McPherson v. Blacker, Usurpation, and the Right of the People to Choose Their President(2023) Bohnhorst, Mark; Fitzgerald, Michael; Soifer, AviamItem type: Item , Item type: Item , Descent(2001) Soifer, AviamItem type: Item , The Disability Term: Dignity, Default, and Negative Capability(2000) Soifer, AviamItem type: Item , Remembrance, Group Gripes, and Legal Frictions: Rule of Law or Awful Lore?(2022) Soifer, AviamItem type: Item , The Task of Hearing What Has Already Been Said: History and Native American Legal Claims(Israel Yearbook of Human Rights, 1993) Soifer, AviamThis essay considers several recent invocations of history by American judges. It does so in the context of Native American legal claims,' but its point about the demands and abuse of history has broader implications. My argument is that each of three distinct judicial approaches to the past exemplified by these decisions is seriously flawed. Taken together, however, these cases underscore how claims purportedly derived from history can become a powerful whipsaw. As we will see, these recent decisions employ history inconsistently, yet with devastating effectiveness, against Indian claims. They demonstrate how commonplace it is for judges to make claims based on history, while blithely remaining blind to the crucial understandings at the confluence of memory, meaning and historical accuracy.Item type: Item , On Being Overly Discrete and Insular: Involuntary Groups and the Anglo-American Judicial Tradition(Israel Yearbook of Human Rights, 1990) Soifer, AviamThis essay sketches the profoundly ahistorical approach of judges today to precisely those groups who most obviously warrant special judicial concern if there is to be any special judicial solicitude on the basis of past wrongs.Item type: Item , Optimism v. Hope: Larry Yackle, in Fairness(Boston University Law Review, 2018) Soifer, AviamItem type: Item , Of Swords, Shields, and a Gun to the Head: Coercing Individuals, but Not States(Seattle University Law Review, 2016) Soifer, AviamItem type: Item , JVD(University of Hawaii Law Review, 2012) Soifer, AviamItem type: Item , Hear Today, God Tomorrow: To Be in but Not of the Law with Moses, and Milner Ball(Georgia Law Review, 2007) Soifer, AviamItem type: Item , De Facto Slavery and the Syren Songs of Liberty and Equality: Carol Weisbrod, Much Obliged(Connecticut Law Review, 2008) Soifer, AviamItem type: Item , Covered Bridges(Yale Journal of Law and the Humanities, 2005) Soifer, AviamItem type: Item , Commitment, Connection, and the Ceaseless Quest for Justice(Asian Pacific Law and Policy Journal, 2006) Soifer, AviamItem type: Item , From Your Lips to God's Ear(Boston University International Law Journal, 2009) Soifer, AviamItem type: Item , The Spokesman Conundrum: “Is It Good for the Jews?”(Law & Social Inquiry, 2015) Soifer, AviamIs it good for the Jews? This core question has been a central query for a group that has been known over millennia for its questioning. Whether Jews are properly labeled as a race/religion/people/ethnicity/cultural aggregation or some other group identifier, the historic tendency of Jews to raise this central question is familiar enough to have become the punch line for countless jokes. Indeed, it is so familiar that often the question does not even have to be verbalized. But can anyone predict or assess what is good for the Jews—and, if so, who gets to decide? Is assimilation or separation more desirable? Is it advisable to stand out or to acculturate, to let threats pass or to challenge them directly? And should any such analysis take into account the interests of the individuals directly involved and/or the best strategies for a specific group or for the many groups of Jews?