Tower

Past Events Sponsored by the Center for Jewish Studies

These events have already taken place. We provide this information as a record for future reference.

2008

SHIFT 2008 is June 16–20. Learn more about SHIFT, our Holocaust Educators Workshop at the University of Florida, or register online.

Ferzina Banaji, "Representing the 'Un-Representable': Film and the Holocaust," Thursday, June 19th, 7:30pm at Hillel.
Dr. Ferzina Banaji is the 2007-2008 Charles H. Revson Foundation Fellow at the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC. After gaining a postgraduate diploma from the University of Paris, she completed a master's degree in European literature at Cambridge. Her 2005 doctoral dissertation for Cambridge University dealt with representations of the Holocaust in French documentary films. She has authored several articles and essays, re-examining such films as Night and Fog and The Sorrow and the Pity.

  • Made possible by The Harry Rich Endowment for Holocaust Studies. Co-sponsored by the Campus Outreach Lecture Program of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum's Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, supported by the generosity of Marvin and Rose Lee Pomerantz.
  • See the postcard for this event

"Secularization, Judaism and the Political: Posen-Faculty Seminar at the Center for Jewish Studies." Tuesday, April 15th.

  • This event is for faculty and graduate students only.

Ilana Pardes, "Freud, Zipporah, and the Bridegroom of Blood: National Imagination in the Bible," Friday, April 11th.

  • This event is for faculty and graduate students only.

Ilana Pardes, "Agnon's "Ido & Enam": The Circulation of the Song of Songs in Israeli Culture." A reading from The Song of Songs and a consideration of its circulation in Israeli culture. Thursday, April 10th, 7:30pm at Hillel.
Ilana Pardes received her PH.D. degree in Comparative Literature at the University of California, Berkeley in 1990. She taught at Princeton University in 1990-1992 and as visiting Professor at UC Berkeley in 1996 and in 2006. She is an Associate Professor of Comparative Literature at the Hebrew University, where she has been teaching since 1992. Among her publications: Countertraditions in the Bible: A Feminist Approach (Harvard University Press, 1992), The Biography of Ancient Israel: National Narratives in the Bible (University of California Press, 2000), New Perspectives on Freud's Moses and Monotheism (Co-edited with Ruth Ginsburg, Niemeyer, 2006), and Melville's Bibles (University of California Press, 2008).

  • Made possible by The Alexander Grass Chair in Jewish Studies and the Jewish Council of North Central Florida.
  • See the postcard for this event

From Generation to Generation: The Growing Split Between Secular and Religious Jews in Israel." Monday, March 31st, 7:30pm at Hillel.
Professor Etzioni-Halevy has written extensively about Israeli political culture, democratization, as well as Israeli youth. She is the author of numerous books, including The Divided People: Can Israel's Breakup Be Stopped?, The Elite Connection: Problems and Potential of Democracy, Classes and Elites in Democracy and Democratization, Political Culture in Israel, and Who is the Israeli Student?

  • Generously sponsored by the UF International Center, and Hillel at the University of Florida.

"Metamorphosis: Reading Franz Kafka: 125th Anniversary of Kafka's Birth — A new translation of his stories by Michael Hofmann," Pamela Gilbert, Chair; Galili Shahar, Introduction; Eric Kligerman, John Leavey, Ralf Remshardt, and Shephard Steiner, Panel. Readings by Michael Hofmann and Ralf Remshardt. Monday, March 31st, 4:00 — 7:00pm at the Friends of Music Room (Music Building, UF campus).
Franz Kafka's story Metamorphosis is a riddle. Its protagonist, Gregor Samsa, a man and an insect — a body of distortions and wounds — an allegory of strange desires and broken voices, embodies also the question of literature and art.

On the 125th anniversary of Kafka's birth and the occasion of a new translation of Metamorphosis, and other stories by Michael Hofmann, scholars of German-Jewish studies, history of art, theater and critical theory are gathered to read Kafka and to discuss the story and its legacies.

  • A joint event of the Center for Jewish Studies, the English Department and the Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies at the UF
  • See the postcard for this event

Alice Freifeld, "Catharsis and Backlash: War Crimes Trials of the 'Small Fry'," Thursday, March 27th at 7:00pm.
Alice Freifeld is Associate Professor of History. This talk is based on her current research project, a study of Hungarian Jewry in the immediate aftermath of World War II.

  • This event is for faculty and graduate students only.

C. Paul Vincent, "20,000 Children Shut Out: Congress and the Failure of US Refugee Policy after Kristallnacht," Monday, March 24th, 7:30pm at Hillel.
Author of A Historical Dictionary of Germany's Weimar Republic, 1918 – 1933 (Greenwood Press, 1997); and The Politics of Hunger: The Allied Blockade of Germany, 1915 – 1919 (Ohio University Press, 1985). Currently on sabbatical leave from Keene State College in New Hampshire, Professor Vincent serves on the Board of the New Hampshire Humanities Council and is Coordinator of the Holocaust Studies Council at KSC.

During his tenure as Pinchas and Mark Wisen Fellow at the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, Professor Vincent researched US refugee policy during 1938 Ð 1940. Focusing in particular on the period following the Kristallnacht pogrom (9 – 10, November 1938), his work demonstrates the degree to which our country's refugee policy was a reflection of the public's overall anxieties. In addition to analyzing the role of Congress in preventing 20,000 refugee children from entering the US, he reexamines overall State Department policy through its response to the crisis generated in May – June 1939 by the journey of the M.S. St. Louis.

  • Made possible by The Harry Rich Endowment for Holocaust Studies. Co-sponsored by the Campus Outreach Lecture Program of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum's Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, supported by the generosity of Marvin and Rose Lee Pomerantz.
  • See the postcard for this event

Screening of the film "Children of the Sun" and a talk by the director Ran Tal." Wednesday, March 5th, 7:30pm at Hillel.
Children of the first kibbutzim were born in the early 20th century to youthful parents, full of hope. They were born into a utopia and were educated in an ideological society that aspired to replace the traditional family with a collective one, to subjugate the will of the individual in favor of the common good and a life of equality.

"Children of the Sun" tells the story of the journey in search of a society's memory and is a collage comprised of over eighty amateur films shot between 1930 and 1970, rare recordings and conversations with families and friends.

"Secularization, Judaism and the Political: Posen-Faculty Seminar at the Center for Jewish Studies." Tuesday, March 4th.

  • This event is for faculty and graduate students only.

"Secularization, Judaism and the Political: Posen-Faculty Seminar at the Center for Jewish Studies." Monday, February 18th.

  • This event is for faculty and graduate students only.

Jonathan Schorsch, "Esperanza Rodriguez: A Mulata Marrana from 17th-Century Mexico City," Wednesday, February 20th, 7:30pm at Hillel.
Assistant Professor of Jewish Studies in the Religion Department of Columbia University (PhD, History, University of California, Berkeley, 2000). His research has focused on early modern Sephardic history and culture. He is the author of Jews and Blacks in the Early Modern World (Cambridge University Press, 2004) as well as scholarly articles on topics such as contemporary Sephardic autobiography and Jewish ghosts haunting Germans after the Holocaust. His latest book, The Christian Atlantic: Judeoconversos, Afroiberians and Amerindians in the Seventeenth-Century Iberian World (Brill, 2008) is due out later this year.

Esperanza Rodriguez, born in Seville toward the end of the sixteenth-century, was the daughter of a Judeoconverso father and an African slave mother. In the Judeoconverso household where she herself served as a slave, the young Esperanza learned about crypto-Jewish beliefs and practices. She later moved to the New World, eventually settling in Mexico City. There, she circulated among the city's crypto-Jews, many of them her relatives. When the inquisitional authorities cracked down on alleged Marranos in the early 1640s, Esperanza found herself incarcerated, along with her three daughters. She suffered several years' imprisonment for her adopted religion. This lecture explores Esperanza's experiences within the Mexico City crypto-Jewish community and the significance of her newfound religion and kin network. The riveting, troubled life of this vibrant and ambitious woman of color is set amid the context of colonial Iberian theo-politics, in order to evoke the manifold meanings "Jewishness" held for many Blacks oppressed by the Atlantic slave system.

  • Made possible by the Gary Gerson Lecture Series in Jewish Studies.
  • See the postcard for this event

Brigitte Weltman-Aron, "The Figure of the Jew in North Africa: Memmi, Derrida, Cixous." Thursday, February 14th, 7:00pm.
Brigitte Weltman-Aron is an associate professor of French in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures. She received a PhD in French from the University of Southern California in 1991, and her two main areas of specialization are the Enlightenment and 20th-century Francophone studies.

  • This event is for faculty and graduate students only.

Naomi Seidman, "Faithful Renderings: Jewish-Christian Difference & the Politics of Translation," Thursday, February 7th, 7:30pm in Reitz Rm 282.
Naomi Seidman is Koret Professor of Jewish Culture and Director of the Richard S. Dinner Center for Jewish Studies Core Doctoral Faculty Member at the Graduate Thelogical Union. Her latest book Faithful Renderings reads translation history through the lens of Jewish-Christian difference and, conversely, views Jewish-Christian difference as an effect of translation. Subjecting translation to a theological-political analysis, Seidman asks how the charged Jewish-Christian relationship—and more particularly the dependence of Christianity on the texts and translations of a rival religion has haunted the theory and practice of translation in the West.

  • Made possible by The Alexander Grass Chair in Jewish Studies.
  • See the postcard for this event

Ruth Behar, "Searching for Jewish Cuba: Perils and Pleasures of Diasporic Ethnography." Tuesday, January 29th, 4:00pm in the 2nd floor atrium of Ustler Hall.
Dr. Ruth Behar, professor of Anthropology at the University of Michigan, was born in Havana, Cuba and grew up in New York. She is the author of Translated Woman: Crossing the Border with Esperanza's Story and The Vulnerable Observer: Anthropology that Breaks Your Heart and editor of Bridges to Cuba and co-editor of Women Writing Culture. Behar is also a poet and emerging filmmaker, with her film "Adio Kerida" Behar has been the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation award as well as a John Simon Guggenheim fellowship. Latina Magazine named her one of the 50 Latinas who made history in the twentieth century.

Ruth Behar's newest book, An Island Called Home: Returning to Jewish Cuba (Rutgers University Press, 2007) is an account of her journey back to Cuba in search of the Jewish community that might have been hers had her family stayed after the revolution.

  • Co-sponsored by the Center for Women's Studies and Gender Research, the Center for Latin American Studies, the Center for Jewish Studies, and the Department of Anthropology
  • See the postcard for this event
  • Get directions to this event

Michal Ben-Horin, "The 1948 War: Collective Memories, Music and the Challenge of Narration," Thursday, January 17th, 7:00pm.

  • This event is for faculty and graduate students only.
2007

Jan Gross, "After Auschwitz: Anti-Semitism in Poland," Sunday, November 18th, 4:00pm at Hillel.
Norman B. Tomlinson '16 and '48 Professor of War and Society, and Professor of History at Princeton University, Jan Gross studies modern Europe, focusing on comparative politics, totalitarian and authoritarian regimes, Soviet and East European politics, and the Holocaust. After growing up in Poland and attending Warsaw University, he immigrated to the US in 1969 and earned a Ph.D. in sociology from Yale University. Gross's first book, Polish Society Under German Occupation, appeared in 1979. Neighbors (2001), which was a finalist for the National Book Award, reconstructs the events that took place in July 1941 in the small Polish town of Jedwabne, where virtually every one of the town's 1,600 Jewish residents was killed in a single day. Professor Gross's most recent book Fear is a detailed reconstruction of the Kielce pogrom in 1946 and the Polish reactions to it that attempts to answer a perplexing question: How was anti-Semitism possible in Poland after the war?

Dan Miron, "S.Y. Abramovitsh Between Yiddish and Hebrew: Mendele's Art of 'Breathing Through Both Nostrils'," Thursday, November 15th, 7:30pm, Reitz Union, Room 282.
Regarded as the grandfather of modern Yiddish literature and equally a founding father of its nascent Hebrew counterpart, S.Y. Abramovitsh (1836–1917) has been hailed as a towering innovator who propelled both Hebrew and Yiddish literature—artistically, stylistically, and ideationally—into modernity. Dan Miron is the Leonard Kaye Chair for Hebrew and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. He also teaches at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and is an internationally recognized literary critic. Publications include The Image of the Shtetl, Syracuse UP, 2000.

  • Made possible by the Gary Gerson Lecture Series in Jewish Studies.
  • See the postcard for this event

"Imaging the Unimaginable: The Iconicization of Auschwitz," November 11-12. Sunday, Nov. 11th at the Harn Museum. Monday, Nov. 12th at Hillel.
An international conference that reviews the history of the camp and its future as an archive and museum; the nature of graphic representations from the camp including the actual documents and the problem of ownership; the question of ownership of Auschwitz itself given its significance as a world heritage site; the question of national memory and how deeply contested that is among the various nationalities involved; the ethical issue of aestheticization of photographs and paintings whose value as documents is quite clear, but which may very well speak to us on another level entirely; and finally graphic representations about the camp including post-war documentary and feature film.

Paper proposals of 350-500 words plus cv are due by May 15th, 2007 and should be sent to the conference organizers, Nora Alter and Jack Kugelmass:(nma@ufl.edu and jkugelma@jst.ufl.edu). The Center for Jewish Studies will cover approved costs of transportation, accommodation and food. Participants are required to submit a written version of their papers for group publication by April 2008.

  • Made possible through a gift from Irma and Norman Braman.
  • See the postcard for this event
  • See the poster for this event
  • See program schedule
  • See the original call-for-papers for this event
  • Paper given at the conference titled "The Image of Auschwitz in History Politics" here.

"The Auschwitz Album: The Story of a Transport," opening reception is Sunday, November 4th in the Reitz Union Gallery.
The Auschwitz Album is the only surviving visual evidence of the process of mass murder at Auschwitz-Birkenau. It is a unique document and was donated to Yad Vashem by Lilly Jacob-Zelmanovic Meier. The photos were taken at the end of May or beginning of June 1944, either by Ernst Hofmann or by Bernhard Walter, two SS men whose task was to take ID photos and fingerprints of the inmates (not of the Jews who were sent directly to the gas chambers). The photos show the arrival of Hungarian Jews from Carpatho-Ruthenia. Many of them came from the Berehov Ghetto, which itself was a collecting point for Jews from several other small towns.

  • See the postcard for this event
  • See the poster for this event
  • Made possible through a gift from Irma and Norman Braman.
  • Learn more about the Auschwitz Album at Yad Vashem.

Simon Rabinovitch, "The Revutsky Riddle: Second Thoughts of a Minister for Jewish Affairs," Thursday, November 1st, 7:00pm.
Simon Rabinovitch is the Alexander Grass Post-Doctoral Associate for the Center for Jewish Studies and the Department of History. He received his Ph.D. from Brandeis University in 2007. He is currently working on a manuscript for publication entitled Alternative to Zion: The Jewish Autonomist Movement in Late Imperial and Revolutionary Russia, which traces the development of the idea of non-territorial autonomy for Russian Jewry between the turn of the twentieth century and the creation of the Soviet Union. His published and forthcoming articles examine Jewish nationalist thought, folkloristics, and ethnography.

  • This event is for faculty and graduate students only.

"Exile, Judaism and Literary Criticism: Erich Auerbach, the 50th Anniversary of His Death," Tuesday, October 23rd.
Reception begins 4 P.M. at Ruth McQuown, Dauer Hall Rm 219
Panel from 4:30—6:30 P.M.
Chair: Judith Page
• Esther Romeyn: Auerbach's Mimesis and the Contradictions of the Modern
• Dragan Kujundzic: Beyond Comparison: Auerbach's Comparative Literature as a Diasporic Experience
• Galili Shahar: Mimesis, Judaism and the Politics of Literary Criticism
• William Calin: Auerbach and History
Recital at the Keene Faculty Center (Dauer Hall) beginning 7:00 P.M. Invitation: Please join pianist Gila Goldstein, Visiting Assistant Professor this fall at UFL, for a short musicale inspired by Dances and Songs. The dance and song forms are the source of creation of musical masterpieces throughout history. These are humanity's most primeval artistic forms of expression, which the great composers elevated to the highest works of art. Partita by Bach (another title for a suite, meaning chain of old dances), songs by Mendelssohn, songs by Schubert transcribed by Liszt, and short pieces with folk elements of dance and song in them, written in 1943, by the Israeli composer, originally from Munich, Paul Ben-Haim. Pulse and Lyricism rule these forms, and necessary for the musical interpretation of any piece. The essential point about musical interpretation is taking the listener on a magical journey by letting go of one's emotions. Escape from reality where these dances and songs were born, and soar to heavenly spheres.

  • Made possible by the Center for Jewish Studies and Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies.
  • See the postcard for this event
  • See the postcard for the recital, Figura

"Encounter Point" a film, Wednesday, October 17th, 7:00 P.M. in the Reitz Union Auditorium.
Encounter Point is an 85-minute feature documentary film that follows a former Israeli settler, a Palestinian ex-prisoner, a bereaved Israeli mother and a wounded Palestinian bereaved brother who risk their lives and public standing to promote a nonviolent end to the conflict. Their journeys lead them to the unlikeliest places to confront hatred within their communities. The film explores what drives them and thousands of other like-minded civilians to overcome anger and grief to work for grassroots solutions. It is a film about the everyday leaders in our midst.

  • See the postcard for this event
  • This event is co-sponsored by the Center for Jewish Studies, Dean of Students Office, International Center and Reitz Union Board, UF.
  • Learn more about Encounter Point here.

"Europa Europa: Europe in Philosophy, History, Literature, Music and Film." Monday, September 10th, Dauer Hall Rm 215. First session, 10 A.M. to 12:30 P.M.; second session 2 P.M.-4:30 P.M. followed by a reception; Film screening, Europa Europa, 5:30 P.M. to 7 P.M.
A conference to discuss Europe, and its "alterities" (Jewish, Muslim, Slavic, the other "others," etc.) Each faculty will present a book with "Europe" in the title, followed by two roundtables (morning and afternoon sessions.) The event will conclude with the screening of Europa Europa, a 1990 German language film directed by Agnieszka Holland. Its original German title is Hitlerjunge Salomon, which means Hitler Youth Salomon. It's based on the 1989 autobiography by Solomon Perel, a Jew who escaped Nazi persecution by masquerading as an Aryan. The movie stars Marco Hofschneider and Julie Delpy, along with the real-life Perel as himself. The film is an international co-production between companies in Germany, France and Poland.

  • Organized by Dragan Kujundzic, dragan@ufl.edu.
  • See the postcard for this event
  • This event is co-sponsored by the Center for Jewish Studies, Center for European Studies and France-Florida Research Institute.

Monika Flaschka, "Gender as Motivation for Violence: Atrocities Against Women Under the Nazis," Thursday, June 14th, 7:30 P.M. at Hillel.
Ms. Monika Flaschka is a Ph.D. candidate in history at Kent State University and earned Master's degrees in anthropology and history from the same university. During her Charles H. Revson Foundation Fellowship for Archival Research at the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC., Ms. Flaschka is examining the gender ideology of Nazism and the rhetorical motivation for the rape of Jewish, Roma, Sinti, and Slavic women during the Holocaust.

  • Made possible by the Harry Rich Endowment for Holocaust Studies.
  • See the postcard for this event

SHIFT 2007 is June 11–15. Learn more about SHIFT, our Holocaust Educators Workshop at the University of Florida, or register online.

Etgar Keret, "A Reading by Etgar Keret". Wednesday, April 18th, 7:30pm, Reitz Union, Room 282.
Etgar Keret was born in Tel Aviv in 1967. He started writing in 1992 and is the most popular writer among Israeli youth today. Keret is the author of The Bus Driver Who Wanted To Be God, Dad Runs Away with the Circus, and The Nimrod Flip Out just to name a few. Over 40 short movies have been based on his stories, one of which won the American MTV Prize (1998). His movie, Skin Deep, won First Prize at several international film festivals, and was awarded the Israeli Oscar. Keret is at present a lecturer in the film department at Tel Aviv University.

  • Made possible by the Futernick Visiting Professorship Endowment.
  • See the postcard for this event

Samuel Kassow, "Between History and Catastrophe: Emanuel Ringelblum's Secret Ghetto Archive". Thursday, April 12th, Reitz Union, Room 282.
Dr. Kassow, the Charles Northam Professor of Judaic Studies at Trinity College, holds a Ph.D. from Princeton University, a Masters of Science from the London School of Economics, and is the author of numerous articles and scholarly talks in English, Russian and Yiddish. He has also lectured and taught in Mexico, Lithuania, Russia and Poland. Professor Kassow is the son of Holocaust survivors and was born in a Displaced Persons camp in Germany. He is currently working on a book, to be published by Indiana University Press, about Emmanuel Ringelblum and the underground archives of the Warsaw ghetto.

  • Made possible by the Harry Rich Endowment for Holocaust Studies.
  • See the postcard for this event

Matthew Connelly (Columbia University and Woodrow Wilson Center), "Reproducing the West: The History and Politics of Population Growth and Movement". Thursday, April 5th, 4:00pm, Smathers Library, Conference Room West, 212.
This paper examines how population projections and policies have served to define cultural difference. In particular, Connelly will consider Muslim minorities in Europe and discuss more generally how fertility and infertility shape identities and differences among people who consider themselves Western.

  • Sponsored by the Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere.
    Co-sponsored by the Center for Jewish Studies, Center for European Studies, Department of History, and the Alexander Grass Chair in Jewish Studies.
  • See the brochure for this event

Kenneth D. Wald, "Israel and American Jewish Politics". Sunday, March 25th, 2:00pm, Museum of Arts and Sciences, Daytona Beach, FL.
Discussions about the strength of the "Jewish lobby" in American foreign policy often assume that American Jewry is united around the importance of Israel. The talk will assess this claim, focusing on sources of cohesion and division among American Jews about the political importance of Israel. The talk will also compare the popular base of support for Israel with the principle critics of America's Israel policy, the Arab-American community.

Wald is Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the University of Florida, where he has taught since 1983. A specialist on religion in American politics, his most recent books include Religion and Politics in the United States (5th edition, 2006) and The Politics of Cultural Differences (2002). He also edits the Cambridge University Press series, Religion, Politics and Social Theory. At the University of Florida, he has served as director of the Center for Jewish Studies and chair of the Department of Political Science. Wald has held Fulbright fellowships to Israel and Germany, visiting appointments at Harvard, the University of Haifa, and the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland. He is currently working on a book about contemporary Jewish political behavior.

  • Co-sponsored by the Center for Jewish Studies, UF, the Endowment Fund of the Jewish Federation of Volusia/Flagler County.
  • See the brochure for this event

"The Ister" a film. Tuesday, March 20th, 1-6:30pm. There will be a round table discussion immediately following the screening of the film.
'The Ister' is a 3000km journey to the heart of Europe, from the mouth of the Danube river at the Black Sea, to its source in the German Black Forest. The film is based on the work of the most influential and controversial philosopher of the 20th century, Martin Heidegger, who swore allegiance to the National Socialists in 1933. By marrying a vast philosophical narrative with an epic voyage up Europe's greatest waterway, the film invites the viewer to unravel the extraordinary past and future of 'the West.'

  • See the poster for this event.
  • Proceedings from the conference "The Ister," under the title The Danube: Hoelderlin, Heidegger, 'the jews,' and the Destiny of Europe have been published by Artmargins.

Matt Jacobs, "Imagining a Quagmire". Wednesday, March 7th.
Matthew Jacobs is Assistant Professor of U.S. and World History at the University of Florida. He teaches courses on U.S. foreign relations, world history, and modern U.S. history. His research focuses on U.S.-Middle East relations since 1945, and he is currently completing a book manuscript under the tentative title Imagining the Middle East. His talk will explore one of the issues - the Arab-Israeli-Palestinian Conflict - through which U.S. policy makers, academics, members of the media, and business persons have imagined the Middle East since 1945.

  • This event is for faculty and graduate students only.

David Rechter, "The Habsburg Empire, 1867-1918: Good for the Jews?". Evening of Tuesday, March 6th, 7:30pm at Hillel.
Dr. David Rechter is the University Research Lecturer in Oriental Studies at Oxford University and the Research Fellow in Modern Jewish History at St. Antony's College, Oxford. He is the author of The Jews of Vienna and the First World War, (2001). Dr. Rechter is currently working on a book about the Jews of Habsburg Bukovina (1774-1914).

  • Made possible by The Alexander Grass Chair in Jewish Studies.
  • See the postcard for this event

Ben Ehlers (University of Georgia) and Pawel Kras (University of Lublin), "Politics and Religious Identities in Pre-Modern Europe: Case Studies in Poland and Spain". Thursday, March 1st, 4:00pm, Smathers Library, Conference Room West, 212.
From the 15th through the 17th centuries, religious minorities throughout Catholic Europe faced increasing pressure to conform and submit to the authority of the Church. Ben Ehlers will discuss the diverging experiences of baptized Jews (conversos) and Muslims (moriscos) in the inquisitorial age in Spain reflected in the conflicting demands placed upon them, as Christian authorities both pressured converts to assimilate and threatened them with expulsion. Pawel Kras will examine the parallel relationship between the inquisition and the Jewish population in Poland.

  • Sponsored by the Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere.
    Co-sponsored by the Center for Jewish Studies, Center for European Studies, Department of History, and the Alexander Grass Chair in Jewish Studies.
  • See the brochure for this event

Gil Anidjar (Columbia University), "On the Muslim Question". Tuesday, February 20th, 4:00pm, Smathers Library, Conference Room West, 212.
Is there a "Muslim question"? Is there an analogy to be made between the Jewish and the Muslim question? Clearly, the analogy has been offered, discussed and even denied in a variety of contexts. Yet pursuing the analogy also seems to buttress the un-interrogated assumption that there are -- in the West, and when it comes to Jews and Muslims -- two questions. In this talk, Gil Anidjar asks: what if there were only one question?

  • Sponsored by the Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere.
    Co-sponsored by the Center for Jewish Studies, Center for European Studies, Department of History, and the Alexander Grass Chair in Jewish Studies.
  • See the brochure for this event

"For the Life of the Flesh Is in the Blood: A Conference on the Significance of Blood in Jewish History & Culture". An international conference, February 18th-19th at Hillel.
Blood has played a central role in the rituals and representations of Jews and Judaism. From the Passover story and the rituals in the temple in Jerusalem, through the blood libels of medieval and modern times, blood has figured in Jewish practice and in discourses produced by and about Jews. This conference will explore the relationship between Jews and blood from different disciplinary and methodological perspectives.

  • Sponsored by the Center for Jewish Studies through the Alexander Grass Chair.
  • Changes have been made to the scheduling of this event. View new schedule.
  • See the poster for this event. Front; Back

Jeremy Cohen, "Competing for the Blood of the Cross: Mistress Rachel the Martyr of Mainz". Thursday, February 15th, 7:30pm at Hillel.
Jeremy Cohen is the Spiegel Family Foundation Professor of European Jewish History at Tel Aviv University. Over the years, his research and publications have focused on various aspects of the interaction between Judaism and Christianity. He is the author of The Friars and the Jews: The Evolution of Medieval Anti-Judaism (1982), Essential Papers on Judaism and Christianity in Conflict: From Late Antiquity to the Reformation (1991), Living Letters of the Law: Ideas of the Jew in Medieval Christianity (1999), and From Witness to Witchcraft: Jews and Judaism in Medieval Christian Thought (1996) among others. His latest book, Christ-Killers: The Jews and the Passion from the Bible to Big Screen, is to be published by Oxford University Press late in 2006.

  • Sponsored by the Center for Jewish Studies through the Alexander Grass Chair and the Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere.
  • See the postcard for this event

A.J. Levine, "Jesus and Judaism: Why the Connection (still) Matters". Thursday, February 1st, 7:30pm, Ustler Hall, UF Women's Gymnasium.
Amy-Jill Levine is E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Professor of New Testament Studies and Director of the Carpenter Program in Religion, Gender, and Sexuality at Vanderbilt University Divinity School and Graduate Department of Religion in Nashville, TN. She is a self-described "Yankee Jewish feminist who teaches in a Christian divinity school in the buckle of the Bible Belt."

Holding a B.A. from Smith College, an M.A. and Ph.D. from Duke University, and an honorary Doctor of Ministry from the University of Richmond, Dr. Levine has been awarded grants from the Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the American Council of Learned Societies. Dr. Levine's numerous publications address Christian Origins, Jewish-Christian Relations, and Sexuality, Gender, and the Bible; she has recorded the Introduction to the Old Testament, Great Figures of the Old Testament and Great Figures of the New Testament for the Teaching Company's Great Lecture series. Her current projects include the fourteen-volume series, The Feminist Companions to the New Testament and Early Christian Literature (Continuum), The Historical Jesus in Context (Princeton), and The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus (HarperSanFrancisco).

  • The Jewish Council of North Central Florida Lecture.
  • See the postcard for this event
  • See the New York Times article

Jack Kugelmass, "Shtetls Without Jews: Early Accounts of Postwar Poland by Emigre Travelers". Wednesday, January 31st.
Long before the war against Nazism was over military chaplains and embedded journalists were encountering survivors—experiences they related largely through reports, letters and diaries. But the cessation of fighting allowed a good many emigre journalists and cultural activists to travel to Europe to see for themselves what still remained of the Old Country. There they encountered the surviving remnants of European Jewry and the closer they got to the killing fields of eastern Europe the more dramatic their accounts became especially for an émigré readership eager to learn about the fate of former homes and communities. Many published their accounts in the Yiddish and Hebrew press and quite a few collected their reportages for republication as books. Indeed, a few of them appeared in the remarkable 177-volume series published in Argentina, Dos poylishe yidntum. The talk examines the material these visitors produced with special attention to the range of tropes employed within the narratives, suggesting how complex is this early literature about the Shoah and how ambivalent these writers were about the prospects for a renewal of Polish Jewry.

  • This event is for faculty and graduate students only.

Tamir Sorek, "Ethnic Solidarity and Israeli Soccer". Sunday, January 28th, 2:00pm, Museum of Arts and Sciences, Daytona Beach, FL.
The talk considers a case in which Bet Shean allowed Betar to win the 1998 Israel soccer Championship. The analysis considers the importance of ethnic solidarity based on shared origin and social marginality of Jews of Mizrakhi origin among both teams' fans. Interestingly, soccer has become a means for displaying such solidarity given the fact that the political arena has always been an illegitimate space for expressing it.

Sorek (Ph.D. Hebrew University 2002) is Assistant Professor of Israel Studies at the Center for Jewish Studies and the Sociology Department of the University of Florida. His dissertation Arab Soccer in a Jewish State will be published in March by Cambridge University Press. His first book, Israel Refuseniks was published in France by Agnes Vienot (2003).

  • Co-sponsored by the Center for Jewish Studies, UF, the Endowment Fund of the Jewish Federation of Volusia/Flagler County.
  • See the brochure for this event

Olivia Remie Constable (University of Notre Dame), "Muslims, Christians, Jews, and Chess: Gaming and Courtly Culture in Medieval Spain". Thursday, January 18th, 4:30pm, Smathers Library, Conference Room West, 212.
The Libro de Ajedrez (Book of Chess) is a lavishly illustrated manuscript produced at the court of Alfonso X of Castile in the thirteenth century. It not only contains a fascinating variety of pictures of people playing chess (Muslims, Christians, and Jews; men and women; adults and children), but it also contains allusions to many other facets of medieval courtly life, including contemporary tastes in literature, music, and sport. Constable uses this manuscript to examine social relations between Christians, Muslims, and Jews in the medieval court of Castile.

  • Sponsored by the Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere.
    Co-sponsored by the Center for Jewish Studies, Center for European Studies, Department of History, and the Alexander Grass Chair in Jewish Studies.
  • See the brochure for this event
2006

Motti Inbari, "The Disengagement as a Religious Dilemma." Sunday, December 10th, 2:00pm, Museum of Arts and Sciences, Daytona Beach, FL.
Jewish existence is encapsulated in two opposing rabbinical perceptions-Exile and Redemption. Although Zionism represents to some degree the fulfillment of end-of-time prophesies, the state of Israel does not obey religious law which creates a dilemma for religious authorities: Is Israel a continuation of Exile or the beginning of Redemption? If the state of Israel is the first step in Redemption, how can it give back lands even as part of a peace settlement?

Motti Inbari (Ph.D. Hebrew University ) is the Schusterman Visiting Israel Scholar, Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Florida. He is currently revising his dissertation King, Sanhedrin and Temple: Contemporary Movements Seeking to Establish a "Torah State" and Rebuild the Third Temple 1984-2004. Inbari is the co-editor of "Who Is a Jew" in Our Days? Discussions on Jewish Identity (Tel Aviv: 2005) and The War of Gog and Magog: Messianism and Apocalypse in the Past and in Modern Times (Tel Aviv: 2001).

  • Co-sponsored by the Center for Jewish Studies, UF, the Endowment Fund of the Jewish Federation of Volusia/Flagler County.
  • See the brochure for this event

August 27th, September 10th, October 22nd, and November 5th
"Let's Talk About It!" 2006.
Please join us for a reading and discussion series like no other. Led by UF English professor Andrew Gordon, Let's Talk About It! Jewish Literature will feature lively discussion of five books on the common theme of A Mind of Her Own: Fathers and Daughters in a Changing World.

Daniel Boyarin, "Literary Fat Rabbis: The Rabbis & the Syriac Connection." Thursday, November 1st, 7:30pm, at Hillel.
Daniel Boyarin is the Hermann P. and Sophia Taubman Professor of Talmudic Culture for the Departments of Near Eastern Studies and Rhetoric, University of California at Berkeley. Professor Boyarin is the author of Unheroic Conduct: The Rise of Heterosexuality and the Invention of the Jewish Man (1997), Dying for God: Martyrdom and the Making of Christianity and Judaism (1999), and Border Lines: The Partition of Judaeo-Christianity (2004).

  • The Alexander Grass Distinguished Lecture in Jewish Studies
  • See the postcard for this event

Mitchell Hart, "The Pathological Circle: Zionism and the 'Health' of European Jewry." Sunday, October 29th, 2:00pm, Museum of Arts and Sciences, Daytona Beach, FL.
European Zionists relied heavily on language and imagery drawn from medicine. Many early Zionists, such as Leo Pinsker and Max Nordau, were in fact physicians, and many others had at least studied medicine at university. Their analyses of Jewish life in the Diaspora was often cast as a prognosis of a sick and dying patient, with Zionism cast as the cure. Moreover, the Land of Israel itself was described in terms of health and disease, and Zionism represented as a cure for current ailments. Thus, for Zionists in the pre-State period, Jews and Palestine were diseased and degenerate, in need of revitalization and regeneration that could only come through the nationalism. In presenting their case Zionists reproduced much of the antisemitic language and imagery about Jews circulating at the time. An exploration of the connections between Zionism, health, and medicine thus offers an opportunity to illuminate a key component of early Zionist thought, and examine some of the profound continuities and discontinuites between Jewish and European thought during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Hart is Associate Professor of History and holds the Alexander Grass Eminent Scholar Chair in Jewish Studies. He is the author of Social Science and the Politics of Modern Jewish Identity, (Stanford U. Press, 2000), and the forthcoming book, The Healthy Jew: The Symbiosis of Judaism and Modern Medicine (Cambridge University Press).

  • Co-sponsored by the Center for Jewish Studies, UF, the Endowment Fund of the Jewish Federation of Volusia/Flagler County.

Motti Inbari, "Gush Emunim's Rabbinic Responses to the Disengagement", Wednesday, October 25th.
In August 2005, Israel vacated the Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip - mainly in Gush Katif - as well as four settlements in northern Samaria. This action, known as the "Disengagement," constituted a profound crisis for a significant section of the Israeli population that is most closely identified with religious Zionism and with the settlement movement in the Territories. The crisis was not only on the national level, as the state destroyed communities that it had established and nurtured for decades, but also on the community level, as thousands of people were removed from their homes. The Disengagement also caused a religious crisis, testing the very foundation of the beliefs that had guided the political and religious behavior of this section of the population.

The talk addresses the theological dilemmas raised by Israel's withdrawal plan and reveals a widening fault line within the dominant school of Mercaz Harav Yeshiva–one of the most important educational institutions of modern religious Zionism–regarding the question of the status and religious significance of a Zionist state in light of a volatile reality. The talk examines how a group of Zionist rabbis in response to profound disillusionment with the behavior of the state, moved towards a religious radicalization as a way of coping with their feelings of religious and messianic failure.

  • This event is for faculty and graduate students only.

"'Who?' or 'What?'—Jacques Derrida" A conference to celebrate the legacy of Jacques Derrida, October 9-11, University of Florida, Gainesville.

  • Click here for program schedule.

Galili Shahar, "The Language of Allegory: Yiddish in the Thought of Rosenzweig, Kafka, & Freud." Thursday, October 5th, 7:30pm, at Hillel.
Galili Shahar joins UF's Department of German and Slavic Studies in January. He had been a lecturer at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and is spending the coming Fall semester in Berlin on an Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship at the Free University. Shahar is the author of Verkleidungen der Auklarung: Narrenspiele und Weltanschauung in der Goethezeit (2005). His forthcoming works include Denkspiele im deutsch-judischen Diskurs der Moderne and Kafka's Wound.

  • Made possible by the Gary Gerson Lecture Series in Jewish Studies
  • See the postcard for this event

Gwynn Kessler, "Before I Formed You in the Belly, I Knew You: Jacob & Esau in the Womb." Thursday, September 28th, 7:30pm, at Hillel.
Gwynn Kessler received a Ph.D. in Rabbinics, with a specialization in Midrash from the Jewish Theological Seminary (May 2001). Her dissertation, The God Of Small Things: The Fetus and Its Development in Palestinian Aggadic Literature, is under review for publication. Her current research uses feminist and queer theories to interpret (and critique) rabbinic constructions of gender and the body.

Gwynn Kessler is Assistant Professor of Religion and has a Ph.D. in Jewish Theological Seminary. Her current research uses feminist and queer theories to interpret (and critique) rabbinic constructions of gender and the body. In addition to teaching courses on rabbinic literature, gender and the Hebrew Bible, and Introduction to Judaism, she teaches a course on GLBTQ Jews and Judaism and a course on biblical and rabbinic constructions of God's gender.

  • Made possible by the Gary Gerson Lecture Series in Jewish Studies
  • See the postcard for this event

Sharon DiFino, "After Glikl: Jewish Women Writers in Germany and the Netherlands from the 18th Century to WWII", Thursday, September 21st.
Professor Difino will discuss her book project on European Jewish Intellectual Life which focuses mainly on Jewish women writers and activists in Berlin and Amsterdam from the late 18th century up until WWII.

Sharon M. DiFino is an Associate Professor of Germanic Studies in the Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies. Her research interests include language acquisition and pedagogy as well as cultural and literary history of Germany and the Netherlands.

  • This event is for faculty and graduate students only.

"Let's Talk About IT!" 2006.

Summer Holocaust Institute for Florida Teachers, June 12th-16th, University of Florida.
The Summer Holocaust Institute for Florida Teachers (SHIFT) is designed to enable classroom teachers to effectively incorporate the Holocaust into their teaching. SHIFT will: Provide participants with a background on the history of the Holocaust as well as its aftermath; help teachers present sensitive and potentially disturbing material to students; familiarize teachers with the vast number of resource materials (books, films, Web sites, etc.) available on the Holocaust; Instruct teachers on designing and implementing curriculum and lesson plans that place the Holocaust in the context of tolerance, multiculturalism, morality and civic education; show teachers how to make the Holocaust relevant to the lives of their students.

Dr. Simone Schweber, "Fundamental Funnels: How Christians & Jews Teach the Holocaust," Thursay, June 15th at 7:30pm, Hillel.*
Schweber is a Goodman Professor of Education and Jewish Studies at University of Wisconsin, Madison. She is currently a Fellow of the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. She is studying how fundamentalist religious schools teach about the Holocaust and what students in them believe. In particular, she is comparing how the Holocaust is taught in the U.S. in both an evangelical Christian School and an ultra-orthodox Jewish yeshivah, examining how each construct the history of the Holocaust and the role that religion plays in such teaching. Simone Schweber holds a Ph.D in Education from Stanford University, and is the author of Making Sense of the Holocaust: Lessons from Classroom Practice, (Teacher College Press, 2004) which studies teaching and learning about the Holocaust in public high school classrooms.

Nina Caputo, "The Barcelona Disputation: An Event of No Significance?", Sunday, April 23rd, 2:00pm, Museum of Arts and Sciences, Daytona Beach, FL.
Nina Caputo is Assistant Professor of History and Jewish Studies at the University of Florida. Dr. Caputo recieved a Ph.D from the University of California, Berkeley and was a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania. She recently completed a monograph titled "At the Threshold of Redemption: Time and Community in medievel Jewish Aragon." Dr. Caputo's work focuses on Medieval Jewish cultural and intellectual history.

Peter Hayes, "German Corporate Complicity in the Holocaust: From Aryanization to Auschwitz" Thursday, April 6th, 7:30pm Reitz Union, Room 282.
Peter Hayes is the Theodore Z. Weiss Professor of Holocaust Studies at Northwestern University. He specializes in the history of Germany in the 20th century, particularly the Nazi period. He is the author or editor of seven books, including From Cooperation to Complicity: Degussa in the Third Reich (2004) and a prize-winning study of the IG Farben corporation in the Nazi era. He is currently working on two other books: Profits and Persecution: German Big Business and the Holocaust and The Failure of a Generation: German Elites and National Socialism. A recipient of the WCAS Distinguished Teaching Award and the Northwestern Alumni Association's Excellence in Education Award, he has also held fellowships from the DAAD, the ACLS, and the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation. He is a member of the Academic Board of the German Society for Business History and of the Academic Committee of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council.

click to see the postcard for this event

Samuel Weber,"Parting With--Mediality In the Early Work of Walter Benjamin", Thursday, March 23rd, 2:00pm, 219 Dauer.
Professor Weber is one of the foremost contemporary thinkers in the field of mass-media, philosophy and psychoanalysis. He teaches in the German Department at Northwestern University where he holds the title of Avalon Foundation Professor of Humanities.

  • *sponsored by Department of English, France-Florida Research Institute, Center for Jewish Studies, Department of Germanic & Slavic Studies

Eric Meyers,"Excavations at the Ancient Synagogue Site of Nabratein in Israel: New Evidence for the Chronology and Typology of the Synagogue" Thursday, March 23rd, 7:30pm Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art.*
Dr. Meyers is the Bernice and Morton Lerner Professor of Judaic Studies and the director of the graduate program in religion at Duke University. He has authored or co-authored nine books, edited many others and published widely in the fields of Hebrew Bible, biblical archaeology and Second Temple Judaism.

  • *co-sponsored by the Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art.

click to see the postcard for this event

Benjamin Frommer,"People's Courts and Popular Justice: The Punishment of "Nazis, Traitors and Their Accomplices" In Postwar Czechoslovakia" Wednesday, March 8th, 3:00pm 215 Dauer Hall.
Benjamin Frommer (Professor of History, Northwestern University) specializes in the history of East-Central Europe, with a focus on the periods of Nazi and Communist rule. He is primarily interested in collaboration and resistance under repressive regimes, the use of courts for political ends, the consequences of ethnic cleansing, and the development of modern nationalism. Frommer is the author of National Cleansing: Retribution against Nazi Collaborators in Postwar Czechoslovakia (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005).

  • *co-sponsored by the Center for European Studies & the Department of Germanic & Slavic Studies.

Steven Zipperstein, "On Leaving 'Darkest Russia': Recollecting Jewish Mass Migration at the Turn of the 20th Century" Inaugural Grass Chair Annual Distinguished Lecture, Thursday, March 2nd, 7:30pm Reitz Union, Room 282.
Steven Zipperstein is a Daniel E. Koshland Professor in Jewish Culture & History at Stanford University. He is the author and editor of six books, and he writes often for newspapers including New York Times, Washington Post, and elsewhere. His books have won many awards, including the National Jewish Book Award, and the Smilen Prize. He has won the Judah L. Magnes Gold Medal from the American Friends of the Hebrew University, and for seven years he served as Chair of the Koret Jewish Book Awards.

Tony Michels,"New York's Jewish Revolution: the Rise of Yiddish Socialism in America" Thursday February 16th, 7:30pm Reitz Union, Room 282.
Tony Michels is the George L. Mosse Associate Professor of American Jewish History at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He is also the author of A Fire in Their Hearts: Yiddish Socialists in New York in which he examines the defining role of the Yiddish socialist movement in the American Jewish experience.

Gwynn Kessler, "Famous Fetuses in Rabbinic Narratives: Where Does Jewishness Begin?" Sunday February 12, 2:00pm Museum of Arts and Sciences, Daytona Beach.
Gwynn Kessler received a Ph.D. in Rabbinics from the Jewish Theological Seminary. She is currently completing a monograph titled Conceiving Israel: The Fetus in Rabbinic Narratives. Dr. Kessler's research uses feminist and queer theory to interpret rabbinic constructions of gender and the body.

Long before ultrasound imaging enabled people to visualize the fetus developing in the womb, the rabbis of antiquity used their imagination to peer into women's bellies. What they saw was a living, thinking, sometimes speaking, (little) person who was created and cared for by God. Tracing the motif of the fetus as it develops in rabbinic traditions from 3rd through 10th century C.E., and focusing specifically on what the rabbis said about biblical heroes in the womb, the talk suggests that the rabbis located the beginning of Jewishness already in the mother's womb.

Noah Isenberg,"Fishke Out of Water: Edgar G. Ulmer's Cycle of Yiddish Films" Thursday January 19th, 6:30pm The Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art.
Noah Isenberg is chair of humanities at the New School and, during the fall of 2005, a visiting associate professor of German at the University of Pennsylvania. His books include Between Redemption and Doom: The Strains of German-Jewish Modernism (Nebraska).

2005

Jack Kugelmass, "Poland 1946: First Encounters With Survivors" Sunday Dec 11, 2:00pm Museum of Arts and Sciences, Daytona Beach.
Jack Kugelmass is Melton Legislative Professor and Director of the Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Florida. His books include The Miracle of Intervale Avenue: The Story of a Jewish Congregation in the South Bronx and From A Ruined Garden: The Memorial Books of Polish Jewry. He is currently working on a book of translations from Yiddish journalists writing about post-war Poland.

James Shapiro, "The Jew's Daughter" Thursday, October 20, 7:30pm at Hillel.
James Shepiro recieved a B.A. from Columbia University and a Ph.D from the University of Chicago. After teaching at Darmouth College amd Goucher College, he joined the faculty at Columbia University in 1985, where he is Professor of English and Comparative Literature. He is the author of Rival Playwrights: Marlowe, Jonson, Shakespeare (1991), Shakespeare and the Jews (1996), and Oberammergau: The Troubling Story of the World's Most Famous Passion Play (2000) which New York Times Book Review selected as one of the "notable books" of 2000. He has also been awarded the Hoffman Prize for Distinguished Scholarship on Marlowe and the Bainton Prize for best book on sixteenth-century literature. His most recent book A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare: 1599--has just been published by HarperCollins.

  • The Jewish Council of North Central Florida Lecture.

Leah Hochman, "Reading Faces, Reading Souls: Jews, Lavater and Physiognomy in Modern Europe" Thursday Sept 29, 7:30pm, Turlington Room 2319.
leah Hochman is Assistant Professor of Religion and Jewish studies at the University of Florida in Gainesville. After completing her doctorate in religion and literature at Boston University, she began researching the correlations between philosophical aesthetics and the debate on the emancipation of the Jews as a DAAD Fellow at the Moses Mendelssohn Zentrum in Potsdam, Germany. Her current project deals with the concepts of the ugly and ugliness in 18th- and 19th-century European thought and their relationship to social policy making in the late Enlightenment. She has been a Dubnow-Einstein Fellow (Einstein Forum, Potsdam and Simon-Dubnow Institute, Leipzig) and a Skirball Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies (Oxford University, UK).

Dr. Gad Barzilai, "Communities, Law, and Politics of Rights: Israel and other Nation States Revisited." Wednesday April 6, 7:30pm Reitz Union, Room 282.
Gad Barzilai is Visiting Professor of Political Science and Law at University of Washington in the Comparative Law and Society Studies Center and the Jackson School of International Studies. He is a tenured Professor at Tel Aviv University, where he teaches both in the department of political science and the law school, and is the co-director of the inter- disciplinary law, politics, and society program. His recent prize-winning book Communities and Law: Politics and Cultures of Legal Identities, centers on legal cultures and non- ruling communities (minorities)

Dr. Hasia Diner, "Out of the Kitchen and Into History: Food, Migration, and American Jewish History," Thursday March 24, 7:30pm Reitz Union, Rm 282.
Hasia Diner is the Paul S. and Sylvia Steinberg Professor in American Jewish History at New York University, in the Department of History and the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies. One of the leading specialists in the history of American Jews, Professor Diner is also an accomplished historian of Irish Americans, African Americans and Italian Americans and has written about many of these groups in comparative context.

  • The Jewish Council of North Central Florida Lecture.

Dr. Jack Kugelmass, "Poland 1946: Impressions From Journeys" Tuesday, March 29, 7:30 p.m.
Jack Kugelmass has been named the Melton Professor of Jewish Studies and the director of the Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Florida. Prior to that appointment, he has been the Irving and Miriam Lowe Professor of Holocaust and Jewish Studies and Director of the Jewish Studies Program at Arizona State University. As an anthropologist, Kugelmass has written on such diverse topics as the public culture of American Jews and Jewish humor in the United States. His recent books include Key Texts in American Jewish Culture and From a Ruined Garden: The Memorial Books of Polish Jewry. He is currently completing a book on American Jews and sports.

At the end of World War II, Jewish communities throughout the world were concerned not only with the plight of European Jewish refugees but also with what still remained of the Old Country. Representatives of various organizations, journalists and community activists traveled through parts of Poland during the initial post-war years and published their accounts in the Yiddish press and subsequently as books. The lecture examines how the conventions of the travelog influenced what should be considered one of the early genres of Shoah literature, and how journalists mediated the emerging narrative about the Shoah for a broad Jewish public.

Dr. Stephen Whitfield, "The Southern Jewish Experience." Thursday March 10, 7:30pm Reitz Union, Room 282.
Stephen Whitfield holds the Max Richter Chair in American Civilization at Brandeis University. A specialist in twentieth-century American politics and culture, he is also one of the leading scholars of the culture and politics of American Jews. He has written about the Americanization of the Holocaust, Black-Jewish relations, Jews in the American South, and American Jews in the creative arts. His eight books include American Space, Jewish Time; Voices of Jacob, Hands of Esau: Jews in American Life and Thought; and In Search of American Jewish Culture.

Dr. Avraham Balaban, "Mourning a Father Lost." Thursday Feb 17, 7:30pm Reitz Union, Room 282.
Avraham Balaban is a professor of modern Hebrew literature at the University of Florida where he has taught since 1989. A student of Hebrew fiction of the second half of the twentieth century, he has published books on the Israeli writers Amos Oz, A.B. Yehoshua, and Amalia Kahana-Carmon, among others. At the University of Florida, he teaches courses on subjects such as women in Hebrew literature, modern Hebrew poetry, and post-modernist trends in contemporary Israeli fiction. He will read from his memoir about life on the kibbutz.

  • *co-sponsored by the Department of History.

With the liberation of Europe Jews throughout the world were eager for information about the situation of surviving Jews. As the largest Jewish community in pre-war Europe Poland was of particular concern and dozens of journalists traveled thee to write about the prospects for Jewish renewal. The articles they published largely in the Yiddish press are among the earliest accounts we have of the Holocaust and its aftermath.

Dr. Howard Rothman, "Tunes Through The Times: Does Anyone Know How To Describe Jewish Music?" Sunday, February 13, 7:30 p.m.
Howard Rothman is a professor in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders and a member of the University of Florida's Institute for the Advanced Study of the Communication Processes as well as an affiliate of the Center for Jewish Studies. A specialist in the acoustic aspects of speech and singing voice, he has published articles on synagogue music and the cantorial voice. He teaches a course on Jewish Music at UF.

Music is mentioned in the early chapters of Genesis and flourished in Temple times. After the destruction of the Temple, the Rabbis forbade the use of music and the Jews were dispersed throughout the world. Wherever they lived, Jews adapted to the culture and customs of the societies in which they lived. This suggests that there is no homogeneous Jewish music. But, is there? During this evening, we'll explore some of these issues and listen to examples of different kinds of Jewish music.

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2004

Ami Pedahzur, "The Culture of Death: Terrorist Organizations and Suicide Bombings." Thursday, December 2, 7:30pm Reitz Union , Room 362.
Over the last three decades, suicide terrorism has emerged as a political strategy in different parts of the world. Israel and its allies, the United States in particular, have often been targeted. Pedahzur, a senior lecturer at the University of Haifa and deputy director of its National Security Studies Center, argues that the phenomenon cannot be explained by the prevalence of "holy war" thinking in certain religions. Rather he argues, terrorist organizations follow strategic imperatives in decisions to embrace or repudiate a "culture of death." One of the prominent figures in the comparative study of political extremism and terrorism, Pedahzur is spending the 2004-2005 academic year at the University of Texas with the Harrington Visiting Faculty Fellowship.

Eilat Negev, The Harry Rich Lecture in Holocaust Studies, "The Seven Dwarfs of Auschwitz." Tuesday, November 16, 7:30pm Computer Science Enginieering Building , Room E121.
Based on Eilat Negev and Yehuda Koren's book, In Our Hearts We Were Giants (Carroll & Graf, 2004), The Seven Dwarfs of Auschwitz is a heart-wrenching and at times almost unbelievable account of a family of Jewish dwarfs from Transylvania -
a family who struggled in life and cheated death. The Lilliput Troupe, seven Jewish dwarf siblings, had their own traveling theatre before WWII, and survived Dr. Mengele's experiments. Theirs is a true story of survival and hope - the weakest of the weak overcame all odds.

Dr. Benjamin Hary, "The Languages of the Jews" Monday, April 12th, 7:30p.m., Reitz Union, Room 346
Benjamin Hary of Emory University, holds a Ph.D in Near Eastern Studies from the University of California at Berkeley. His research examines the intersection of Judaism with Arab culture and Islam. Dr. Hary has published numberous studies of the nature of Judeo-Arabic, the language of the Jews in Arab lands. His current work explores the literal translations of Jewish sacred religious texts from Hebrew into Judeo-Arabic, demonstrating how the translations influenced and were influenced by Jewish identity and historical memory in Arab lands.

Dr. Michael Walzer "What Can We Learn from the Jewish Political Tradition?" Wednesday, March 17, 7:30pm Rinker Hall, Room 110.
One of America's foremost public intellectuals, Michael Walzer has written about a wide variety of topics in political theory and moral philosophy: political obligation, just and unjust war, nationalism and ethnicity, economic justice and the welfare state. He has played a part in the revival of a practical, issue focused ethics and in the development of a pluralist approach to political and moral life. He is currently working on the toleration and accommodation of "difference" in all its forms and also on a (collaborative) project on the history of Jewish political thought.

  • *co-sponsored by UF Dept of Political Science and Center for Humanities in the Public Sphere

Joshua M. Greene "Justice at Dachau" Tuesday, March 2, 7:30p.m., Reitz Union, Room 362.
Writer/producer Joshua M. Greene has been described by the New York Times as "a storyteller in film and video" whose books and documentaries have been translated and broadcast in more than twenty countries. His most recent work, "Justice at Dachau" documents the true story of William Denson, the US Army lawyer assigned to prosecute hundreds of Nazi guards, officers and "doctors" who served on the front lines of brutality at Dachau, Mauthausen, Flossenburg, and Buchenwald. Mr. Greene has also produced and directed the award winning documentary film Witness: Voices of the Holocaust (2000) as well as many other films for television broadcast on networks world-wide including PBS and The Disney Channel.

  • *co-sponsored by UF College of Law

Dr. Arthur Green, "Judaism in an Environmental Age: A Kabbalah for the Future." Monday, February 16, 7:00p.m. Emerson Alumni Hall.
Arthur Green, one of the world's preeminent authorities on Jewish spirituality and Jewish thought, is Dean of Hebrew College's new transdenominational rabbinical school. Green divides his time between Hebrew College and Brandeis University where he is the Philip W. Lown Professor of Jewish Thought. Green has written several books, including Tormented Master: A Life of Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav; Seek My Face, Speak My Name: A Contemporary Jewish Theology; These are the Words: A Vocabulary of Jewish Spiritual Life and most recently, Ehyeh: A Kabbalah for Tomorrow.

  • *co-sponsored by the Department of History

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2003

Oded Balaban- "Integration and Isolation: Two Kinds of Peace in the Middle East" Wednesday, November 19, 7:30 p.m., Reitz Union, Room 282.
Oded Balaban is Associate Professor of Philosophy and director of the Honors Program at Haifa University in Israel. He specializes in the theory of knowledge and writes about the presuppositions of thought in various fields. He is the author of four books, numerous articles and chapters, and contributes to Israeli public debate through public lectures and columns in newspapers. A native of Argentina, he immigrated to Israel in 1967. This event is sponsored by the Morris and Miriam Futernick Professorship in Jewish Studies.

Kay Shelemay, "Hearing Silent Voices: Women in the Syrian Jewish Musical Tradition." Thursday, October 9, 7:30 PM, Emerson Alumni Hall.
Shelemy is the G. Gordon Watts Professor of Music at Harvard University. An ethnomusicologist with specializations in musics of Africa, the Middle East, and urban United States, she received her Ph.D. in Musicology from the University of Michigan. A Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and past President of the Society for Ethnomusicology, she is currently Chair of the Board of Trustees of the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. Recent publications include Let Jasmine Rain Down: Song and Remembrance Among Syrian Jews (1998) and Soundscapes: Exploring Music in a Changing World (2001).

  • *co-sponsored by the Center for World Music.

Frederic Raphael, "The Benefits of Doubt." Thursday, October 2, 7:30p.m., Florida Musuem of Natural History, Powell Hall.
Frederic Raphael is the author of more than 20 novels, countless essays and translations, and scripts for television, the stage, and cinema. His screenplays include Darling, Far from the Madding Crowd, Two for the Road, and Eyes Wide Shut. American born, he moved to England with his family at the age of seven. His latest book, A Spoilt Boy: A Memoir of a Childhood, recounts his youth in England and the impact of his Jewishness on his status in British society. Raphael was educated at Charterhouse and St. John's College, Cambridge.

Dr. Menachem Hofnung, "The Middle East After the Israeli Elections." Thursday, April 3, 7:30 p.m. Reitz Union, Room 282.
Dr. Hofnung is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Political Science, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Hofnung has done extensive research on constitutional politics, campaign finance and national security in Israel. He is the author of Democracy, Law and National Security in Israel (Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.).

Max Kozloff, "Jewish Photography of 20th Century New York." Thursday, March 6, 6:00 p.m. Harn Musuem.
Kozloff, an acclaimed art critic and former executive of Artforum, has published widely on twentieth-century art and photography. His work, New York: Capital of Photography, examines how photographers imbued by a Jewish sensibility chronicled New York throughout the 20th century.

Dr. Don Seeman, "AIDS, Blood, and the Nation: Ethiopians, Israelis and Palestinians." Thursday, February 27, 7:30p.m. Reitz Union, Room 282.
Dr. Seeman is Lecturer at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He completed his PhD in anthropology at Harvard in 1997 and was an NIMH postdoctoral fellow 1997-1998. His research interests include Medical Anthropology. Etihiopian-Israelis, Anthropological Approaches to Hebrew Bible, Judaism and Hasidism, and Violence and Extremism in Israel.

Dr. Ruth Kluger. "Landscapes of Memory: 'Reading and Discussion from her book Still Alive: A Holocaust Girlhood Remembered." Thursday, January 16, 7:30p.m. Reitz Union, 282.
Dr. Kluger is Professor Emerita at University of California-Irvine and was the first woman to chair the German Department at Princeton University. She is a frequent visiting scholar and instructor in Germany. Kluger is the author of Still Alive, which chronicles her journey and remembrances of the Holocaust.Still Alive has been hailed as a literary classic that changed the way Germans consider the Holocaust.

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2002

Mr. Sandi DuBowski, Discussion following showing of the film Trembling Before G_d. Wednesday, November 6, 7:30 p.m., New Engineering Bldg, Room 100.
Mr. Dubowski is Director/Producer of Trembling Before G_d, an unprecedented feature documentary that shatters assumptions about faith, sexuality, and religious fundamentalism. Built around intimately-told personal stories of Hasidic and Orthodox Jews who are gay or lesbian, the film portrays a group of people who face a profound dilemma - how to reconcile their passionate love of Judaism and the Divine with the drastic Biblical prohibitions that forbid homosexuality.

Michael Galchinsky, "Jews and Human Rights: The Limits of Cosmopolitanism." Monday, October 14, 12:00 noon Dauer Hall, Room 219.
Professor Galchinsky is from the Department of English at Georgia State University.

Judith Page, Ph.D. "Reinventing Shylock: Romanticism and the Representation of Shakespeare's Jews." Thursday, October 10, 7:30p.m., Reitz Union, Room 282.
Dr. Page, from the English Department here at UF, received her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago and taught at Millsaps College before coming here in 2000. She has received a Skirball Fellowship at the Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies at Oxford University for the Spring 2003 where she will lecture and continue work on her upcoming book entitled Imperfect Sympathies: British Romanticism, Jews, and Judaism.

Joel Migdal, "What Went Right and What Went Wrong in the Palestinian-Israeli Peace Process."
Dr. Migdal is the Robert F. Phillip Professor of International Studies in the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies Program at the University of Washington. He was the founding chair of the International Studies Program there, one of the first such programs in the country. He specializes in the field of comparative politics and the Middle East. His latest books are "Palestinians: The Making of a People" (The Free Press); "Rules and Rights in the Middle East: Democracy, Law, and Society" (U. of Washington Press); and "State Power and Social Forces: Domination and Transformation in the Third World" (Cambridge Univ.Press).

  • The Arthur & Violette Kahn Lecture

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