event-archived

Harvest of Blossoms-CANCELED

April 27, 2017

Harvest of Blossoms-CANCELED

Selma Meerbaum-Eisinger was only eighteen when she died in a labor camp in Ukraine. In the course of a life cut short, Selma wrote over fifty poems in German. She recorded them in an album meant for her love, Leiser Fichman, who had already been deported to a Romanian labor camp. Selma was...

John Efron’s “Appearance Counts: Sephardic Jewry and the Creation of a German-Jewish Aesthetic”

September 14, 2017

Sephardic Jewry and the Creation of a German-Jewish Aesthetic”

Focusing on the period spanning the late eighteenth to the late nineteenth century, this talk explores the special place German-Jewish culture accorded medieval Spanish Jewry. In a broad array of cultural forms and genres, a portrait emerged that promoted an image...

Amir Engel–Between Historiography and Literature: “Gershom Sholem’s Intellectual Biography”

October 10, 2017

“Gershom Sholem’s Intellectual Biography”

Between Historiography and Literature: “Gershom Sholem’s Intellectual Biography”

A talk by Amir Engel

Organizer Berkeley Center for Jewish Studies

Helene & Irene Silverblatt–Harvest of Blossoms: Its Discovery and Remembrance

October 19, 2017

Its Discovery and Remembrance

Harvest of Blossoms

A presentation by
Helene and Irene Silverblatt

Selma Meerbaum-Eisinger was only eighteen when she died in a labor camp in Ukraine. In the course of a life cut short, Selma wrote over fifty poems in German. She recorded them in an album meant for her love, Leiser Fichman, who had already been...

Lisa Leff–“The Archive Thief”

November 6, 2017

Lisa Leff–“The Archive Thief”

Organizer Berkeley Center for Jewish Studies

Elisheva Baumgarten–Documents of Practice: Possibilities for a Non Rabbinic Perspective on Medieval Jewish Women

November 8, 2017

Possibilities for a Non Rabbinic Perspective on Medieval Jewish Women

Organizer Berkeley Center for Jewish Studies

Natan Meir–Stepchildren of the Shtetl: The Destitute, Disabled, and Demented of Jewish Eastern Europe

November 15, 2017

Stepchildren of the Shtetl: The Destitute, Disabled, and Demented of Jewish Eastern Europe

A talk by
Natan Meir

In this talk, Natan Meir presents an analysis of Jewish society in 19th– and early 20th-century eastern Europe based on the experiences of and attitudes towards beggars, vagrants, disabled people, and the mentally ill and offers a new lens through which to view Russian and Polish Jewry: the lives of the marginalized.

Natan M. Meir is the Lorry I. Lokey Associate Professor of Judaic Studies at Portland State University. His...

Helen Kim–Racial and Ethnic Diversity in the American Jewish Community: Lessons learned from JewAsians

December 6, 2017
In 2010 approximately 15 percent of all new marriages in the United States were between spouses of different racial, ethnic, or religious backgrounds, raising increasingly relevant questions regarding the multicultural identities of new spouses and their offspring. But while new census categories and a growing body of statistics provide data, they tell us little about the inner workings of day-to-day life for such couples and their children. This talk will explore some of the dynamics and larger social dimensions of a particular slice of this growing population. Specifically, this talk...

C. L. Seow “Job 1-21”

January 25, 2018

Dr. Seow’s latest book-length publication isJob 1-21, the first installment of a two-volume commentary. This book best represents the kind of scholarship he most enjoys and how he sees himself contributing to biblical scholarship. The emphasis therein on philology, the ancient Near Eastern, and theology will not come as a surprise to anyone who knows his work, particularly Ecclesiastes in the Anchor Bible (1997). Yet the Job commentary goes beyond his earlier writings in a number of ways, most notably in its focus on poetry and especially...

Rabbi Jeff Summit “Singing God’s Words: The Performance of Biblical Chant in Contemporary Judaism”

February 20, 2018

The Performance of Biblical Chant in Contemporary Judaism”

This lecture draws from the research for Professor Summit’s new book Singing God’s Words: The Performance of Biblical Chant in Contemporary Judaism (Oxford University Press, 2016), the first study of the meaning and experience of chanting Torah among contemporary American Jews. He...