Tuesday, October 7, 2014
314 ROYCE HALL • 4 PM
UCLA Center for Jewish Studies Open House
Learn about the Center’s projects and programs and find out about Jewish studies classes. Meet our majors, minors, faculty, and alumni. Open to the public.
306 ROYCE HALL • 12 PM
306 ROYCE HALL • 12 PM
Maurice Amado Seminar in Sephardic Studies
Ladino’s Controversial History Olga Borovaya (Stanford) For more than a century, everything related to the history and use of Ladino (Judeo-Spanish) has been a matter of disagreement among scholars. In this talk on the Ibero-Romance language used by Sephardi Jews in the Balkans and the eastern Mediterranean in the 16th through mid-20th centuries, Borovaya will offer a history of the Sephardi vernacular and elucidate some of the myths and misconceptions surrounding the language. Sponsored by the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies Cosponsored by the UCLA Department of History UCLA Viterbi Program in Mediterranean Jewish Studies
Book Launch
How to Accept German Reparations
It Did Happen Here: Anti-Nazi Activism in Los Angeles
The original “A Bintel Brief” (“A Bundle of Letters”) was an advice column for Jews fresh off the boat in The Jewish Daily Forward, a.k.a. The Forverts, a feature regarded by many as the prototype for “Dear Abby.” This seminar will discuss Liana Finck’s new, widely acclaimed graphic novel, A Bintel Brief: Love and Longing in Old New York (Ecco, 2014), which brings a selection of these letters to life and includes an imaginative conversation with the paper’s editor, Abraham Cahan. Sponsored by the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies Cosponsored by the UCLA Department of Germanic Languages Forward HarperCollins
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2014
Transforming 20 Century Culture into 21st Century Idioms: Israeli Art and the Work of Marc Chagall
Sponsored by the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies Cosponsored by the UCLA Department of Anthropology’s “Culture, Power, Social Change” Group
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2014
UCLA HILLEL • 7 PM
It Started in Sighet Photography by Louis Davidson This amazing exhibit presents a sample of the more than 300 synagogues documented in 360° virtual reality at www.Synagogues360.org. The project began with a visit to Sighet, Romania in 2003 by architect-photographer, Louis Davidson, and his wife Ronnie. Seeing that magnificent relics of their Jewish heritage were deteriorating after the Holocaust and dwindling Jewish population, the Davidsons decided to photographically preserve European synagogues for posterity. The project soon expanded globally and now represents buildings in 36 countries. Sponsored by UCLA Hillel Cosponsored by the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies For more information and to RSVP visit www.uclahillel.org
11360 CHARLES E. YOUNG RESEARCH LIBRARY • 4 PM
Book Launch
HyperCities: Thick Mapping in the Digital Humanities HyperCities: Thick Mapping in the Digital Humanities describes the ethics of mapping the past and present. The authors examine the time-layers of Jewish Berlin, the media archaeology of Google Earth, the cultural–historical meaning of map projections, and explore recent events—such as the “Arab Spring” and the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster—through social media mapping that incorporates data visualizations, photographic documents, and Twitter streams. http://thebook.hypercities.com Sponsored by the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies Cosponsored by the UCLA Digital Humanities Program UCLA Institute for Digital Research and Education UCLA Library UCLA Department of Comparative Literature UCLA Department of Germanic Languages
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2014
Democratic and Jewish? Religion and State in Israel Today Yuval Sinai (Bar-Ilan University/ Yale) Sinai will explore the way Judaism, as a religion and culture, and its legal tradition–the halakhah–is incorporated into the secular legal system of the state of Israel and, more broadly, the role of Judaism and Jewish values in Israel. Whereas most other ancient legal systems are no longer relevant, Jewish law continues to have great vitality and adaptability, allowing it to contribute to the solution of contemporary legal problems. Sponsored by the UCLA Younes & Soraya Nazarian Center for Israel Studies Cosponsored by the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies For more information contact mkresnick@international.ucla.edu
Twenty years ago, the International Auschwitz Council confronted this harsh reality: the ravages of time were devouring every barrack, building, shoe and suitcase remaining from the twisted world that was Auschwitz-Birkenau under the Nazis. Join Piotr Cywiński, a historian with a background in inter-religious dialogue, for a stimulating and provocative presentation of how the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial Museum, a pilgrimage destination for 1.5 million annual visitors from around the world, functions in contemporary Poland, and what is needed to maintain it. Sponsored by UCLA Center for Jewish Studies UCLA Hillel Cosponsored by the UCLA Department of History
International Workshop on the Digital Geniza
Languages of Everyday Writing in the Medieval Islamic World: History, Methodology, Digital Prospects
306 ROYCE HALL
In conjunction with the workshop, Marnina Rustow (Johns Hopkins) will give a public talk on her research on the medieval Jews of the Fatimid Caliphate using documentary texts from the Cairo Geniza. Sponsored by the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies Cosponsored by the UCLA Maurice Amado Program in Sephardic Studies UCLA Viterbi Program in Mediterranean Jewish Studies UCLA History Department UCLA Center for Medieval & Renaissance Studies
TUESDAY, JANUARY 13, 2015
The Book of Genesis in the Western Imagination
Was Ancient Israel a Patriarchal Society? Carol Meyers (Duke)
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2015
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 28, 2015
TBA • 6PM
Viterbi Lecture in Mediterranean Jewish Studies
THURSDAY, JANUARY 15, 2015
Fabrizio Lelli (University of Lecce, Italy) At the end of WWII, more than 250,000 Jewish refugees lived in DP camps in Germany, Austria and Italy which were set up under the aegis of the UN and the Allied Forces, with the support of international Jewish organizations. Since 2000, Fabrizio Lelli has been collecting documents and personal testimonies from former refugees in the Apulia region of southern Italy. Traumatized, unable or unwilling to return to their former homes, many were stuck in a Mediterranean limbo, trying to recover from the war but without knowing where they would—or could—go next. Sponsored by the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies Italian Cultural Institute Cosponsored by the UCLA Department of Italian
Jewish Life in Germany Today
314 ROYCE HALL • 4PM
Sponsored by UCLA Hillel Cosponsored by the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies With the generous support of E. Randol Schoenberg For more information and to RSVP visit www.uclahillel.org
Alan Mintz (JTS) During the fifteen years before his death in 1970, S. Y. Agnon wrote an epic cycle of stories about Buczacz, the Galician town in which he grew up. This project represents a unique response to the Holocaust and an unprecedented effort to re-imagine the inner life of Polish Jewry during its golden age. Sponsored by the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies Cosponsored by the UCLA Department of Comparative Literature With the generous support of Milt & Sheila Hyman
306 ROYCE HALL • 12PM
Bible and Its Interpreters Seminar Series
David’s Divided Heart Rabbi David Wolpe (Sinai Temple)
They Were Promised the Sea They Were Promised the Sea is an intimate journey shot in Morocco, Israel-Palestine, and New York about Arab Jews struggling with a hybrid identity. Kathy Wazana’s research into her family origins in Morocco unleashes a complex web of questions about dual identity, political opportunism, and the challenges faced by those torn between Homeland and Promised Land. Sponsored by the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies Cosponsored by the Maurice Amado Program in Sephardic Studies UCLA Department of History
Of all the figures in the Bible, David arguably stands out as the most perplexing and enigmatic. He was many things: a warrior who subdued Goliath and the Philistines; a king who united a nation; a poet who created beautiful, sensitive verse; a loyal servant of God who proposed the great Temple and founded the Messianic line; a schemer, deceiver, and adulterer. Rabbi Wolpe takes a fresh look at David in an attempt to find coherence in these contradictions. Sponsored by the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies Cosponsored by the UCLA Department of Near Eastern Languages & Cultures
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 2015
6275 BUNCHE HALL • 12PM
Book Launch 314 ROYCE HALL • 4PM
A play reading by 10 actors from Theater Dybbuk
Through photos, text, audio clips and videos, the exhibition explores the varied experiences of Jews living in modern Germany, including stories of survivors, entertainers, educators, journalists, business people, teenagers, entrepreneurs, and rabbis who are reshaping Jewish life.
Arnold Band Distinguished Lecture in Jewish Studies
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2015
A Dybbuk UCLA HILLEL • 7PM
314 ROYCE HALL • 4PM
The Late Agnon and the Re-Imagining of Galician Jewry
Jewish Refugees in Apulia
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2015
Sponsored by the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies Cosponsored by the UCLA Department of History UCLA Department of Germanic Languages
The answer to this question, surprisingly, is not an automatic “yes.” This presentation will examine the origins of this designation, which assumes a hierarchical male-dominated structure for Israelite society. Recent research using archaeological and ethnographic data in addition to biblical texts challenges the patriarchal-hierarchical model and proposes another one that may be more appropriate for the complexities of Israelite society. Sponsored by the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies Cosponsored by the UCLA Department of Near Eastern Languages & Cultures
Sponsored by the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies Cosponsored by the UCLA Department of Near Eastern Languages & Cultures
Kathy Wazana (Film Director), Alma Heckman (UCLA), Gil Hochberg (UCLA)
The Holocaust has not been taught in schools in Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Indeed, in recent years, some Holocaust revisionist history and even neo-Nazi ideology has been offered to university-level students. Holocaust, the first Farsi-language nonfiction work on the subject, describes the rise of Nazism in Germany to the final days of World War II in three volumes, featuring graphic photographs from the era as well as U.S. and European government documents. The fourth volume chronicles other 20th century genocides.
306 ROYCE HALL • 12PM
Bible and Its Interpreters Seminar Series
Film Screening 306 ROYCE HALL • 12 PM
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2015
Bible and Its Interpreters Seminar Series
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2015
Ari Babaknia (Author)
For the Good of Tomorrow, Preserve Yesterday 10383 BUNCHE HALL • 4:30 PM
314 ROYCE HALL
The Holocaust in Farsi
UCLA HILLEL • 7 PM
306 ROYCE HALL • 12PM
The book of Genesis has had a surprising and momentous life in Western culture, from its birth in the ancient Middle East to current controversies about sex and science. The ways that people read Genesis and the ways that they understand the world have long been intertwined. Hendel will explore some of these byways, including Genesis as apocalypse, allegory, mysticism, and literature.
The 1939 Society Seminar in Holocaust Studies
Dr. Piotr Cywiński (Director, Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum)
MONDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2014
DECEMBER 7-8, 2014
MONDAY, JANUARY 26, 2015
Ronald Hendel (UC Berkeley)
Anti-Nazi Parade in Los Angeles, CA, Nov. 22, 1938 UCLA Library, Department of Special Collections
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2014
Todd Presner (UCLA), David Shepard (UCLA), Yoh Kawano (UCLA)
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2014
Hitler’s ascent to power in Germany in 1933 gave rise to a wave of shocking, public displays of anti-Semitism in Los Angeles and the formation of several local fascist organizations, including the German American Bund. While some responded to these developments with indifference, Jewish residents actively mobilized their community, forming new organizations to combat both Hitler’s murderous campaign abroad and his local supporters. Historians Laura Rosenzweig and Caroline Luce will discuss their forthcoming digital exhibit on this little known chapter in Los Angeles history.
The Cairo Geniza consists of over 380,000 fragments of writing composed between 870 and 1896 CE. While most are biblical, Talmudic, and rabbinic texts, the Geniza’s 8,000-18,000 ‘documentary’ fragments offer a unique window on daily Jewish life. However, since the contracts, doctors’ prescriptions, shopping lists, and business letters are written in dialects of medieval vernacular Arabic in Hebrew characters, often interspersed with Hebrew and Aramaic, very few scholars have direct access to them. This academic workshop, intended by invitation for faculty and graduate students, is part of an effort to develop a research website to make these remarkable primary sources more accessible.
Sponsored by the California Institute for Yiddish Culture and Language UCLA Department of Germanic Languages Cosponsored by the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies For more information and to RSVP contact miriam@yiddishinstitute.org
ANNUAL CALENDAR OF EVENTS 2014 - 2015
Caroline Luce (UCLA), Laura Rosenzweig (San Francisco State)
314 ROYCE HALL • 4 PM
th
Center for Jewish Studies
CJS Cosponsored Event
Concurrent with the Skirball Cultural Center exhibition: Light & Noir: Exiles and Émigrés in Hollywood, 1933–1950 October 23, 2014–March 1, 2015
Sponsored by the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies Cosponsored by the UCLA Department of History
Susan Slyomovics (UCLA) In a landmark process after the Holocaust, Germany created the largest sustained redress program in history, amounting to more than $60 billion. When human rights violations are presented primarily in material terms, acknowledging an indemnity claim becomes one way for a victim to be recognized. At the same time, indemnifications provoke difficult questions about how suffering and loss can be measured. Slyomovics, daughter of a survivor, maintains that we can use the legacies of German reparations to reconsider approaches to reparations in the future.
CJS Event
A Bintel Brief: Love and Longing in Old New York
This talk will discuss how Chagall’s iconic representations of Jewish weddings, music, and theater have been reimagined to create an idiosyncratic new reality for Israeli art.
306 ROYCE HALL • 12 PM
314 ROYCE HALL • 4PM
Mapping Jewish Los Angeles Lecture
Anat Gilboa (UCLA)
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2014
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2014
Ross Seminar in Yiddish Studies
Liana Finck (Author)
Sponsored by the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2014
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2014
Telling the story of a bride possessed by the dislocated soul of a tormented former suitor, the original play by S. Ansky is a landmark work in the history of Jewish and Yiddish theatre. Filled with poetic language, passionate examples of desire and probing investigations of faith, this adaptation by Tony Kushner is a moving look at the choices we make, the beliefs we hold and the complexities inherent in human nature. Sponsored by the California Institute for Yiddish Culture and Language UCLA Department of Germanic Languages Cosponsored by the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies For more information and to RSVP contact miriam@yiddishinstitute.org
Interpreting the Family of Abraham: Political Uses and Abuses Carol Bakhos (UCLA), Diane Winston (USC) The term “Abrahamic religions” has gained considerable currency in both scholarly and ecumenical circles as a way of referring to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Bakhos steps back from this convention to ask a frequently overlooked question: What, in fact, is Abrahamic about these three faiths? Exploring diverse stories and interpretations relating to the portrayal of Abraham, she reveals how he is venerated in these different scriptural traditions and how scriptural narratives have been pressed into service for nonreligious purposes. Sponsored by the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies Cosponsored by the UCLA Department of Near Eastern Languages & Cultures UCLA Center for the Study of Religion
ADVANCE REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED. To RSVP: call (310) 267-5327 or email cjsrsvp@humnet.ucla.edu. Please note that events are subject to change without notice. For an up-to-date schedule, please visit www.cjs.ucla.edu
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2015
6275 BUNCHE HALL • 12PM
MARCH 8-9, 2015
314 ROYCE HALL
THURSDAY, APRIL 30, 2015
UCLA FACULTY CENTER • 4PM
TUESDAY, MAY 19, 2015
306 ROYCE HALL • 12PM
Maurice Amado Seminar in Sephardic Studies
Joy and Jerry Monkarsh Graduate Conference in Jewish Studies
The Sady and Ludwig Kahn Lecture in German Jewish Studies
Book Launch
When Jews Speak Arabic: Jewish Languages in Colonial Morocco
Thinking Beyond the Canon: New Themes and Approaches in Jewish Studies
Capital, Culture, and the City: German Jews and the Other Weimar Republic
The Faith of Fallen Jews: Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi and the Writing of Jewish History
Emily J. Levine (University of North Carolina, Greensboro) Berlin may have been the capital of Weimar, Germany, but Hamburg, the port city 200 miles northwest, emerged in interwar Germany as a unique setting for intellectual life. Through the interconnected lives of three German-Jewish scholars Aby Warburg, Ernst Cassirer, and Erwin Panofsky, Emily J. Levine tells the forgotten story of this commercial city’s transformation into a cultural center and the significant role that the city played for the German Jewish experience.
David N. Myers (UCLA)
Oren Kosansky (Lewis & Clark College) The Jews of Morocco have long used multiple languages, including Hebrew, Judeo-Spanish, Berber, and Arabic. Yet, the early twentieth century marked a significant language shift that captured the interest of the French colonial forces occupying Morocco from 1912—1956. Colonial linguists focused predominantly on Arabic as the language of a receding Moroccan Jewish past and French as the language of more promising future. This presentation considers how such studies represented Moroccan Jews of the time and how that research continues to inform the study of modern Judeo-Arabic today. Sponsored by the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2015
314 ROYCE HALL • 4PM
Folksongs of Modernity: A Judeo-Spanish Perspective
Convened by:
Jason Lustig (UCLA), Anat Mooreville (UCLA), Taly Ravid (UCLA) Modern Jewish studies emerged in 19th century Germany from the study of a distinct Jewish canon—the history and meaning of biblical and rabbinic literature—and Semitics, the study of the languages and literatures of the Ancient Near East. More recently, the research topics of Jewish studies scholars have broadened to the point that young scholars are asking if there is still a canon, a boundary line between what is and is not Jewish studies. Panels featuring graduate students from across the world will focus on newly discovered or understudied shapers of Jewish history and culture, and highlight those who approach Jewish studies research and teaching in innovative ways. Conference intended for faculty and graduate students by invitation only. Sponsored by the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies Cosponsored by the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles UCLA Department of History UCLA Department of English
THURSDAY, MARCH 12, 2015
Edwin Seroussi (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) Folksongs of modernity: is it an oxymoron? If tradition is all that preceded modernity and folksongs a characteristic feature of traditional societies, then how are folksongs still among us and why? Seroussi suggests that modern touristic excursions, pilgrimages and edifying fieldtrips to ruins’ sites are experiences analogous to the performance and modern consumption of folksongs. The sonic excursion, substitutes the spatial-visual experience of the tour for the museum or ruins’ park. “Modern” folksongs from the Ladino (Judeo-Spanish) repertoire will buttress these theoretical postulates. Sponsored by the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies Cosponsored by the UCLA Maurice Amado Program in Sephardic Studies UCLA Department of History UCLA Mickey Katz Chair in Jewish Music
MONDAY, MARCH 2, 2015
306 ROYCE HALL • 12PM
UCLA FACULTY CENTER • 4PM
The 1939 Society Distinguished Lecture in Holocaust Studies
Hitler’s Furies: German Women in the Nazi Killing Fields Wendy Lower (Claremont) This stunning account of the role of German women on the World War II Nazi eastern front powerfully revises history, proving that we have ignored the reality of women’s participation in the Holocaust, including as brutal killers. Drawing on twenty years of research that included access to post-Soviet documents and interviews with German witnesses, Wendy Lower makes an incisive case for the massive complicity, and worse, of the 500,000 young German women she places, for the first time, directly in the killing fields of the expanding Reich. Sponsored by the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies Cosponsored by the UCLA Department of Germanic Languages UCLA Department of Sociology
Deuteronomy as Scripture and Deuteronomy as Tradition
TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2015
Benjamin Sommer (JTS)
Maurice Amado Program in Sephardic Studies / Book Launch
Sponsored by the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies Cosponsored by the UCLA Department of Near Eastern Languages & Cultures
MARCH 3-4, 2015
YOUNG RESEARCH LIBRARY
4th Annual ucLADINO Symposium
Documenting Judeo-Spanish
Graduate students, professors, scholars, and community activists from a variety of disciplines will present research geared to this year’s theme, “Documenting Judeo-Spanish.” Avner Perez, Founder and Director of the Ma’ale Adumim Institute for the Documentation of Judeo-Spanish and Sephardic Culture (Israel), and Marie-Christine Bornes Varol, Professor of Judeo-Spanish Studies at the National Institute for Oriental Languages & Civilizations (INALCO- France) will be the keynote speakers. For location and schedule please visit www.ucladino.com Sponsored by ucLADINO Cosponsored by the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies UCLA Maurice Amado Program in Sephardic Studies
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UCLA FACULTY CENTER • 4PM
Sephardi Lives: A Documentary History, 1700–1950 Julia Phillips Cohen (Vanderbilt), Sarah Abrevaya Stein (UCLA) This ground-breaking documentary history contains over 150 primary sources originally written in 15 languages by or about Sephardi Jews. Designed for use in the classroom, these documents offer students an intimate view of how Sephardim experienced the major regional and world events of the modern era. They also provide a vivid exploration of the quotidian lives of Sephardi women, men, boys, and girls in the Judeo-Spanish heartland of the Ottoman Balkans and Middle East, as well as the émigré centers which Sephardim settled throughout the twentieth century, including North and South America, Africa, Asia, and Europe. Sponsored by the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies Cosponsored by the UCLA Department of History UCLA Department of Italian UCLA Center for European & Eurasian Studies UCLA Slavic, East European and Eurasian Languages & Cultures UCLA Department of Spanish & Portuguese
Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: A Conference in Honor of Abraham Joshua Heschel Curated by: Kenneth Reinhard (UCLA), Susannah Heschel (Dartmouth) Keynote Speaker: Cornel West (Union Theological Seminary) Not only a theologian of extraordinary eloquence and poetic vision, Abraham Joshua Heschel was also a key figure in social justice movements in the United States in the 1960s and early 70s, including the civil rights movement, the movement against the war in Vietnam, and the transformations of the Catholic Church known as Vatican II. Heschel was close friends with Martin Luther King, Jr., and took part in the 1965 march on Selma. The conference will feature talks by key figures in contemporary Jewish thought and practice, as well as Christian scholars and public figures.
Most CJS Events are free and open to the public. ADVANCE REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED. To RSVP: call (310) 267-5327 or email cjsrsvp@humnet.ucla.edu For maps and parking information please visit www.transportation.ucla.edu. Please note that events are subject to change without notice. For an up-to-date schedule, please visit www.cjs.ucla.edu
CJS Event CJS Cosponsored Event
Sponsored by the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies Natalie Limonick Program on Jewish Civilization in Memory of Miriam Nisell Rose Cosponsored by the UCLA Department of English UCLA Department of History UCLA Center for the Study of Religion Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLA
center
Center for Jewish Studies
At the Center 302 Royce Hall, Box 951485 Los Angeles, CA 90095-1485
Phone: 310.825.5387 RSVP line: 310.267.5327 cjs@humnet.ucla.edu Center for Jewish Studies
Business hours: M-TH 9am-12 pm, 1-5pm
design
David Wu
UCLA FACULTY CENTER • 4PM
The Annual Naftulin Lecture in Jewish Identity
Music and Identity: The Musical Lives of Shlomo Carlebach and Mickey Katz Mark Kligman (UCLA) Jewish music has always responded to its environment. Jews often negotiate utilizing music of the Jewish tradition and developing new sounds influenced by the music of their surroundings. This presentation of the music of legendary Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach and comedic entertainer Mickey Katz will highlight both their European Jewish rooted traditions and recent developments in America. Sponsored by the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies Cosponsored by the UCLA Mickey Katz Endowed Chair in Jewish Music UCLA Department of Musicology UCLA Department of Ethnomusicology
TUESDAY, MAY 12, 2015 THURSDAY, APRIL 23, 2015
314 ROYCE HALL
The Natalie Limonick Conference on Jewish Civilization
THURSDAY, MAY 7, 2015
במרכז
Sponsored by the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies Cosponsored by the UCLA Department of History
MAY 3-4, 2015
Bible and Its Interpreters Seminar Series
There are several respects in which Deuteronomy straddles the line between what scholars of religion call “scripture” and what they term “tradition.” These include Deuteronomy’s pronounced interpretive character and its emphasis on its own orality. Sommer will discuss surprising similar views of modern biblical critics and of some traditional Jewish interpreters (especially in the Jewish mystical tradition) regarding these characteristics of Deuteronomy. He shows that Deuteronomy not only embodies a central Jewish concept of scripture but helps to construct it.
Sponsored by the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies Cosponsored by the UCLA Department of History UCLA Department of Art History UCLA Department of Germanic Languages
From his first book, From Spanish Court to Italian Ghetto, to his well-known volume on Jewish memory, Zakhor, to his treatment of Sigmund Freud in Freud’s Moses, Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi (1932-2009) earned recognition as perhaps the greatest Jewish historian of his day. The collected essays represent the range of Yerushalmi’s writing, from his research on early modern Spanish Jewry and the experience of crypto-Jews, to varied reflections on Jewish history and memory, and his enduring interest in the political history of the Jews.
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314 ROYCE HALL • 4PM
The 1939 Society Lecture in Holocaust Studies
The Wherewithal: A Novel in Verse Philip Schultz (DePaul University)
306 ROYCE HALL • 12PM
Ross Seminar in Yiddish Studies
Kol Nidre on Broadway: New Perspectives on the Success of the Jazz Singer Judith Thissen (Utrecht University)
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Philip Schultz will speak about The Wherewithal: A Novel in Verse (Harcourt, 2014). This is the astonishing story of Henryk Wyrzykowski, a drifting, haunted young man hiding from the Vietnam War in the basement of a San Francisco welfare building and translating his mother’s diaries. The diaries concern the Jedwabne massacre, an event that took place in German-occupied Poland in 1941. Wildly inventive, dark, beautiful, and unrelenting, The Wherewithal is a meditation on the nature of evil and the destruction of war.
Based upon extensive research on the marketing and reception of The Jazz Singer, the first “talking picture” and the hit movie of 1927-28, Judith Thissen sheds a different light on its enormous success at the box-office. She positions the Warner Bros. production in the broader context of the commercialization of the High Holidays and the efforts of Broadway picture palaces to attract Jewish holiday-makers by integrating Jewish elements into their shows around Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
Sponsored by the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies Cosponsored by the UCLA Department of History UCLA Department of Germanic Languages UCLA Department of English
Sponsored by the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies Cosponsored by the UCLA Department of History
ANNUAL CALENDAR OF EVENTS 2014 - 2015