conversation
At Lunch with Gemma Birnbaum
Author and journalist Julie Salamon (Wall Street Journal and NY Times) sits down with Gemma Birnbaum, the new Executive Director of AJHS. To kick off season 2 of our popular interview series, we thought it would be the perfect opportunity for our community to get to know Gemma! Join us to hear from her about growing up in Queens, her work at the The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, what it was like to produce a hit podcast series at the height of the pandemic, her vision for AJHS, and her puppy Boggle.
Ticket Info: Free; register at ajhs-org.zoom.us for a Zoom link
Presented by:
conversation
book club
LBI Book Club, Vol. XIV: Yellow Street
Set in Vienna in the 1930s, Yellow Street is a novel in “five scenes” that captures the despair, poverty, enforced idleness, and crumbling moral values of those years just before the political catastrophes that led to World War II. With an astute eye for irony and a sardonic humor, Veza Canetti weaves together stories about the people of Yellow Street, the home of the leather-merchants in the Leopoldstadt district. Living cheek by jowl on the bustling thoroughfare, crabbed merchants, impoverished bourgeois, canny profiteers, and out-and-out criminals alike find no privacy respected and no secrets possible. Canetti’s concern, however, is the victims–in the main seemingly helpless women and children, perhaps poor and exploited but grown streetwise and cagey, each protecting a core of integrity and dignity.
About the Author
Veza Canetti, born Venetiana Tauber-Calderon, was born in Vienna in 1897 to a Sephardi mother and Jewish-Hungarian father. Following World War I, she worked as an English teacher until meeting her future husband, the writer Elias Canetti. She served as his muse and his literary assistant, while also writing and translating, frequently under the name Vera Magd. She died in London in May 1963.
Getting the Book
Yellow Street is available here or here.
About our Guest
Ruth Franklin is a book critic and former editor at The New Republic. Her first biography, Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life (Liveright/W.W. Norton, 2016) won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography and was named a New York Times Notable Book of 2016, a Time magazine top nonfiction book of 2016, and a “best book of 2016” by The Boston Globe, the San Francisco Chronicle, NPR, and others. In The Washington Post, Elaine Showalter called it “a sympathetic and masterful biography that both uncovers Jackson’s secret and haunting life and repositions her as a major artist.”
Franklin’s work appears in many publications, including The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, The New York Review of Books, and Harper’s. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in biography, a Cullman Fellowship at the New York Public Library, a Leon Levy Fellowship in biography, and the Roger Shattuck Prize for Criticism. Her first book, A Thousand Darknesses: Lies and Truth in Holocaust Fiction (Oxford University Press, 2011), was a finalist for the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Ticket Info: Free; register at eventbrite.com for a Zoom link
Presented by:
book club
lecture
Translating History Through Poetry: The Mexican Inquisition & Crypto-Jewish Memory
Rachel Kaufman's first poetry collection, Many to Remember (Dos Madres Press, 2021), enters the archive’s unconscious to reveal the melodies hidden within the language of the past. The collection unravels Kaufman's historical research on New Mexican crypto-Judaism and the Mexican Inquisition alongside the poet’s own family histories. This presentation will explore questions of history, memory, mythology, and translation. How can poetry translate history and the rhythms and form of the archive? What are the possibilities and limitations of the poetic line in holding overlapping but distinct histories at once?
About the Speaker:
Rachel Kaufman is currently pursuing a PhD in Latin American and Jewish History at UCLA. Her poetry has appeared on poets.org and in the Harvard Review, Southwestern American Literature, Western Humanities Review, JuxtaProse, and elsewhere, and her prose has appeared in The Yale Historical Review and Rethinking History. Her poetry chapbook, And After the Fire, received the 2020 JuxtaProse Chapbook Prize. She received a BA in English and History from Yale University.
Ticket Info: Free; register at ajhs-org.zoom.us for a Zoom link
Presented by:
lecture
book talk
New Works Wednesdays: Jews and Muslims in Morocco: Their Intersecting Worlds
Join Professor Jane S. Gerber and Dr. Noam Sienna as they discuss their research from the new bookJews and Muslims in Morocco: Their Intersecting Worlds.
Multiple traditions of Jewish origins in Morocco emphasize the distinctiveness of Moroccan Jewry as indigenous to the area, rooted in its earliest settlements and possessing deep connections and associations with the historic peoples of the region. The creative interaction of Moroccan Jewry with the Arab and Berber cultures was noted in the Jews’ use of Morocco’s multiple languages and dialects, characteristic poetry, and musical works as well as their shared magical rites and popular texts and proverbs. In Jews and Muslims in Morocco: Their Intersecting Worlds historians, anthropologists, musicologists, Rabbinic scholars, Arabists, and linguists analyze this culture, in all its complexity and hybridity. The volume’s collection of essays span political and social interactions throughout history, cultural commonalities, traditions, and halakhic developments. As Jewish life in Morocco has dwindled, much of what is left are traditions maintained in Moroccan ex-pat communities, and memories of those who stayed and those who left. The volume concludes with shared memories from the perspective of a Jewish intellectual from Morocco, a Moroccan Muslim scholar, an analysis of a visual memoir painted by the nineteenth-century artist, Eugène Delacroix, and a photo essay of the vanished world of Jewish life in Morocco.
To purchase the book: https://Rowman.com/Lexington
About the Speakers:
Jane S. Gerber is Professor Emerita of History and director of the Institute for Sephardic Studies at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.
Dr. Noam Sienna is a scholar of Jewish culture and history, a Jewish educator, and a Hebrew calligrapher and book artist.
Ticket Info: Free; register at us02web.zoom.usfor a Zoom link
Presented by:
book talk
class
10 classes: Wednesdays, October 6, 13, 20, 27; November 3, 10, 17; December 1, 8 & 15 - 4:30-5:45 pm ET
Ready to take a deep dive into your family history? Join the staff of the Center for Jewish History for this 10-week online genealogy course, suitable for beginner and intermediate researchers. You will benefit from the expertise of our genealogy librarians and enjoy access to digitized archival material found in the collections of our onsite partner organizations, which include the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, American Jewish Historical Society, Leo Baeck Institute, and American Sephardi Federation. This course will be relevant and applicable to all areas of the Jewish diaspora—Sephardi, Mizrahi, and Ashkenazi—and will touch on numerous topics, including family tree building, DNA and endogamy, search strategies, common genealogy myths, Holocaust records, Landsmanshaftn, Jewish orphanages, and much more, with a particular focus on collections housed at the Center. By the end of the 10 weeks, you will have compiled a basic family history portfolio and will be equipped with a strong foundation for further explorations.
This class is sold out.
Presented by:
class
book talk
Sholem Aleichem Rediscovered: the Newly Translated Moshkeleh Ganev
Sholem Aleichem's Moshkeleh Ganev was a first for Yiddish literature in featuring as its hero a rowdy, uneducated horse thief. The novel is unique for its focus on the underclass and portrayal of Jews interacting with non-Jews in the Russian Pale of Settlement. Breaking norms, it centers on characters on the fringe of respectability.
Originally written in 1903 and published three times, in Poland and in the Soviet Union in the first half of the 20th century, the novel was for some unknown reason not included in Sholem Aleichem’s collected works. Upon encountering the forgotten novel a few years ago, the lauded Sholem Aleichem translator Curt Leviant has brought the text into the light with its first translation into English.
Join Curt Leviant, in conversation with Dvora Reich, about Sholem Aleichem and this newly re-discovered novel.
Buy the book.
Save 40% with code 6AS21 (United States and Canada only. To order outside of North America, call Combined Academic Publishers in the United Kingdom at +44 (0)1423 526350 and use the discount code CS40UNP.)
About the Author
Besides Moshkeleh the Thief, Curt Leviant has translated five other collections of Sholom Aleichem’s works. Among his fifteen volumes of translations from the Yiddish are novels by Chaim Grade, a memoir by Isaac Bashevis Singer, and collections of stories by Avraham Reisen and Lamed Shapiro.
Some of Leviant’s 12 novels have been published in nine European languages, in Israel, and in South America. His novel, Diary of an Adulterous Woman, was an international best seller and was cited in France in 2008 as one of the “Seven Best Novels of the Year”.
His most recent novels are the critically acclaimed King of Yiddish and Kafka’s Son. Critics have hailed the French translation of Kafka’s Son and called Leviant “a worthy heir to Kafka.” A Turkish version appeared in 2020.
A new novel, a love story set in the Jewish Ghetto of Venice, is titled, Me, Mo, Ma, Mu & Mod; or, Which Will It Be, Me and Mazal or Gilah and Me? will appear in Fall, 2021.
Curt Leviant’s books have been praised by two Nobel Laureates, Saul Bellow and Elie Wiesel, and critics have compared his imaginative fiction to that of Tolstoy, Flaubert, Italo Calvino, Borges and Kafka.
Ticket Info: Free; register at yivo.org/Moshkeleh-Ganev for a Zoom link
Presented by:
book talk
lecture & class
Mizrahi Dance Series with Jackie Barzvi
Join the ASF Institute of Jewish Experience and Jackie Barzvi, creator of the Mizrachi Dance Archive, for a three-part series highlighting the history and movements of Mizrahi dance! Jackie will focus on three different Mizrahi styles: Moroccan, Bukharian, and Yemenite dances. Each session will be both a lecture and dance class and participants will learn about the history of each community, gain insight into how dance was included in their traditions, listen to Jewish music from each region, practice traditional movements, and so much more!
The workshops will be held via Zoom and all are welcomed. No previous dance experience required.
About the Speaker:
Jackie Barzvi is a professional raqs sharqi (belly dance) performer and instructor. She recently created the first ever Mizrachi Dance Archive to highlight specific Jewish dances from the Middle East and North African regions. Jackie was also the IACT Israel Programs Coordinator at Northeastern University Hillel in Boston and has led over a dozen organized trips to Israel. Jackie is passionate about helping others find their unique Jewish identity and creating environments where people can dance, connect, and build community. To learn more about her work visit the archive at mizrachidancearchive.com
Ticket Info: $10 per session; register at us02web.zoom.us for a Zoom link
Presented by:
lecture & class
panel discussion
European Jews in the 21st Century
What is the status of Jews in Europe in the 21st century? How do they maintain vital communities? Do they desire to remain in Europe? To remain Jewish? Where are the trendlines headed? A mere 0.1% of Europe's population is Jewish. Proportionally, this figure is at its lowest since the turn of the first millennium. European Jews' numbers have continued to decline even after the Holocaust. Once a major center of world Jewry, Europe often goes largely unmentioned in conversations about the global Jewish community.
K., the European Jewish Review, is a new magazine founded in March 2021 to document and analyze the current situation of the 1.3 million Jews living in Europe. The magazine is devoted to reporting from and fostering dialogue across all the various communities of European Jewry.
Daniel Solomon, the English-language editor of K. will lead a discussion with members of the editorial board of K.: Stéphane Bou (Editor of chief of K., European Jewish Review), Bruno Karsenti (Distinguished Professor, EHESS), and Danny Trom (Senior Researcher, EHESS). The conversation will focus on issues that loom over the Jewish future in Europe, including antisemitism, immigration and integration.
About the Participants
Stéphane Bou is a veteran of the French media, having served as the oped editor of the magazine Marianne, reporter for Charlie Hebdo, reviewer for the Le Canard Enchaîné and a senior producer for Radio France. Bou, in addition to serving as editor-in-chief of K., now leads journalism seminars at École Normale Supérieure/Paris Saclay and France’s national audiovisual archive. He has directed several national television documentaries in Russia, and co-written books with Saul Friedlander and Elisabeth de Fontenay.
Bruno Karsenti is distinguished professor and former vice-president of the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales. He has published research on Emile Durkheim and Marcel Mauss. His most recent volume is La question juive des modernes. Philosophie de l'émancipation.
Daniel Solomon, senior editor of K., runs the magazine’s English-language edition. He is a doctoral student in history at the University of California-Berkeley and received his bachelor’s degree from Harvard. He is a former reporter at the Forward. His studies center on French and European Jews.
Danny Trom is a senior researcher for France’s Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique based at Paris’ École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales. Trom, a sociologist, has published influential works on the current state of the French Jewish community, including La France sans les Juifs et La perseverance du fait Juif. He is a frequent commentator in the French press, appearing in such outlets as France Culture and Le Figaro.
Ticket Info: Free; register at yivo.org/21st-Century-Europe for a Zoom link
Presented by:
panel discussion
book talk
New Works Wednesdays: Reappraising the History of the Jews in the Netherlands
About the Book
The two decades since the last authoritative general history of Dutch Jews was published have seen such substantial developments in historical understanding that a new assessment has become an imperative. This volume offers an indispensable survey from a contemporary viewpoint that reflects the new preoccupations of European historiography and allows the history of Dutch Jewry to be more integrated with that of other European Jewish histories. Historians from both older and newer generations shed significant light on all eras, providing fresh detail that reflects changed emphases and perspectives.
In addition to such traditional subjects as the Jewish community's relationship with the wider society and its internal structure, its leaders, and its international affiliations, new topics explored include the socio-economic aspects of Dutch Jewish life seen in the context of the integration of minorities more widely; a reassessment of the Holocaust years and consideration of the place of Holocaust memorialization in community life; and the impact of multiculturalist currents on Jews and Jewish politics. Memory studies, diaspora studies, and postcolonial studies all play their part in providing the fullest possible picture.
Available at liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk
About the Editors
Bart T. Wallet is Professor of Jewish History at the University of Amsterdam.
David J. Wertheim is the director of the Menasseh ben Israel Institute for Jewish Social and Cultural Studies, Amsterdam.
Ticket Info: Free; register at us02web.zoom.usfor a Zoom link
Presented by:
book talk
lecture & class
Mizrahi Dance Series with Jackie Barzvi
Join the ASF Institute of Jewish Experience and Jackie Barzvi, creator of the Mizrachi Dance Archive, for a three-part series highlighting the history and movements of Mizrahi dance! Jackie will focus on three different Mizrahi styles: Moroccan, Bukharian, and Yemenite dances. Each session will be both a lecture and dance class and participants will learn about the history of each community, gain insight into how dance was included in their traditions, listen to Jewish music from each region, practice traditional movements, and so much more!
The workshops will be held via Zoom and all are welcomed. No previous dance experience required.
About the Speaker:
Jackie Barzvi is a professional raqs sharqi (belly dance) performer and instructor. She recently created the first ever Mizrachi Dance Archive to highlight specific Jewish dances from the Middle East and North African regions. Jackie was also the IACT Israel Programs Coordinator at Northeastern University Hillel in Boston and has led over a dozen organized trips to Israel. Jackie is passionate about helping others find their unique Jewish identity and creating environments where people can dance, connect, and build community. To learn more about her work visit the archive at mizrachidancearchive.com
Ticket Info: $10 per session; register at us02web.zoom.us for a Zoom link
Presented by:
lecture & class
yiddish club
YIVO Yiddish Club: Ashkenazi Yiddish Humor Today With Yidlife Crisis
Nu, vilst redn a bisele yidish? An event for Yiddish enthusiasts the world over, the YIVO Yiddish club is an informal monthly gathering to celebrate mame-loshn. Hosted by Shane Baker, sessions take place in English, and are liberally peppered with Yiddish. Each month Baker is joined by a different guest who discusses their work and a related Yiddish cultural theme. In the spirit of a club, sessions are held as interactive zoom meetings in which participants can see and hear one another. Each session includes ample time for audience questions, group discussion, and, time permitting, knock-down, drag-out arguments. Attendees need not know any Yiddish to attend, though some familiarity with the language is highly recommended.
This session features co-stars of the Yiddish-language comedy web series YidLife Crisis, Eli Batalion and Jamie Elman. Paying homage to the yiddishkayt of their upbringing, YidLife Crisis is a love letter about modern Jewish identity and has been viewed over 3 million times.
Ticket Info: Free; register at yivo.org/YiddishClub7 for a Zoom link
Presented by:
yiddish club
panel discussion
The Jewish Renaissance in Weimar Germany
As the Shared History Project enters its chapter on the Weimar Republic and the beginning of National Socialism, our panelists will discuss how German-speaking Jews seized on the era of cultural freedom ushered in by the Weimar Republic to rediscover, revitalize, and transform Jewish culture and identity in a modern context. Michael Brenner (American University/Munich), Rachel Seelig (University of Toronto), and Kerry Wallach (Gettysburg College) will discuss how diverse strains of Jewish culture – religious and secular, Zionist and non-Zionist, speaking German, Yiddish, and Hebrew – found expression in arts, literature, society, and politics. Miriam Rürup (Moses Mendelssohn Center Potsdam) will chair.
About the Panelists
Michael Brenner is the Seymour and Lillian Abensohn Chair in Israel Studies at American University and Director of AU’s Center for Israel Studies. Since 1997 he has been Professor of Jewish History and Culture at the Ludwig-Maximilians University of Munich. He is the International President of the Leo Baeck Institute for the Study of German-Jewish History and serves on many academic boards, including the Jewish Museum of Berlin, the Israel Institute, the Center for European Studies of the University of Haifa and is board chair of the Franz Rosenzweig Research Center of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. His nine books have been translated into ten languages and include The Renaissance of Jewish Culture in Weimar Germany; A Short History of the Jews; and his forthcoming In Hitler’s Munich: Jews, Revolution, and the Rise of Nazism. He is co-author of the four-volume German-Jewish History in Modern Times, for which he was awarded a National Jewish Book Award.
Rachel Seelig is a literary scholar, teacher and writer based in Toronto, Canada. Her research focuses on migration, multilingualism, and cross-cultural exchange in German, Hebrew, and Yiddish literatures. She is the author of Strangers in Berlin: Modern Jewish Literature between East and West, 1919–1933 (University of Michigan Press, 2016) and the co-editor, with Amir Eshel, of The German-Hebrew Dialogue: Studies of Encounter and Exchange (De Gruyter Press, 2017). Rachel received her B.A. in Comparative Literature from Stanford University and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Jewish Studies from the University of Chicago. She has held research and teaching appointments at Harvard University, Columbia University, the University of Michigan, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and the University of Toronto. Together with her partner, Erol Boran, she writes children's books.
Kerry Wallach is Associate Professor of German at Gettysburg College. Her research focuses on twentieth-century Germany and German-Jewish culture. She is the author of Passing Illusions: Jewish Visibility in Weimar Germany (University of Michigan Press, 2017). In her courses, students learn about Germans, Jews, gender, sexuality, literature, history, film, art, and visual and consumer culture. Currently, Wallach is completing a book about Jewish artist Rahel Szalit-Marcus. Wallach serves on the editorial board of the German Jewish Cultures book series published by Indiana University Press, and on the Academic Advisory Board of the Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin. At Gettysburg, Professor Wallach is an Affiliate of the Jewish Studies Program and also contributes to the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program.
About the Chair
Miriam Rürup is the Director of the Moses Mendelssohn Center for European-Jewish Studies. Her research interests include German-Jewish history, contemporary history (especially the history and post-history of National Socialism) as well as migration and gender history. In a current research project, she is dealing with the history of statelessness. Rürup is co-editor of the academic journals WerkstattGeschichte (since 2002), Aschkenas (since 2013) and the Leo Baeck Year Book (since 2014) as well as the online source edition “Key Documents on German-Jewish History.” She is also a member of the Bergen-Belsen International Advisory Board, the Human Rights in the 20th Century Working Group of the Fritz Thyssen Foundation, the Special Commission for the Promotion and Further Development of Memorial Work in Lower Saxony of the Lower Saxony Memorial Foundation and the Scientific Advisory Board of the Minerva Institute for Germans History at Tel Aviv University. Since January 2020 she has been chairwoman of the scientific working group of the Leo Baeck Institute in Germany.
Ticket Info: Free register at eventbrite.com for a Zoom link
Presented by:
panel discussion
book talk
Judah P. Benjamin (1811–1884) was a brilliant and successful lawyer in New Orleans, and one of the first Jewish members of the U.S. Senate. He then served in the Confederacy as secretary of war and secretary of state, becoming the confidant and alter ego of Jefferson Davis. In this new biography in the Jewish Lives series at Yale University Press, journalist and scholar James Traub grapples with the difficult truth that Benjamin, who was considered one of the greatest legal minds in the United States, was a slave owner who deployed his oratorical skills in defense of slavery.
Program registrants will receive a code for 25% off and free shipping on the book.
This program is funded, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.
Ticket Info: Pay what you wish; register at programs.cjh.org/tickets/judah-benjamin-2021-10-20 for a Zoom link
Presented by:
book talk
workshop
The World Should Know: First Steps in Writing your Memoir
Each of us has a story to tell, we just need the impetus to get started!
Join award-winning author Gila Green in a hands on workshop to begin writing yours or your family’s story. Writing a memoir is both for you and for future generations.
Begin today!
*Note: this is a 2-hour workshop
About the Speaker:
Canadian author Gila Green is an Israel-based writer, editor, and EFL teacher
Ticket Info: $25; register at us02web.zoom.usfor a Zoom link
Presented by:
workshop
book launch
From the 1880s to the 1940s, an upsurge of explosive pogroms caused much pain and suffering across the eastern borderlands of Europe. Rioters attacked Jewish property and caused physical harm to women and children. During World War I and the Russian Civil War, pogrom violence turned into full-blown military actions. In some cases, pogroms wiped entire Jewish communities out of existence. More generally, they were part of a larger story of destruction, ethnic purification, and coexistence that played out in the region over a span of some six decades. Pogroms: A Documentary History surveys the complex history of anti-Jewish violence by bringing together archival and published sources--many appearing for the first time in English translation. This landmark volume and its distinguished roster of scholars provides an unprecedented view of the history of pogroms. Speakers include co-editors Elissa Bemporad(CUNY) and Eugene Avrutin (University of Illinois) as well as Darius Staliunas (Lithuanian Institute of History) and David Myers (UCLA).
About the Speakers:
Eugene Avrutin is the Tobor Family Endowed Professor of Modern European Jewish History at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA. He is the author and co-editor of several award-winning books, including Jews and the Imperial State: Identification Politics in Tsarist Russia (2010) and The Velizh Affair: Blood Libel in a Russian Town (2018). His most recent book, Racism in Modern Russia: From the Romanovs to Putin, will be published in the Russian Shorts series by Bloomsbury in 2022.
Elissa Bemporad, is Professor of History and Ungar Chair in East European Jewish History and the Holocaust at Queens College and CUNY Graduate Center. She is a two-time winner of the National Jewish Book Award. She is the author of Becoming Soviet Jews: The Bolshevik Experiment in Minsk (2013 IUP), and Legacy of Blood: Jews, Pogroms, and Ritual Murder in the Lands of the Soviets (2019 OxfordUP). Elissa is the co-editor of two volumes: Women and Genocide: Survivors, Victims, Perpetrators (2018 IUP); and Pogroms: A Documentary History (Oxford University Press, 2021). She is currently completing the first volume of the Comprehensive History of Soviet Jews (forthcoming with New York University Press), and at work on a biography of Ester Frumkin. She is co-editor of Jewish Social Studies.
David N. Myers is the Sady and Ludwig Kahn Professor of Jewish History at UCLA, where he serves as the director of the UCLA Luskin Center for History and Policy. He is the author or editor of more than fifteen books in the field of Jewish history, including the forthcoming American Shtetl: The Making of Kiryas Joel, a Hasidic Village in Upstate New York (Princeton) with Nomi Stolzenberg. Myers also serves as President of the New Israel Fund.
Darius Staliunas is the author of Making Russians. Meaning and Practice of Russification in Lithuania and Belarus after 1863 (Amsterdam/New York, NY: Rodopi, 2007); Enemies for a Day: Antisemitism and Anti-Jewish Violence in Lithuania under the Tsars (Budapest/New York: CEU Press, 2015); and Lithuanian Nationalism and the Vilnius Question, 1883-1940 (Marburg: Herder-Institut, 2015; co-author – Dangiras Maciulis). He is the editor of Lithuanian studies series at Academic Studies Press (Boston, USA). His research interests include issues of Russian confessional policy in the so-called Northwestern Region (Lithuania and Belarus), ethnic conflicts as well as problems of places of memory in East Central Europe.
Ticket Info: Pay what you wish; register at programs.cjh.org/tickets/pogroms-2021-10-21 for a Zoom link
Presented by:
book launch
lecture & class
Mizrahi Dance Series with Jackie Barzvi
Join the ASF Institute of Jewish Experience and Jackie Barzvi, creator of the Mizrachi Dance Archive, for a three-part series highlighting the history and movements of Mizrahi dance! Jackie will focus on three different Mizrahi styles: Moroccan, Bukharian, and Yemenite dances. Each session will be both a lecture and dance class and participants will learn about the history of each community, gain insight into how dance was included in their traditions, listen to Jewish music from each region, practice traditional movements, and so much more!
The workshops will be held via Zoom and all are welcomed. No previous dance experience required.
About the Speaker:
Jackie Barzvi is a professional raqs sharqi (belly dance) performer and instructor. She recently created the first ever Mizrachi Dance Archive to highlight specific Jewish dances from the Middle East and North African regions. Jackie was also the IACT Israel Programs Coordinator at Northeastern University Hillel in Boston and has led over a dozen organized trips to Israel. Jackie is passionate about helping others find their unique Jewish identity and creating environments where people can dance, connect, and build community. To learn more about her work visit the archive at mizrachidancearchive.com
Ticket Info: $10 per session; register at us02web.zoom.us for a Zoom link
Presented by:
lecture & class
book talk
New Works Wednesdays: Jews and Muslims in Morocco: Their Intersecting Worlds
Join us for a discussion with three researchers featured in the book Jews and Muslims in Morocco: Their Intersecting Worlds.
About the Book
Multiple traditions of Jewish origins in Morocco emphasize the distinctiveness of Moroccan Jewry as indigenous to the area, rooted in its earliest settlements and possessing deep connections and associations with the historic peoples of the region. The creative interaction of Moroccan Jewry with the Arab and Berber cultures was noted in the Jews’ use of Morocco’s multiple languages and dialects, characteristic poetry, and musical works as well as their shared magical rites and popular texts and proverbs. In Jews and Muslims in Morocco: Their Intersecting Worlds historians, anthropologists, musicologists, Rabbinic scholars, Arabists, and linguists analyze this culture, in all its complexity and hybridity. The volume’s collection of essays span political and social interactions throughout history, cultural commonalities, traditions, and halakhic developments. As Jewish life in Morocco has dwindled, much of what is left are traditions maintained in Moroccan ex-pat communities, and memories of those who stayed and those who left. The volume concludes with shared memories from the perspective of a Jewish intellectual from Morocco, a Moroccan Muslim scholar, an analysis of a visual memoir painted by the nineteenth-century artist, Eugène Delacroix, and a photo essay of the vanished world of Jewish life in Morocco.
To purchase the book: Rowman.com/Lexington
About the Speakers
André Elbaz is a professor emeritus of French at Carleton University.
Edwin Seroussi is a professor of musicology and director of the Jewish Music Research Centre at Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Michal Ben Ya'akov is an associate professor of history at Efrata College of Education.
Ticket Info: Free; register at us02web.zoom.usfor a Zoom link
Presented by:
book talk
lecture
DNA has the potential to be an essential and exciting genealogical tool. But many Eastern European Jewish testers find their DNA results completely overwhelming and unnavigable. In this talk, Jennifer Mendelsohn, an internationally renowned journalist and professional genealogist, will help those with Ashkenazi heritage learn how to make sense of their DNA results. She’ll cover the basics of DNA testing, including why our match lists are so large, (hello, endogamy!) why all our matches seem to match each other (endogamy, again!), and how to spot the meaningful matches and separate them from the faux ones. Using real-life examples of DNA success, you’ll learn techniques that will help you work effectively with DNA to expand your tree.
This program is funded, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.
Ticket Info: Pay what you wish; register at programs.cjh.org/tickets/family-history-today-2021-10-28 for a Zoom link
Presented by:
lecture
book talk
The Yiddish Historians and the Struggle for a Jewish History of the Holocaust
Historians began writing the history of the Holocaust in Yiddish from a distinctly Jewish perspective in the years immediately after World War II. These Yiddish historians studied the Holocaust from the perspective of its Jewish victims, rather than that of the Nazi perpetrators, examining daily life in the ghettos and camps, and stressing the importance of survivor testimonies, eyewitness accounts, and memoirs. Above all, they redefined “resistance” to include the many ways Jews struggled to remain alive under Nazi occupation. Mark Smith chronicles and contextualizes this largely overlooked yet significant set of scholars in his recently published work, The Yiddish Historians and the Struggle for a Jewish History of the Holocaust.
Join Mark Smith and Samuel Kassow for this important, eye-opening conversation on Holocaust historiography.
About the Participants
Mark L. Smith is the author of The Yiddish Historians and the Struggle for a Jewish History of the Holocaust (Wayne State University Press, 2019), which was named a National Jewish Book Award finalist and is now in paperback. He has taught Jewish history at UCLA, where he received his PhD in Jewish history in 2016. He writes and lectures on East European Jewish history and culture, with a special interest in Holocaust historiography and Yiddish scholarly writing. His work has also been featured and reviewed in the Yiddish-language Forverts. He is currently Resident Scholar at American Jewish University, Los Angeles.
Samuel D. Kassow is the Charles H. Northam Professor of History at Trinity College, and is recognized as one of the world’s leading scholars on the Holocaust and the Jews of Poland. He is widely known for his 2007 book, Who Will Write Our History? Emanuel Ringelblum, the Warsaw Ghetto, and the Oyneg Shabes Archive (Indiana University Press). He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy for Jewish Research, has won numerous awards, and has lectured widely.
Ticket Info: Free; register at yivo.org/The-Yiddish-Historians for a Zoom link
Presented by:
book talk
conversation
This program will focus on The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, Volume 1: Ancient Israel, from Its Beginnings through 332 BCE, edited by Jeffrey H. Tigay and Adele Berlin, and will feature Alison Joseph in conversation with Deborah Dash Moore.
For two thousand years, Jews and Christians have been reading the Hebrew Bible. Are there new ways to read it in the 21st century? To uncover what's new in this ancient document, join the discussion with The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization Editor and Biblical Scholar Alison Joseph in conversation with Professor Deborah Dash Moore, Editor in Chief of The Posen Library.
What do you learn about the Torah laws when you set them alongside non-biblical legal documents of the period? How does reading Miriam's song next to Deborah's song change how we understand these pieces of poetry? What can artifacts of this period show us about daily life in ancient Israel—its religious practices, household tasks, architecture, and art? Explore how we can read the Bible today in relation to the development of Judaism from ancient times to the present.
About the Speakers:
Alison L. Joseph is Senior Editor of The Posen Library of Jewish Civilization and Culture. She brings her academic expertise in Hebrew Bible and ancient Judaism to the management of the ancient volumes of The Posen Library. Dr. Joseph earned a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Studies from the University of California, Berkeley and a M.A. in Jewish Studies from Emory University. Her first book Portrait of the Kings: The Davidic Prototype in Deuteronomistic Poetics, received the 2016 Manfred Lautenschlaeger Award for Theological Promise. She has previously taught at Swarthmore College, The Jewish Theological Seminary, Towson University, Villanova University, Haverford College, and Ursinus College.
Deborah Dash Moore is the Frederick G. L. Huetwell Professor of History and Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan. An American Jewish historian, her work focuses on urban Jews. She is the editor in chief of The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization. She also served as co-editor of The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, Volume 10: Late Twentieth Century, 1973–2005.
Ticket Info: Pay what you wish; register at programs.cjh.org/tickets/new-in-the-bible-2021-11-04 for a Zoom link
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