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Renowned Film Director, Eran Riklis, Visits Wesleyan Center for Jewish Studies

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Eran Riklis, one of Israel’s most acclaimed filmmakers, visited Wesleyan Center for Jewish Studies. His visit included a film workshop delivered in Hebrew to advanced students and a film introduction followed by discussion with the audience after the screening of Reading Lolita in Tehran as part of the 19th Annual Ring Family Wesleyan University Israeli Film Festival, 2026.

Riklis’ acclaimed films have played a major part in the Ring Family Wesleyan University Israeli Film Festivals throughout the years, including the “The Syrian Bride” (2006), “The Mission of the Human Resource Manager” (2012), “Zaytoun”(2014), and “Shelter”(2019). “Reading Lolita in Tehran.” which was a Connecticut Premiere at Wesleyan University, is based on the bestselling book by Azar Nafisi. The film saw great success around the world as well becoming one of the audience’s favorites in our film festival.

19th Annual Ring Family Wesleyan University Israeli Film Festival

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Halisa’s Film Director, Sophie Artus, (front), delivers workshop to Hebrew Students.

I am thrilled to present the Nineteenth Annual Ring Family Wesleyan University Israeli Film Festival, 2026. This year the festival will continue to offer the most innovative contemporary Israeli cinema and TV shows (Kugel), featuring three New England Premieres (Halisa, Nandauri, Kugel) and one Connecticut Premiere (Reading Lolita in Tehran). Two Israeli film directors (Sophie Artus, director of Halisa, and Eran Riklis, director of Reading Lolita in Theran) will present their films in person and conduct a Q/A session with the audience in addition to screening a taped interview with another film director (Eti Tsicko, director of Nandauri). The themes of the films are varied and include struggling with motherhood in a multiethnic neighborhood in Haifa, exploring the complicated Polish-Jewish relations, women’s struggle in Tehran and matchmaking and other intrigues within the orthodox community. All screenings are at the Goldsmith Family Cinema in the Jeanine Basinger Center for Film Studies at 301 Washington Terrace, Middletown, CT at 8:00 PM. Admission is free and all are welcome. There is free on-site parking. Video trailers and more information about the films and speakers can be found at the festival’s website.

I hope to greet you and your guests at the movies, Dalit Katz (festival curator).

Halisa’s Film Director, Sophie Artus, (right) and Dalit Katz, Center for Jewish Studies  Director, (left) in front of the Center building

22nd Annual Contemporary Israeli Voices

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The first event in the series the 22nd Annual Contemporary Israeli Voices introduced the audience to the wonderful world of translation. Best-selling and acclaimed author, Maya Arad, conversed with the renowned translator, Jessica Cohen, regarding the relation between the author and her translator and tackled the question: whose text is it? Once again, the Wesleyan audience was privy to segments from Arad’s latest novel, Happy New Years, which will only be published in summer of 2025. The next event in this series (on November 14 at 8PM at PAC 100) Noa Yedlin will talk about writing for TV and segments from her TV show Stockholm will be screened.

Annual Samuel and Dorothy Frankel Memorial Lecture

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The Annual Samuel and Dorothy Frankel Memorial Lecture was delivered on April 18 by Roger Cohen, New York Times Paris Bureau Chief, who worked for the Times as a foreign correspondent, foreign editor, and an Opinion columnist between 2009 and 2020. Roger Cohen’s work has been recognized with numerous awards, including a 2023 Pulitzer Prize and George Polk Award as part of The Times teams covering the war in Ukraine. As foreign editor, he oversaw post-9/11 international coverage in a year that The Times won seven Pulitzers. He is the author of five books, including a family memoir entitled “The Girl from Human Street: Ghosts of Memory in a Jewish Family” and the recent “An Affirming Flame: Meditations on Life and Politics.” In 1995, he won the Overseas Press Club of America Burger Human Rights Award for his investigation of torture and murder at a Serb-run Bosnian concentration camp. In 2017, he was awarded the Society of Publishers in Asia prize for Opinion writing for a series on Australian mistreatment of refugees. He won the same award in 2018 for a piece about the Rohingya crisis in Burma. In 2021, Mr. Cohen received the Légion d’Honneur from the French Republic – France’s highest order of merit – for his work over four decades.

Roger Cohen was introduced by Wesleyan president, Michael Roth, who reviewed his memoir The Girl from Human Street. The title of Roger’s presentation was “Over the Edge: A Story of Israeli and Palestinian Failure”. The lecture was fully attended and a lengthy conversation with Roger Cohen followed with several thought-provoking questions presented by a very engaged audience.

The lecture was sponsored by Emil Frankel and the Center for Jewish Studies. It was organized by Dalit Katz, the Center’s Director. I hope you will join us for our annual Frankel lecture next year.

Professor Ethan Kleinberg Publishes New Book

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Congratulation and Mazal Tov to Professor Ethan Kleinberg whose book , Emmanuel Levinas’s Talmudic Turn: Philosophy and Jewish Thought will be published this October in the Cultural Memory in the Present Series from Stanford University Press.

In this rich intellectual history of the French-Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas’s Talmudic lectures in Paris, Ethan Kleinberg addresses Levinas’s Jewish life and its relation to his philosophical writings while making an argument for the role and importance of Levinas’s Talmudic lessons.

Pairing each chapter with a related Talmudic lecture, Kleinberg uses the distinction Levinas presents between “God on Our Side” and “God on God’s Side” to provide two discrete and at times conflicting approaches to Levinas’s Talmudic readings. One is historically situated and argued from “our side” while the other uses Levinas’s Talmudic readings themselves to approach the issues as timeless and derived from “God on God’s own side.” Bringing the two approaches together, Kleinberg asks whether the ethical message and moral urgency of Levinas’s Talmudic lectures can be extended beyond the texts and beliefs of a chosen people, religion, or even the seemingly primary unit of the self.

Touching on Western philosophy, French Enlightenment universalism, and the Lithuanian Talmudic tradition, Kleinberg provides readers with a groundbreaking investigation into the origins, influences, and causes of Levinas’s turn to and use of Talmud.

 

 

Why Hollywood Loves Israeli TV shows

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Due to the pandemic, The 18th Annual Fall Series Contemporary Israeli Voices, 2020  (curated by Dalit Katz) has moved online with two live multi-media presentations with Q/A sessions with the audience. The theme for the series this year was the success of Israeli artists in Hollywood. The series was inaugurated with renowned actress Ayelet Zurer who talked about Acting and the Brain’s Plasticity. Zurer spoke about her acting in American movies such as Angels & Demons and Man of Steel as well as acting in Israeli movies and the successful TV show Shtisel. The presentation included screenings of video trailers from her work. In the second presentation, which coincided with the official release of the trailer of the much anticipated TV show Valley of Tears, writer and scriptwriter, Ron Leshem, talked about Why Hollywood Loves Israeli TV Shows. Each presentation was followed by a Lunch and Learn meeting in which Hebrew students conversed with the speakers in Hebrew.  All presentations were opened to the public and were well attended. The Wesleyan community eagerly anticipates welcoming Ayelet Zurer and Ron Leshem again in the near future, hoping for in person  visits to our campus.

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