Public lectures enrich Jewish Studies and the larger UC Berkeley community. The lectures provide the opportunity to bring to campus world renowned scholars, authors, and artists to engage with the Jewish community. Alumni and friends have endowed the following lectures, which are just a few of the events offered in conjunction with the Center for Jewish Studies. For a complete list of events, please see the calendar
Helen Diller Annual Lecture
The Helen Diller Family Program in Jewish Studies was created to ensure the excellence of Jewish Studies at UC Berkeley. Each year the Helen Diller Annual Lecture brings to campus a distinguished scholar in Jewish Studies to give a public lecture about his or her research and work.
2024 - Orit Bashkin, "Happy Ottoman Purim! Commemorating Muslim Victories through Jewish Holidays, 1516-1860"
2023 - Julia Watts Belser - "God’s Body in Pain: Disability and Divine Solidarity in Jewish Text and Tradition"
2022 - Elisheva Baumgarten - "Shared Appeals to Different Gods: Jews, Christians and Medieval Prayer"
2020 - Tomer Persico, “Neo-Hasidism and Neo-Kabbalah – Privatised Uses of Traditional Lore”
2019 - Steve Weitzman, “How the Story of the Jews Begin: Recent Debates on Origins and Ancestry”
2018 - Rabbi Jeffrey A. Summit, Tufts University, “Singing God’s Words: Religious Experience, Chant & Sacred Text in Contemporary Judaism”
2016 - Gilad Sharvit, Hebrew University, “Freud, Politics and Anti-Semitism”
2013 - Yahil Zaban, Hebrew University, “The Jewish Mother”
Joseph and Eda Pell Endowed Lecture
The Joseph and Eda Pell Endowed Lecture is funded by the Joseph and Eda Pell Endowed Fund for Jewish Studies. Established in 1997, one of the fund’s main objectives is to support research and teaching on the Holocaust — with the intention to understand the events that preceded it, with a view toward learning what can be done to prevent such an atrocity from occurring again. The Pell Lecture offers a public forum for disseminating this work.
2025 - Elissa Bemporad, "Modern Permutations of an Ancient Antisemitic Myth: The Blood Libel during the Holocaust"
2024 - Alexandra Garbarini, "Atrocities’ Truth Tellers: Armenian and Jewish Victim Testimony in Interwar Europe"
2023 - Magda Teter, "Blood Libel: On the Trail of An Antisemitic Myth"
2022 - Jeff Veidlinger, "In the Midst of Civilized Europe: The Pogroms of 1918-1921 and the Onset of the Holocaust"
2018 - Jeffrey Shandler, “Tales Retold: Holocaust Survivors on Schindler’s List”
2017
- Lisa M. Leff, American University, “The Archive Thief: The Man Who Salvaged French Jewish History in the Wake of the Holocaust”
- Natan Meir, Portland State University, “Stepchildren of the Shtetl: The Destitute, Disabled, and Demented of Jewish Eastern Europe”
Fall 2016 - Anna Shternshis and Psoy Korolenko, “Last Yiddish Heroes: Lost and Found Songs of Soviet Jews during World War II”
Spring 2016
- Stephanie Satie, A One Woman Play “Silent Witnesses”
- Anna Bikont, “The Poles, The Jews, and the Town of Jedwabne: What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About The Holocaust”
- Ivan Jablonka, “Family Stories Are Also History: Two Stories in The Time of Stalin and Hitler”
Fall 2015 - Conference, “Revisiting Freud and Moses: Heroism, History, and Religion”
Spring 2015
- International Conference,”Reflections on the Legacy of Nuremberg: The 70th Anniversary of the Nuremberg Trials”
- Göran Rosenberg, “A Brief Stop On The Road From Auschwitz”
2014 - Jan Gross, Princeton University, “At the Periphery of the Holocaust: Opportunistic Killings and Plunder of Jews by their Neighbors”
2013 - Lisa Gossels, documentary filmmaker, in discussion about the film “The Children of Chabannes”
Fall 2012- Jonathan Goldstein, University of West Georgia, “Wartime Shanghai: A Microcosm of Eurasian Jewish Diversity”
Spring 2012 - Aron Rodrigue, Stanford University, “From the Ottoman Empire to the Holocaust, The Jews of Rhodes and the End of the Sephardi Levant, 1900-1944”
Fall 2011 - Michael Brenner, University of Munich, “Back ‘Home’? The Return of Jewish Intellectuals to Germany after the Holocaust.”
Spring 2011 - Carla Shapreau, University of California, Berkeley School of Law, “When the Music Stopped: The Spoliation of Europe’s Musical Property, 1933-1945, and 21st Century Concerns,”
2008 - Robert Alter, University of California, Berkeley, “The Child in the Holocaust: A Symposium” [Panel presenters: Paula Fass, Margaret Byrne, UC Berkeley; Diane Wolfe, UC Davis; Jeffrey Shandler, Rutgers University]
2007 - Saul Friedländer, University of California, Los Angeles, “The Years of Extermination- Towards an Integrated History of the Holocaust”
2005 - Elena Makarova, Heyendaal Institute of Radboud University- Nijmegan, “Culture Against Destruction” [University Over the Abyss: The Story Behind 20 Lecturers and 2,430 Lectures in the Terezin Ghetto between 1942-1944; Live for Art: Friedl Dicker-Brandeis (1898-1944); Any Genre But Tragedy: Theatre and Cabaret in Terezin]
Fall 2004 - Steven Aschheim, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, “Beyond Borders: The German-Jewish Legacy Abroad”
Spring 2004 - Sam Kassow, Trinity College, “Vilna as a Jewish Society”, “Prewar Warsaw: Poland’s Jewish Metropolis”, “History and Catastrophe: The Case of Emanuel Ringelblum”
Fall 2002 - Istvan Deak, Columbia University, “Shattering an Ethnic Mosaic: Central and Eastern Europe During the Last Years of World War II” [The Holocaust in the Context of 150 Years of Ethnic Cleansing; The Siege of Budapest and Europe’s Only Major Surviving Ghetto, November 1944-February 1945; Retribution in Central and Eastern Europe During and After World War II]
Spring 2002 - Benjamin Harshav, Yale University, “The Modern Jewish Renaissance Language, Literature, and History”
1999 - Omer Bertov, “Fields of Glory: War, Genocide, and the Glorification of Violence”
Herman P. and Sophia Taubman Lecture
The Herman P. and Sophia Taubman Lecture is funded by the Herman P. and Sophia Taubman Chair in Jewish Studies. The Taubman endowment was established in 1974 by Milton Taubman for the pursuit of Jewish studies at Berkeley. Over the years, the Taubman Lectures have become major campus events.
1979 - Zvi Ankori, Tel Aviv University
1980 - Dan Pagis, Hebrew University, Jerusalem
1981 - Moshe Greenberg, Hebrew University, Jerusalem
1982 - Bernard Blumenkranz, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris
1983 - Zeev Falk, Hebrew University, Jerusalem
1984 - Shlomo Morag, Hebrew University, Jerusalem
1985 - Menachem Friedman, Bar Ilan University and Yonathan Shapiro, Tel Aviv University
1986 - David Hartman, Hebrew University, Jerusalem
1987 -Matitiahu Tsevat, Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati
1988 - Hayim Tadmor, Hebrew University, Jerusalem
1989 - Moshe Weinfeld, Hebrew University, Jerusalem
1991 - Jacob R. Sussmann, Hebrew University, Jerusalem and Nurith Gertz, Open University, Tel Aviv
1992 - Steven Zipperstein, Stanford University, Palo Alto
1993 - Amos Funkenstein, University of California, Berkeley
2000 - Galit Hasan-Rokem, Hebrew University, Jerusalem
2001 - Elliot R. Wolfson, New York University
2002 - Chava Turniansky, Hebrew University, Jerusalem
2004 - Benjamin Harshav, Yale University
2005 - Aharon Shemesh, Bar Ilan University
2006 - David Noel Freedman, University of California, San Diego
2007 - Lee I. Levine, Hebrew University, Jerusalem
2008 - Tova Rosen, Ben Gurion University
2010 - Sasson Somekh, Tel Aviv University
2011 - Elisheva Carlebach, Columbia University
2013 - John J. Collins, Yale Divinity School
2015 - Elchanan Reiner, Tel Aviv University
2016 - Michael Gluzman, Tel Aviv University
2017 - David Biale, University of California, Davis
2019 - Naomi Seidman, University of Toronto