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.
On behalf of the Center for Jewish Studies, I would like to give you a heads up about the 21st AnnualContemporary Israeli Voices, 2023 fall series and invite you and guests to join us.
The series this year will feature the internationally renowned Israeli writer, Etgar Keret, as well as other, female, Israeli writers who write in Israel and outside of Israel and explore questions of identity, belonging and personhood.
The series will be inaugurated with a talk by Maya Arad, the author of eleven books of Hebrew fiction, as well as studies in literary criticism and linguistics. Maya is a writer in residence at Stanford University’s Taube Center for Jewish Studies. Maya’s presentation is entitled HappyNew Years? Reading Between the Lines. The presentation will focus on Maya’s latest novel The Good Year and the Wesleyan audience will get to be introduced to its English translation before it comes out officially. Happy New Years is an epistolary novel with a twist: it is comprised of fifty annual letters, spread over five decades, each a year apart. The letters are written by Lea, a young immigrant who strives to achieve the American dream.
The event will take place on Thursday, October 5, at 8:00 PM at Daniel Family Commons (45 Wyllys Avenue, Middletown).
The second event will be presented by Ayelet Gundar-Goshen who is one of the most unique and prominent writers in Israel. Ayelet will present her latest novel The Wolf Hunt (The title in Hebrew is Relocation). Her presentation is entitled Relocation: A Clash of Cultures. Her book follows an Israeli family on their transatlantic move to the San Francisco Bay area and explores the fault lines in a community, a school, and a family, as an Israeli mother begins to suspect her teenage son of committing a terrible hate crime.
The event will take place on Thursday, October 19, at 8:00 PM at Daniel Family Commons.
In the third presentation entitledMemoir, Fiction, and What’s In Betweenacclaimed Israeli author Ayelet Tsabari, will speak of her approach to writing fiction and memoir, about finding the truth in fiction and the artifice in memoir, and about making herself into a literary character in her memoir, The Art of Leaving. Her memoir in essays, The Art of Leaving, won the Canadian Jewish Literary Award.
The event will take place on Thursday, October 26, at 8:00 PM at Daniel Family Commons.
To conclude the series, the internationally renowned writer, and a frequent Wesleyan visitor (and one time professor) Etgar Keret will captivate the audience with his Heroic Stories about(his) Dead Mother. In his presentation Keret will speak about his attempt to come up with the stories that capture his late mother: like Maria in West Side Story and like Thanos from the Avengers. In his very Keret way, he ends up with a series of very short stories, snapshots that are mostly a few paragraphs long, that give glimpses of her heroic life from childhood in the Warsaw Ghetto to raising a Sabra family in Israel. Keret’s new book of stories Fly Already won the prestigious Sapir Prize.
The event will take place on Thursday, November 9 at 8:00 PM at Daniel Family Commons.
On October 27, The Center for Jewish Studies at Wesleyan University hosted best-selling Israeli writer, Eshkol Nevo, as part of the 15th Annual Series Contemporary IsraeliVoices, 2017. During his presentation Three Floors Up: A Tel Aviv Story, Eshkol Nevo read to the audience excerpts from his most recent novel Three Floors Up. The novel was just translated into English and Wesleyan University was the first stop in Nevo’s tour. The audience was surprised to find out that Middletown and one of his fictitious characters, a university professor, was part of the story. All copies were sold and signed by the author. Audience members inquired regarding the author’s successful creative writing workshops in Israel and abroad. The following day, Eshkol Nevo visited Hebrew classes and answered creatively students’ creative questions. The successful visit, the second one (the first one was in 2011), left the audience waiting impatiently to his next visit.
On September 20, the Center for Jewish Studies at Wesleyan University will host an evening with the internationally renowned writer Etgar Keret, a past Visiting Distinguished Professor and a frequent guest of Wesleyan University. The event will take place at the Goldsmith Family Cinema at Wesleyan University (301 Washington Terrace, Middletown, CT) at 8 P.M. The evening will start with a screening of the movie Etgar Keret: What Kind of Animal Are You. The movie will be introduced by Etgar Keret. In addition, Etgar Keret will read from his latest memoir The Seven Good Years. Audience will have the opportunity to engage in conversation with Etgar Keret during the question/answer session. The event is free and open to the public and is part of the annual series Contemporary Israeli Voices organized by Professor Katz, Director of the Center for Jewish Studies.
Please check out Etgar Keret’s interview with Terry Gross regarding The Seven Good Years on Fresh air:
Tel Aviv Magic: History, Literature, and Murder, presented by the acclaimed writer Assaf Gavron on Thursday, November 12 at 8 pm at Russell House, concluded the 13th Annual Fall Series Contemporary Israeli Voices,2016. Assaf Gavron gave a brief history of the city and its past literature and then introduced the new genre of Tel Aviv Noir, a literary anthology co-edited by Etgar Keret, featuring a younger generation of Israeli writers and its dark side.
Gavron has published five novels and a collection of short stories. He has won numerous international awards such as the Prix Courrier International in France, Buch fur die Stadt in Germany, the DAAD artists in Berlin residency, and the Bernstein Prize in Israel. His fiction has been translated into ten languages, was adapted to the stage, and four of his books are optioned for movies.
I am pleased to announce three presentations in our annual Contemporary Israeli Voices 2015 series. This year the series opens with the Center for Jewish Studies Distinguished Scholar lecture, Shimon Adaf’s lecture, Adventures in the Unreal: On Judaism, Identity, and Writing, followed by a multimedia presentation by Yithak Goren about Cosmopolitan Alexandria: An Enchanting Ship of Fools and ends with Asaf’s Gavron’s Tel AvivMagic: History, Literature and murder. All presentation are at 8 pm at Russell House, 350 High Street. On behalf of The Center for Jewish Studies, I would like to extend an invitation to you to attend. All are welcome and admission is free.
Thursday, September 17, 2015. Shimon Adaf, Center for Jewish Studies Visiting Professor and 2012 winner of Sapir Literary Prize, Adventures in the Unreal: On Judaism, Identity and Writing.
Adaf is the Chair of the creative writing program at Ben Gurion University in Israel. He has published three collections of poetry and seven novels, for which he won the Ministry of Education Award for Debut book (1996) and the Prime Minister`s Prize (2007). His third collection of poetry Aviva-No won the Yehuda Amichai Poetry Award in 2010, and his novel Mox Nox won the Sapir Prize (the Israeli equivalent of the Booker Prize) in 2013.
Monday, September 28, 2015. Yitzhak Gormezano Goren, Novelist, Playwright and Stage Director: Cosmopolitan Alexandria: An Enchanting Ship of Fools.
Multi -media presentation including short clips from the films The Year 66 Was Good for Tourism and the Princeof the Transit Camp as well as reading segments from Alexandrian Summer.
Thursday, November 12, 2015. Asaf Gavron, Writer and Translator, The Tel Aviv Magic: History,Literature, and Murder.
Gavron has published five novels and a collection of short stories. He has won numerous international awards such as the Prix Courrier International in France, Buch fur die Stadt in Germany, the DAAD artists in Berlin residency, and the Bernstein Prize in Israel. His fiction has been translated into ten languages, was adapted to the stage, and four of his books are optioned for movies.
I hope you came come to all the events, Dalit Katz
The Center for Jewish Studies welcomes back students and new faculty. This semester the Center will host Shimon Adaf as the Gittel and Marvin Silverberg Distinguished Scholar. Shimon Adaf published three collections of poetry and seven novels, for which he won the Ministry of Education Award for Debut book (1996) and the Prime Minister`s Prize (2007). His third collection of poetry Aviva-No won the Yehuda Amichai Poetry Award in 2010, and his novel Mox Nox won the Sapir Prize (the Israeli equivalent of the Booker Prize) in 2013. Shimon Adaf not only publishes poetry but also and a rock band as songwriter and acoustic guitar player.
This fall semester Shimon Adaf will teach an exciting workshop CJST 221: From Literature to Cinema and Back: What Happens When Literary Works are Adapted to Films. The workshop is offered on Tuesday and Thursday from 1:10 – 2:30 PM and has a night screening on Tuesday. The workshop dates are September 8 until October 8 and it carries 0.5 credit which can be counted towards the Certificate in Jewish and Israeli Studies.
Please join us for a lunch with Shimon Adaf on Wednesday, September 9 at 311 Allbritton. The topic ofthe lunch is Jewish not Israeli and Vice Versa. This is an informal lunch with plenty of opportunities to meet and converse. I hope that many students will be able to take this workshop and get the chance to meet this young and energetic scholar.
And, be sure to check out new courses offered by the Center for Jewish Studies such as RELI 1228: JewishGraphic Novels and RELI 1204: Judaism(s); Religion, Power and Identity History taught by Jennifer Caplan as well as HIST 161: Sarnoff to Seinfeld, American Jews and the TV Age taught by Rachel Greenblatt.
Finally, check out our website for more information about our cultural events: the series Contemporary Israeli Voices in the fall and The Ring Family Wesleyan University Israeli Film Festival in the spring.
May you have a productive and enjoyable new year, Dalit Katz, Director of the Center for Jewish Studies
We have exciting news regarding the latest developments in Jewish Studies at Wesleyan. Just a couple of weeks ago the Administration approved our proposal to create a Center for Jewish Studies at Wesleyan. The Center will administer the current Certificate for Jewish and Israel Studies. It will also be the official home to and sponsor of all the programming we do, including the Ring Family Wesleyan University Israeli Film Festival and the Contemporary Israeli Voices series as well as other lectures. We are delighted with this new chapter of Jewish Studies at Wesleyan and the fact that we have an institutional home. Dalit Katz will be the Center’s first Director, and will be coordinating the transition and keeping the public informed.
Please join us for the third event in the series Contemporary Israeli Voices 2013on Monday, October 14, at Russell House at 8 pm. Dror Burstein, an award winning writer, will speak on Why Aren’t There any Dinosaurs in Israeli literature?
Dror Burstein’s book “Kin”
Dror Burstein is the recipient of several major Israeli prizes. In 1997, he was awarded the Jerusalem Prize for Poetry and in 2002 the Ministry of Science and Culture Prize. His first novel, Avner Brenner (2003), was awarded the Bernstein Prize in 2005, and was followed by a short prose book, Twin Cities (2004). His second novel Murderers was published in 2006 and a year later he published a documentary book Without a Single Case of Death about the Ghetto Fighter’s Kibbutz. This book was translated into English in 2007. His latest books Kin and Netanya were also translated into English as well as other language. Since 2011 he has been editor of the poetry journal Helikon.
Greetings and Beruchim Habaim to friends of Jewish and Israel studies. I am delighted to serve as the interim chair this year. This is going to be an exciting and rich year full of cultural and intellectual events. Please mark your calendar for Thursday October 25 at noon at 108 Usdan Student Center. The Jewish and Israel studies will hold an open house. Lunch and information will be provided. During this event you will get the chance to meet and socialize with our faculty and students, learn about our exciting cultural series including our annual Israeli Film Festival and the Contemporary Israelis Voices Series, be introduced to new courses taught by our distinguished visitors and more. Please join us and bring friends with you. The next event will take place on October 30. Please check our event calendar for more details.
