2019 Jeremy Zwelling Lecture

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On April 15, Sarah Imhoff, Associate Professor in the Department of Religious Studies and the Borns Jewish Studies Program at Indiana University, delivered the Fifth Annual Jeremy Zwelling lecture. The presentation was entitled Manliness and Its Opposites: A Brief History of American Jewish Gender. The animated presentation was delivered to a full house with a diverse audience consisting of students across the curriculum, Wesleyan faculty, people from the community and prospective students, all were intrigued by the subject matter.

2019 Samuel and Dorothy Frankel Memorial Lecture

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The Center for Jewish Studies hosted last night the Annual Samuel and Dorothy Frankel Memorial Lecture. Professor Devin Naar, the Isaac Alhadeff Professor of Sephardic Studies and Associate Professor of History and Jewish Studies at the University of Washington, where he directs the Sephardic Studies Digital Collection, the largest repository of digital Ladino texts in the world, delivered a fascinating and animated presentation entitled The Rise and Fall of Salonica, the Jerusalem of the Balkans. Following the presentation there was an extensive Q/A session. To learn more about the subject check out Professor Naar’s book , Between the Ottoman Empire and Modern Greece, which won a National Jewish Book Award and the grand prize from the Modern Greek Studies Association.

From left: Devin Naar, Dalit Katz, Emil Frankel

Announcing the Best Student Paper in Jewish Studies, 2019

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On behalf of the Center for Jewish Studies, I am delighted to announce that a committee consisting of Jewish Studies faculty members has chosen Sivan Basha Piatigorsky-Roth’s paper “Need More Love: On Unlikable Self-Representation in The Jewish American Female Autobiographical Comics of Aline Kominsky-Crumb” as the winner of the Best Student Paper in Jewish Studies Award. Members of the committee were impressed by  the “nuanced reading of a complex, sensitive, timely matter”.

The award will be presented to Sivan at the Annual Samuel and Dorothy Frankel Memorial lecture on Thursday, April 11 at 8pm at Daniels Family Commons. At that time, a lecture entitled “The Rise and Fall of Salonica, the Jerusalem of the Balkans” will be presented by Professor Devin Naar, the Isaac Alhadeff Professor of Sephardic Studies at the University of Washington.

Warriors, Witches, Whores: Women in Israeli Cinema

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Rachel Harris, Associate Professor of Israeli Literature and Culture at the University of Illinois and the first scholar in the series Contemporary Israeli Voices, 2019, was recently featured in an interview with the Jewish Ledger regarding her upcoming Wesleyan presentation. Professor Harris’ talk is scheduled for Monday, November 5, 2018 at 8 PM at Russell House. Professor Harris will talk about her recent book Warriors, Witches, Whores: Women in Israeli Cinema.Below please find the link to the interview: http://www.jewishledger.com/2018/09/conversation-rachel-s-harris/

Wesleyan Guest Speaker Ruby Namdar Was Featured at the Jewish Ledger

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On Thursday, April 12, The Center for Jewish studies hosted author Ruby Namdar as a guest speaker for the Annual Samuel And Dorothy Frankel Memorial lecture. Ruby Namdar’s multi- media presentation entitled The Holy Temple in Jerusalem: A Symbol of Gruesome Glory was based upon his novel The Ruined House which won the Sapir Prize, Israel’s most prestigious literary award and  was recently translated into English . The audience consists of the Wesleyan community, guests from the general community, The Book Club at Adath Israel in Middletown, and guests from Wesfest. The Q/A session was especially remarkable as it brought life various  point of views from an educated audience. The event was featured at The Jewish Ledger with an interview of Ruby Namdar. You can find this interview at http://www.jewishledger.com/2018/04/conversation-ruby-namdar/

This was the last cultural event of the year and at that time, Director Dalit Katz officially announced Talia Cohen as the winner of the Best Jewish Studies Paper award. The next cultural series Contemporary Israeli Voices will be inaugurated in Fall 2018. Stay tuned: exciting events are coming!

Talia Cohen is the Winner of the Best Student Paper in Jewish Studies.

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On behalf of the Center for Jewish Studies, I am delighted to announce that a committee consisting of Jewish Studies faculty members has chosen Talia Cohen’s Paper, “She Walks in Beauty Like the…Sabbath? A Musical Message of Jewish Pride,” as the winner of the Best Student Paper in Jewish Studies Award. Members of the committee were impressed by the through research, the textual analysis of Byron’s lyrics and Nathan’s music, as well as the originality of the work. Mazal Tov, Talia!

A certificate of achievement will be presented to Talia during the annual Samuel and Dorothy Frankel Memorial lecture on Thursday, April 12 at 8PM at Russell House.

The 11th Annual Ring Family Wesleyan University Israeli Film Festival

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The ladies of the congregation – Tikvah (Orna Banai) , Yaffa (Yafit Asulin) , Ettie (Evelin Hagoel), Ora (Sharona Elimelech), and Margalit (Einat Sarouf) discover the women’s balcony in their synagogue has been closed.

The 11th Annual Ring Family Wesleyan University Israeli Film Festival was concluded on Thursday, March 8 with the screening of the Women’s Balcony directed by Emil Ben Shimon. The screening coincided with the International Women Day and was dedicated to all women in general and one woman in particular, my mother, Margalit Yehezkeli, Z’l, who exemplified the spirit of love, dedication and wit. The film festival this year featured three Connecticut Premieres. It opened with the Connecticut Premier of The Cakemaker, which was introduced and commented upon by its director, Ofir Raul-Graizer. The festival also featured the film of an Israeli Arab director, Shady Srour, Holy Air which was just featured in the Jerusalem International Film Festival this July. Another powerful film which was screened at the Jerusalem International Film Festival was Scaffolding by director Matan Yair. The other two feature movies screened at this festival were, Past Life by Avi Nesher and A Quiet Heart by Eitan Anner. The film festival was organized, curated and excuted by Dalit Katz, Director of the Center for Jewish Studies. Many thanks to all Hebrew students who worked so hard by integrating all language skills into the Hebrew curriculum and to our loyal audience who come from near and far. I will see you next year at our 12th Annual Ring Family Wesleyan University Israeli Film Festival.

 

Call for Papers: 2018 Best Student Paper in Jewish Studies Award

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The Center for Jewish Studies is inviting applications for the  2018 Best Student Paper in Jewish Studies award. Did you write a good paper on the architecture of synagogues? Remember that work you did on Jewish hip-hop? Or that A-paper on Kafka that you wrote last year? From urban planning to philosophy, from music to religion, from literature to anthropology, students at Wesleyan are working on various Jewish topics using diverse methodologies. This new award is meant to showcase the excellent work being done by students in all fields of Jewish Studies broadly understood. Regardless of your major or minor, the participation is open to all students.

A committee of faculty members will select the best essay.

Submission guidelines:

  1. The paper should be on a Jewish topic (pretty obvious, right?)
  2. The paper has been awarded a grade of B+ or higher.
  3. For the 2018 Award, we accept submissions of papers from the years 2016-2017.
  4. Yes, you are welcome to revise your paper based on your professor’s comments, but please keep it to the standard final paper length.

Deadline: the deadline for submission is March 9, 2018. Results will be notified in April.

Question? Feel free to contact Prof. Yaniv Feller (yfeller@wesleyan.edu).

Please email your paper to Sheri Dursin at sdursin@wesleyan.edu, indicating “Jewish Studies Award Submission” in the subject line.

Good luck!

Dalit Katz, Director of the Center for Jewish Studies

Center for Jewish Studies Welcomes Nitzan Gilady

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As the director of the Center for Jewish Studies, it is my pleasure to welcome Nitzan Gilady, 2018 Silverberg Distinguished Scholar in Residence. Nitzan’s beautiful film Wedding Doll, inaugurated last year’s 10th Annual Ring Family Wesleyan University Israeli Film Festival and was introduced by Professor Jeanine Basinger, Corwin-Fuller Professor of Film Studies.  Professor Gilady will teach an exciting new course CJST 248: Designing Reality in Israeli Documentary which will count towards the Certificate in Jewish and Israel Studies as well as the minor in the Film Department. In addition, he will introduce the recent Israeli Film Scaffolding, the fifth film in this year’s Israeli Film Festival. Please check our website for more information about the Film Festival at http://iff.site.wesleyan.edu/. Professor Gilady will meet with students of the Center for Jewish Studies as well as students in Hebrew classes. He plans to deliver a WESeminar during graduation weekend. The cold weather has not dampened our Israeli visitor’s enthusiasm towards Wesleyan and he looks forwards to meeting our students. Baruch Haba (welcome)!