February 2021
Ode to Energy: Einstein, Feynman, and Oppenheimer at Mid-Century
Anne Goldman (Sonoma State University) Stargazing in the Atomic Age counters the assumption that Jewish history largely chronicles tragedy. Designed for the common reader, its essays take the nadir of modern Jewish experience as their starting point. But they are not elegiac. Life for Jews in the United States, the book suggests, has been characterized less by anguish than by tremendous drive and innovation. The titular essay returns to the mid-twentieth century less to invoke the victims of the Holocaust…
Find out more »November 2020
Life in Citations: Biblical Narratives and Contemporary Hebrew Culture
Life in Citations: Biblical Narratives and Contemporary Hebrew Culture Ruth Tsoffar (author) in a conversation with Chana Kronfeld and Naomi Seidman In Life in Citations, I tell a complicated story about the relationship of secular Israelis to biblical narratives. From the early days of Zionism, the Bible has wielded an immense constitutive power as the primal script, giving birth to nation, selfhood and collective consciousness. The story of the twentieth- century arrival to Zion was conflated with the story of…
Find out more »Voices of the Ritual: Devotion to Female Saints and Shrines in the Holy Land
Nurit Stadler (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) in conversation with Ron Hassner (UC Berkeley) Voices of the Ritual, published with Oxford Universtiy Press is an analysis of the revival of rituals performed at female saint shrines in the Middle East. In the midst of turbulent political contention over land and borders, Nurit Stadler shows, religious minorities lay claim to space through rituals enacted at sacred spaces in the Holy Land. Using ethnographic analysis, Stadler explores the rise of these rituals, their focus…
Find out more »October 2020
The Song of Songs: A Biography
Ilana Pardes (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) in conversation with Robert Alter (UC Berkeley), Ron Hendel (UC Berkeley), Chana Kronfeld (UC Berkeley) The Song of Songs: A Biography The Song of Songs has been embraced for centuries as the ultimate song of love. But the kind of love readers have found in this ancient poem is strikingly varied. Ilana Pardes invites us to explore the dramatic shift from readings of the Song as a poem on divine love to celebrations of its…
Find out more »September 2020
Jews and Race
Yavilah McCoy is the CEO of DIMENSIONS Inc. in Boston. She has spent the past 20 years working extensively in multi-faith communities and partnering specifically with the Jewish community to engage issues of diversity, equity and inclusion. Yavilah is an educator, activist and spiritual teacher. She is a Jewish woman and a person of color and has designed numerous tools and methods that enable students and educators to be better citizens of the world through exploring differences and reaching for…
Find out more »April 2020
De-Integration? Judaism and the Theater of Memory in Contemporary Germany (in English)
Monday, April 27, 2020 12:00pm to 1:30pm via Zoom Author Max Czollek’s essay collection Desintegriert Euch! transformed the debate about the integration of minorities in Germany when it appeared in 2018. His perspective on the roles of contemporary Jews in German society and its remembrance culture—its “theater of memory”—struck a nerve not just among Jews, but other minority groups as well. The threat from the right has created a new kind of solidarity, Czollek recently told the New York Times,…
Find out more »March 2020
Yellow Star, Red Star: Holocaust Remembrance after Communism
Due to the Coronavirus situation and recent campus directives, The Institute of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies at UC Berkeley (ISEEES) has decided to cancel Professor Subotić's trip to UC Berkeley. They plan to reschedule her lecture in the Fall. Jelena Subotić (Georgia State University) Yellow Star, Red Star: Holocaust Remembrance after Communism Yellow Star, Red Star asks why Holocaust memory continues to be so deeply troubled—ignored, appropriated, and obfuscated—throughout Eastern Europe, even though it was in those lands…
Find out more »The Song of Songs: A Biography
Ilana Pardes (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) in conversation with Robert Alter (UC Berkeley), Ron Hendel (UC Berkeley), Chana Kronfeld (UC Berkeley) The Song of Songs: A Biography The Song of Songs has been embraced for centuries as the ultimate song of love. But the kind of love readers have found in this ancient poem is strikingly varied. Ilana Pardes invites us to explore the dramatic shift from readings of the Song as a poem on divine love to celebrations of…
Find out more »February 2020
Tapestry of Tongues: The Multilingual Matrix of Modern Hebrew Literature
Tapestry of Tongues: The Multilingual Matrix of Modern Hebrew Literature Screening of "Amos Oz" Selected scenes from a work-in-progress In "Ha'Ivrim," a documentary film series (https://ivrim.co.il) Followed by: Conversation with Filmmaker Yair Qedar and UC Berkeley Professors Robert Atler and Chana Kronfeld Cosponsors: The University of California, Berkeley Magnes Collection of Jewish Art, The Center for Jewish Studies, The Berkeley Institute of Jewish Law and Israel Studies, The Bernie H. Williams Chair in Comparative Literature, The Herman P. and Sophia…
Find out more »Antisemitism Here and Now
Over the last decade there has been a noticeable uptick in antisemitic rhetoric and incidents by left-wing groups targeting Jewish students and Jewish organizations on American college campuses. Where is all this hatred coming from? Is there any significant difference between left-wing and right-wing antisemitism? What role has the anti-Zionist movement played? And what can be done to combat the latest manifestations of an ancient hatred? ____________ Deborah E. Lipstadt is the Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish History and Holocaust Studies, Tam Institute for Jewish…
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