Upcoming JIS Events in November and December

The semester is half-way over, but Jewish and Israel Studies still plans to host a number of events:

November 4, Jewish and Israel Studies Open House, 4:30 pm Allbritton 103.

Please come to meet Jewish and Israel Studies students and faculty, and learn about our Program, our courses, and events.

November 4, Film: STEAL A PENCIL FOR ME (2007) by Oscar nominee Michele Ohayon (P’14). A Q&A session will follow the screening. Michele Ohayon recounts the touching story of Jack and Ina, whose love broke the bounds of matrimony and imprisonment. Jack: “I’m a very special Holocaust survivor. I was in the camps with my wife and my girlfriend; and believe me, it wasn’t easy.” For more about the film, see http://www.stealapencil.com/synopsis.php;
Film Studies 100 (Goldsmith Family Cinema), 8pm.

November 17, Hallie Lecture Series (COL): Professor Berel Lang, “Primo Levi, Writer (and Memoirist).” COL Lounge, Wesleyan University. COL Lounge, Butt C, 4:15 pm.

Berel Lang is the author of Philosophical Witnessing: The Holocaust as Presence (2009), Holocaust Representation: Art Within the Limits of History and Ethics (2000), Heidegger’s Silence (1996), Act and Idea in the Nazi Genocide (1990) and many other works bridging philosophy, aesthetics, ethics and history.  Much honored for outstanding scholarship and teaching, he has held fellowships from the N.E.H., ACLS, American Philosophical Association, and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, and is a member of the American Academy for Jewish Research.  This semester, he is Visiting Professor of Letters at Wesleyan; he has taught at Wesleyan, Trinity College, SUNY at Albany, the University of Colorado, and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

December 6, J. J. Goldberg, “The Next American Judaism: Israel, Intermarriage and the Seinfeld Effect”

J. J. Goldberg is a senior columnist at the Forward, where he had served as the editor-in-chief, transforming the paper into one of the leading and most respected voices of contemporary Jewish press.

Upcoming October Events in Jewish and Israel Studies

October 7, Susan Einbinder: “Seeing the Blind: Medieval Jewish Martyrdom, Poetry, and Hysterical Blindness,” 4:30pm at PAC 004

Susan Einbinder is Professor of Hebrew Literature at Hebrew Union College the author most recently of No Place of Rest: Jewish Expulsion and the Memory of Medieval France, which traces the ways that fourteenth-century texts written by Jews in Spain, Provence, Italy and North Africa recall the trauma of the 1306 expulsion from France.  She is also the author of Beautiful Death: Jewish Poetry and Martyrdom in Medieval France.

October 12, Playwright Joshua Sobol will talk about his new book Cut Throat Dog at Russell House at 8pm.

Joshua Sobol will place his new novel within the context of the “Shylock Syndrome.”  Sobol is an international renowned playwright, writer, and director.  In 2000 he was a visiting scholar at Wesleyan University and directed, with Wesleyan students, the play “Ghetto”, which was translated into more than 20 languages and has been performed by leading theaters in more than 25 countries through the world.  A reception will follow.

October 25, Israeli Author Michal Govrin will talk about her new book Holds on to the Sun at Russell House at 8pm.

“Hold on to the Sun:  Words Facing the Unspeakable”:  Michal Govrin will talk about her new book “Hold on to the Sun:  Stories and Legends”, which addresses through short stories, essay, and poetry the unspeakable through words.  The talk will end with a reading from the book.  Among the pioneers of Jewish experimental theater, Govrin has directed award-winning performances in all major theaters in Israel.  She also has published numerous nonfiction and personal essay, which have appeared in international journals and anthologies in several languages. A reception will follow.