Happening @ Michigan https://events.umich.edu/list/rss RSS Feed for Happening @ Michigan Events at the University of Michigan. The Breath of Every Living Thing: Zoocephali and the Limits of Alterity (September 16, 2022 3:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/97970 97970-21795408@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, September 16, 2022 3:00pm
Location: Michigan Union
Organized By: History of Art

Abstract: This paper focuses on the woefully understudied Hammelburg Mahzor (Darmstadt, HLH Cod. Or. 13), a Jewish festival book completed in Lower Franconia in the middle of the fourteenth century. The book’s most remarkable feature is perhaps the inclusion of carefully curated zoocephalic, or theriomorphic, figures: humans with beastly and bestial heads. By virtue of their alterity, the zoocephali call attention to themselves with emphatic force. The purpose of this talk is to explore the semiotics and phenomenology of this alterity, and to suggest that its presence lies at the intersection of language, philosophy, poetry, and history. In the Hammelburg Mahzor this visual idiom also signals distinction, albeit in a way that, conspicuously, collapses temporalities, tests the limits of alterity, and makes an argument about likeness and difference. By foregrounding linguistic elisions between words, images, and the celebrants, such an idiom establishes visceral connections with the community of the book’s users. Ultimately, theriomorphs stand as a fitting metaphor for medieval Jewish art as it has been viewed in mainstream scholarship.

Bio: Elina Gertsman, Professor of Medieval Art at Case Western Reserve University (where she is Archbishop Paul J. Hallinan Professor in Catholic Studies II), has authored an extensive series of field-changing, prize-winning publications. Her many books include The Dance of Death in the Middle Ages: Image, Text, Performance (2010), Worlds Within: Opening the Medieval Shrine Madonna (2015), and most recently The Absent Image: Lacunae in Medieval Books (2021), winner of the 2022 Charles Rufus Morey Prize. Her work has been supported by the Guggenheim, Kress, Mellon, and Franco-American Cultural Exchange Foundations as well as by the American Council for Learned Societies. In 2022 she was elected a Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America.

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Lecture / Discussion Thu, 01 Sep 2022 15:17:51 -0400 2022-09-16T15:00:00-04:00 2022-09-16T17:00:00-04:00 Michigan Union History of Art Lecture / Discussion Haman and His Sons Hanging from a Tree, The Hammelburg Mahzor, Hammelburg, 1347-1348. Darmstadt, HLH Cod. Or. 13, fol. 53v.
Judaic Studies Open House (September 19, 2022 9:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/98381 98381-21796582@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, September 19, 2022 9:00am
Location: 202 S. Thayer
Organized By: Judaic Studies

Please join Judaic Studies for our Open House next Monday, September 19 from 9am-3pm. Stop by our office to grab a snack, say hello and hangout with us! Meet other students and ask any questions you have about our degrees or about taking Judaic Studies courses. All are invited and we hope to see you there!

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Reception / Open House Fri, 09 Sep 2022 09:18:03 -0400 2022-09-19T09:00:00-04:00 2022-09-19T15:00:00-04:00 202 S. Thayer Judaic Studies Reception / Open House We will be serving bagels!
Revenge: Fantasy and Self Determination in Jewish Discourse (September 20, 2022 5:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/97754 97754-21795055@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, September 20, 2022 5:00pm
Location: North Quad
Organized By: Germanic Languages & Literatures

Dr. Max Czollek studied Political Science at the Free University of Berlin and received his PhD at the Center for Research on Antisemitism at the Technical University of Berlin. Czollek is the curator of numerous events and festivals on contemporary Jewish culture, including the current exhibition Rache: Geschichte und Fantasie [Revenge: History and Fantasy], on display from March through the beginning of October at the Jewish Museum Frankfurt. He is also co-editor for the magazine Jalta—Positionen zur jüdischen Gegenwart [Yalta—Positions on the Jewish Contemporary]. In addition to Desintegriert Euch! (Hanser, 2018)—De-Integrate! A Jewish Survival Guide for the 21st Century (Restless Books, Jan 2023) and Gegenwartsbewältigung [Overcoming the Present] (Hanser, 2020), he is the author of three volumes of poetry published by Verlagshaus Berlin: Druckkammern (2012), Jubeljahre (2015), and Grenzwerte (2019). A third volume of non-fiction will be published by Hanser in early 2023. Czollek lives and writes in Berlin.

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Lecture / Discussion Wed, 31 Aug 2022 15:03:58 -0400 2022-09-20T17:00:00-04:00 2022-09-20T19:00:00-04:00 North Quad Germanic Languages & Literatures Lecture / Discussion Max Czollek
A Jewish Race Scientist in Twentieth-Century Britain (September 22, 2022 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/95227 95227-21789019@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, September 22, 2022 12:00pm
Location: 202 S. Thayer
Organized By: Judaic Studies

This lecture will explore how Redcliffe Salaman, an eminent Jewish scientist in early twentieth-century Britain, embraced a racial understanding of Jewish peoplehood and how he developed a biological history of the Jews. It will emphasize the ubiquity of racial notions of physical and intellectual inheritance in scientific circles in Britain before World War II. Above all, it will stress how racial categories allowed secular Jewish intellectuals in Britain (and elsewhere) to develop ways of thinking about the bonds of Jewishness that transcended older notions that saw Jewish difference solely in religious terms. It will also tease out the connections between Salaman's views of Jewishness and his pathbreaking work breeding blight-free potatoes.

This is a hybrid lecture in Room 2022 South Thayer Building. Zoom registration: https://myumi.ch/RWNV4

Todd M. Endelman is Professor Emeritus of History and Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan. A native of California, he was educated at the University of California, Berkeley, and Harvard University, where he received his Ph.D. in 1976. He is a specialist in the history of the Jews in Britain and in the social history of modern European Jewry. He taught at Yeshiva University, Indiana University, and the University of Michigan. While at Michigan, he was director of the Jean and Samuel Frankel Center for Judaic Studies for eleven years. He retired from teaching in 2012 and now divides his time between Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Brooklyn, New York. His books include *The Jews of Georgian England, 1714-1830 *(1979); *Radical Assimilation in Anglo-Jewish History, 1656-1945* (1990); *The Jews of Britain, 1656-2000* (2002); *Broadening Jewish History* (2014); and *Leaving the Jewish Fold: Conversion and Radical Assimilation in Modern Jewish History* (2015). He recently completed a biography of the Anglo-Jewish race scientist, country gentleman, and historian of the potato Redcliffe Salaman.

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Lecture / Discussion Fri, 20 May 2022 09:49:06 -0400 2022-09-22T12:00:00-04:00 2022-09-22T13:00:00-04:00 202 S. Thayer Judaic Studies Lecture / Discussion The Last Anglo-Jewish Gentlemen
Mizrahi Prose and Poetry: Meet the Authors (October 3, 2022 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/97305 97305-21794289@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, October 3, 2022 12:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Judaic Studies

Offering a glimpse into the vital Mizrahi literary landscape, this panel will gather several Mizrahi authors of different generations, backgrounds, and experiences. These well-known authors will be reading from their invaluable work and engaging the audience in a conversation about their specific texts as well as about their more general struggles and challenges. While aiming at giving a flavor of the wide-ranging aesthetics, generic, and stylistic scope of Mizrahi creativity, the panel, more broadly, hopes to give a sense of the intricacies of the Mizrahi story. The reading will be accompanied with English translation to facilitate the discussion with the audience.

This is a virtual event.
Zoom Registration: https://myumi.ch/n8bxy

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Livestream / Virtual Tue, 27 Sep 2022 14:21:38 -0400 2022-10-03T12:00:00-04:00 2022-10-03T14:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Judaic Studies Livestream / Virtual Frankel Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies
"How Henry Ford's Ghost Haunts the Present" (October 19, 2022 7:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/99776 99776-21798669@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, October 19, 2022 7:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design

For the first time, the thought-provoking documentary 10 Questions for Henry Ford will be shown at the University of Michigan. The film will be made available for online streaming, free of charge, to all members of the University community from October 13 -21, 2022.

In addition, a multidisciplinary panel discussion, entitled “How Henry Ford’s Ghost Haunts the Present,” will feature the filmmaker, Andy Kirshner, in conversation with a distinguished group of faculty from the University of Michigan. The panel discussion, including excerpts from the film, will take place in the Helmut Stern Auditorium at the University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) on October 19 at 7PM.

This event is co-sponsored by the Frankel Center for Judaic Studies; the School of Music, Theatre & Dance; History; Museum Studies; American Culture; and Film, Television and Media.

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Lecture / Discussion Mon, 10 Oct 2022 12:04:38 -0400 2022-10-19T19:00:00-04:00 2022-10-19T20:30:00-04:00 Museum of Art Penny W Stamps School of Art & Design Lecture / Discussion Back of a man with a hat facing a crowd in front of a Ford factory building.
Resistance, Resilience, and Remembrance: Flipping the Script about Jewish and Christian Women in Antiquity (October 20, 2022 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/99393 99393-21797991@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, October 20, 2022 4:00pm
Location: Michigan League
Organized By: Department of Middle East Studies

Lecture by Dr. Shayna Sheinfeld; Q&A with Sara Parks and Meredith J.C. Warren

How do we remember Jewish and Christian women in the ancient world? Are they merely passive, accepting what comes at them, or do they have agency in a patriarchal imperialist world? This talk explores several examples of Jewish and Christian women’s resistance—against patriarchy, imperialism, and even their own families—in order to demonstrate the diverse ways that women effected change in the world of ancient Judaism and Christianity.

This is a hybrid event. The event will take place at the Michigan League, Henderson Room. Please use the link provided to register for the Zoom option.

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Lecture / Discussion Fri, 07 Oct 2022 08:52:01 -0400 2022-10-20T16:00:00-04:00 2022-10-20T18:00:00-04:00 Michigan League Department of Middle East Studies Lecture / Discussion Poster
Jews of Algeria in Light of Modern Studies: Major Trends and New Horizons (October 25, 2022 1:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/95646 95646-21790514@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, October 25, 2022 1:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Judaic Studies

Register for this virtual event here: https://myumi.ch/RWq4G

In this talk, Amina Boukail outlines the development of contemporary scholarship on Algerian Jews. In doing so, she offers a critical examination of contemporary research on Algerian Jews in several languages (Arabic, French, Hebrew, English, and Spanish) in order to demonstrate how scholarship on the history of Algerian Jews has been impact by and has developed in relation to certain historical processes (French colonialism, postcolonial French-Algerian relations, the establishment of the State of Israel, and the Palestinian cause).

Amina Boukail addresses a number of questions: What are the trends in recent studies on the topic of Jews of Algeria? How do other factors impact the writing of Algerian Jewish history? What are some new interdisciplinary avenues of exploration on this topic? Are there sufficient studies compared to the studies that deal with the Jews of Tunisia or Morocco? What topics still remain taboo when it comes to the history of Jews in Algeria?

Her review of the principal currents in the study of Algerian Jews is divided into two sections: First, the study of Jews in Algeria in France, the United States, and Israel; second, the study of Jews in Algeria in Algerian universities.

*Amina Boukail* is an Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature in the Department of Arabic Language and Literature at the University of Jijel in Algeria. She received her Doctorate in Comparative Literature from the University of Annaba in 2016. Her current research interests include: Arabic Medieval literature; Cultural Contacts in Medieval Iberia; Cultural Minorities in the Arab world; Hebrew Cultures in North Africa; Sephardic Literature and Judeo-Arabic Heritage in Algeria; Muslim-Jewish relations in Algeria; Colonialism and Literature.

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Livestream / Virtual Wed, 05 Oct 2022 13:24:54 -0400 2022-10-25T13:00:00-04:00 2022-10-25T14:30:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Judaic Studies Livestream / Virtual La Société d'étude du Zohar (la Cabale) de Constantine, datant du début du XXe siècle.
The History of Jewish Friendship, 1650-1950 (October 26, 2022 4:30pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/99555 99555-21798335@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, October 26, 2022 4:30pm
Location: Tisch Hall
Organized By: Department of History

Is there a “Jewish” cultural model of friendship? How did it change over time? Could the study of Jewish friendships shed new light on the Jewish past? 13 scholars will gather together to present their research on Jewish amical practices, sociability, intimacy, familiarity and spiritual friendship.

The event is co-organized by the Eisenberg Institute for Historical Studies and the Frankel Center for Judaic Studies, with the support of the International Institute.

Conference Schedule:
Wednesday, October 26, 2022
16:30 | Greetings
Maya Barzilai (University of Michigan)
Shachar Pinsker and Shai Zamir (University of Michigan)
16:45-18:30 | Early Modern Friendships
Chair: Ryan Szpiech (University of Michigan)
Orit Bashkin (University of Chicago): “The Sultan’s Best Friend Forever: Early Modern Jewish Constructions”
Bernard Cooperman (University of Maryland): “Rhetorics of Friendship and Family in Traditional Jewish Society”
Shai Zamir (University of Michigan): “Friendship as a Rhetorical Strategy among Portuguese New Christians”

Thursday, October 27, 2022
9:00 | Coffee
9:15-11:00 | Mediterranean Friendships
Chair: Helmut Puff (University of Michigan)
Federica Francesconi (University at Albany, SUNY): ״Single Jewish Women in Early Modern Venice and their Global Networks: Belonging, Friendship, and Circulation of Objects״ 
Lawrence Fine (Mount Holyoke College): “Spiritual Friendship and Intentional Kabbalistic Fellowships in the Early Modern Period”
Francesca Bregoli (Queens College of the City University of New York): “‘Cursed be that Money that Ruins and Breaks our Friendship’: Epistolary Constructions of Merchant Friendship in the 18th-century Mediterranean”

12:00 | Lunch

12:20-14:20 | American Friendships
Greetings: John Carson (University of Michigan)
Chair: Rachel Rafael Neis (University of Michigan)
Steven Green (University of California, Santa Cruz): "A Necessary Friendship?: Jewish Relations between Themselves and non-Jews on North Dakota Homesteads"
Rachel B. Gross (San Francisco State University) and Sarah Imhoff (Indiana University): “Sufferings of the Soul: The Friendship of Mary Antin and Jessie Sampter” 
Maggie Carlton (University of Michigan): “Mistaken, Forbidden, & Severed Friendships in Interwar Detroit”

15:30-17:45 | Modern Friendships
Chair: Jeffrey Veidlinger (University of Michigan)
Gabriel Mordoch (University of Michigan): "Stanley Bendana and Jacob Perlman: A Sephardic-Ashkenazi encounter in Victor Perera's The Conversion (1970)"
Mostafa Hussein (University of Michigan): "Friendship in Trying Times: On Jewish-Arab Relations in Mandate Palestine"
Ruth Behar (University of Michigan): “El Grupo: Friendship Among Cuban Jewish Immigrants”  
Shachar Pinsker (University of Michigan): “Coffee, Sociability, and Conversation: Coffeehouses and Modern Jewish Friendship”

Illustration by Rutu Modan: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/12/24/what-cafes-did-for-liberalism

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Conference / Symposium Mon, 24 Oct 2022 10:57:00 -0400 2022-10-26T16:30:00-04:00 2022-10-26T18:30:00-04:00 Tisch Hall Department of History Conference / Symposium Illustration by Rutu Modan
The History of Jewish Friendship, 1650-1950 (October 27, 2022 9:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/99555 99555-21798336@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, October 27, 2022 9:00am
Location: Tisch Hall
Organized By: Department of History

Is there a “Jewish” cultural model of friendship? How did it change over time? Could the study of Jewish friendships shed new light on the Jewish past? 13 scholars will gather together to present their research on Jewish amical practices, sociability, intimacy, familiarity and spiritual friendship.

The event is co-organized by the Eisenberg Institute for Historical Studies and the Frankel Center for Judaic Studies, with the support of the International Institute.

Conference Schedule:
Wednesday, October 26, 2022
16:30 | Greetings
Maya Barzilai (University of Michigan)
Shachar Pinsker and Shai Zamir (University of Michigan)
16:45-18:30 | Early Modern Friendships
Chair: Ryan Szpiech (University of Michigan)
Orit Bashkin (University of Chicago): “The Sultan’s Best Friend Forever: Early Modern Jewish Constructions”
Bernard Cooperman (University of Maryland): “Rhetorics of Friendship and Family in Traditional Jewish Society”
Shai Zamir (University of Michigan): “Friendship as a Rhetorical Strategy among Portuguese New Christians”

Thursday, October 27, 2022
9:00 | Coffee
9:15-11:00 | Mediterranean Friendships
Chair: Helmut Puff (University of Michigan)
Federica Francesconi (University at Albany, SUNY): ״Single Jewish Women in Early Modern Venice and their Global Networks: Belonging, Friendship, and Circulation of Objects״ 
Lawrence Fine (Mount Holyoke College): “Spiritual Friendship and Intentional Kabbalistic Fellowships in the Early Modern Period”
Francesca Bregoli (Queens College of the City University of New York): “‘Cursed be that Money that Ruins and Breaks our Friendship’: Epistolary Constructions of Merchant Friendship in the 18th-century Mediterranean”

12:00 | Lunch

12:20-14:20 | American Friendships
Greetings: John Carson (University of Michigan)
Chair: Rachel Rafael Neis (University of Michigan)
Steven Green (University of California, Santa Cruz): "A Necessary Friendship?: Jewish Relations between Themselves and non-Jews on North Dakota Homesteads"
Rachel B. Gross (San Francisco State University) and Sarah Imhoff (Indiana University): “Sufferings of the Soul: The Friendship of Mary Antin and Jessie Sampter” 
Maggie Carlton (University of Michigan): “Mistaken, Forbidden, & Severed Friendships in Interwar Detroit”

15:30-17:45 | Modern Friendships
Chair: Jeffrey Veidlinger (University of Michigan)
Gabriel Mordoch (University of Michigan): "Stanley Bendana and Jacob Perlman: A Sephardic-Ashkenazi encounter in Victor Perera's The Conversion (1970)"
Mostafa Hussein (University of Michigan): "Friendship in Trying Times: On Jewish-Arab Relations in Mandate Palestine"
Ruth Behar (University of Michigan): “El Grupo: Friendship Among Cuban Jewish Immigrants”  
Shachar Pinsker (University of Michigan): “Coffee, Sociability, and Conversation: Coffeehouses and Modern Jewish Friendship”

Illustration by Rutu Modan: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/12/24/what-cafes-did-for-liberalism

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Conference / Symposium Mon, 24 Oct 2022 10:57:00 -0400 2022-10-27T09:00:00-04:00 2022-10-27T17:30:00-04:00 Tisch Hall Department of History Conference / Symposium Illustration by Rutu Modan
Padnos Public Engagement on Jewish Learning Lecture: “Remnants of a Mighty Nation”: Jews Through the Eyes of American Christians (November 1, 2022 7:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/97306 97306-21794290@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, November 1, 2022 7:00pm
Location: 1027 E. Huron Building
Organized By: Judaic Studies

The Stuart and Barbara Padnos Foundation has provided a gift to the Frankel Center for Judaic Studies to establish the Padnos Engagement on Jewish Learning fund. The initiative, which commenced last year, will facilitate annual public educational activities in Jewish Studies throughout the State of Michigan with a focus on the western part of the state.This lecture is in partnership with the Kaufman Interfaith Institute at Grand Valley State University.

The Padnos Public Engagement on Jewish Learning Event, to take place on November 1 at 7 pm, will feature Dr. Julian Levinson, Samuel Shetzer Professor of American Jewish Studies, University of Michigan. Dr. Levinson will present a lecture called “'Remnants of a Mighty Nation': Jews Through the Eyes of American Christians” at the Loosemore Auditorium at the Richard M. Devos Center on Grand Valley State University's Campus. The event will also be virtually simulcast via Zoom. Immediately following the lecture at approximately 8:30 there will be a light reception in the adjacent Lubbers Exhibition Hall.

Dr. Levinson prefaces his discussion: "What is it like to belong to a religious minority? For Jews in the United States, there have been countless challenges as well as unexpected benefits from living among a Christian majority. While some individual Christians have been highly critical of Jews for their beliefs and practices, others have been deeply respectful of Jews for being the original “chosen people,” for preserving the Hebrew language, and for maintaining traditions going back to the Bible. This talk will focus on the ways Jews were perceived in nineteenth-century America, when the origins of present-day Christian-Jewish relations were established. It will trace the formation of views that are still prevalent today, including the evangelical fascination with Israel. It will also consider how Jews have shaped their own identities in relation to the broader Christian environment."

This is a hybrid lecture.
Loosemore Auditorium, DeVos Center, Grand Valley State University
Zoom Registration: https://myumi.ch/DJN9M

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Lecture / Discussion Fri, 30 Sep 2022 11:47:55 -0400 2022-11-01T19:00:00-04:00 2022-11-01T21:00:00-04:00 1027 E. Huron Building Judaic Studies Lecture / Discussion Julian Levinson
"Can a Literary Mafia Affect Your Choice of Books?": Jews, Publishing, and American Literature (November 3, 2022 1:30pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/95647 95647-21790516@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, November 3, 2022 1:30pm
Location: 202 S. Thayer
Organized By: Judaic Studies

In the 1960s and 1970s, many American authors, Jewish and non-Jewish alike, complained about a “Jewish literary mafia.” While perniciously circulating antisemitic ideas, such claims also reflected the remarkable success of Jews in the U.S. publishing industry. How did Jews’ roles in publishing influence the development of American literature? How can attention to this story help to produce a more equitable industry now?

This is a hybrid event. Register for the virtual stream here: https://myumi.ch/kyJmr

*Josh Lambert* is the Sophia Moses Robison Associate Professor of Jewish Studies and English, and director of the Jewish Studies Program, at Wellesley College. He did his undergraduate work at Harvard and his doctorate at the University of Michigan, and before Wellesley he taught at NYU, UMass Amherst, and Princeton, and served as the Academic Director of the Yiddish Book Center. His books include Unclean Lips: Obscenity, Jews, and American Culture (2014) and, co-edited with Ilan Stavans, How Yiddish Changed America and How America Changed Yiddish (2020).

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Lecture / Discussion Fri, 01 Jul 2022 10:30:43 -0400 2022-11-03T13:30:00-04:00 2022-11-03T15:00:00-04:00 202 S. Thayer Judaic Studies Lecture / Discussion The Literary Mafia: Jews, Publishing, and Postwar American Literature
New on the Mizrahi Bookshelf: Meet the Scholars (November 8, 2022 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/97307 97307-21794306@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, November 8, 2022 12:00pm
Location:
Organized By: Judaic Studies

The interdisciplinary field of Mizrahi studies covers a wide array of issues, approaches, and methodologies, illuminating in compellingly diverse ways the intricacies of the Mizrahi experience. This hybrid panel brings together scholars who published invaluable books over the past year, thus contributing to the expansion of knowledge about the historical, cultural, and socio-political dimensions of the Mizrahi experience. The authors will present their new texts, while also participating in a conversation with the audience about the significant issues raised by their books and the intellectual dialogue they hope to generate. Offering insight into this vital scholarly landscape, the panel also aims to give a sense of the challenges faced by critical scholars engaging the Mizrahi story within fresh perspectives.

Zoom Registration: https://myumi.ch/7e8NN

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Lecture / Discussion Wed, 12 Oct 2022 15:36:49 -0400 2022-11-08T12:00:00-05:00 2022-11-08T14:00:00-05:00 Judaic Studies Lecture / Discussion Frankel Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies
MEMS Lecture. A Custody Dispute between a Habashi Slave and her Jewish Owner; Issues of Gender and Ethnic/Racial Identity in Medieval Egypt (November 8, 2022 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/98092 98092-21795579@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, November 8, 2022 4:00pm
Location: Tisch Hall
Organized By: Medieval and Early Modern Studies (MEMS)

The chronicler of the late Mamluk period and early Ottoman occupation of Egypt, Ibn Iyas, reported a child custody dispute between an Ethiopian female slave (Ḥabashiyya) and her Jewish owner, a senior official of the Mint, that occurred in 928H/1522CE. This lecture will address the slave’s audacious appeal before the chief Maliki Qadi of Cairo for personal manumission on the basis of her own conversion to Islam, and invalidation of any claim over her infant daughter by the Jewish father, who sought to maintain his licit and communal rights as a parent and as a Jew. The case is considered in light of opinions by legal (Sharīʿa) scholars about the upbringing of children born to parents of differing religions. The lecture also places this dispute in the larger context of racial identity, and controversies over preferences to ‘blackness’ in writings contemporary to the Mamluk period.

Carl F. Petry: Is the Hamad ibn Khalifa Al Thani Professor of Middle East Studies emeritus, Department of History, Northwestern University. His research focuses on pre-modern Egypt, with emphasis on political economy. He has published: The Civilian Elite of Cairo in the Later Middle Ages (Princeton, 1982); Twilight of Majesty: the Reigns of the Mamluk Sultans al-Ashraf Qaytbay and Qansuh al-Ghawri in Egypt (U. Washington, 1993); Protectors or Praetorians? The Last Mamluk Sultans and Egypt’s Waning as a Great Power (S.U.N.Y., 1994); The Criminal Underworld in a Medieval Islamic Society: Narratives from Cairo under the Mamluks (Middle East Documentation Center, U. Chicago, 2012); The Mamluk Sultanate—A History (Cambridge University Press, 2022). He has edited and contributed to The Cambridge History of Egypt, vol. 1: Islamic Egypt, 640-1517 C.E. (Cambridge University Press, 1998). Teaching interests range from gender relations in the Islamic Middle Ages to Revolutionary Egypt under Nasser and Sadat.

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Lecture / Discussion Wed, 19 Oct 2022 10:16:56 -0400 2022-11-08T16:00:00-05:00 2022-11-08T17:30:00-05:00 Tisch Hall Medieval and Early Modern Studies (MEMS) Lecture / Discussion Prof. Carl Petry
"Where is Anne Frank" Film Screening (November 10, 2022 5:30pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/97308 97308-21794307@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, November 10, 2022 5:30pm
Location: Rackham Graduate School (Horace H.)
Organized By: Judaic Studies

Join the Frankel Center for Judaic Studies for the screening of "Where Is Anne Frank," a 2021 animated magic realism film directed by Israeli director Ari Folman. The film follows Kitty, Anne Frank's imaginary friend to whom she addressed her diary, manifesting in contemporary Amsterdam.

The screening will be accompanied by a discussion with the film's director, Ari Folman.

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Film Screening Wed, 09 Nov 2022 08:16:54 -0500 2022-11-10T17:30:00-05:00 2022-11-10T19:45:00-05:00 Rackham Graduate School (Horace H.) Judaic Studies Film Screening Where is Anne Frank?
Faith and Feminism: Changing Roles of Women in American Judaism and Malaysian Islam (November 15, 2022 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/100766 100766-21800332@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, November 15, 2022 4:00pm
Location: 202 S. Thayer
Organized By: Judaic Studies

What does it mean to think about faith and feminism together? Is there a place for feminism in Abrahamic, patriarchal religions? Conversely, is there space for faith within often secular feminist movements? Does being part of a majoritarian group (Muslims in Malaysia) versus being part of a minoritarian group (Jews in the United States) shape or hinder reformist efforts in any way? historian Karla Goldman and political sociologist Saleena Saleem address these questions as they discuss the changing roles of women in American Judaism and Malaysian Islam throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Join the Frankel Center for this hybrid lecture with Saleena Saleem in conversation with Professor Karla Goldman and moderated by Professor Adi Saleem Bharat. This event is co-sponsored with Asian Languages and Cultures.

This is a hybrid taking place in 2022 South Thayer Building.

Zoom Registration: https://myumi.ch/29GXm

*Saleena Saleem* is a PhD candidate in Sociology at the University of Liverpool. She is a currently a Visiting Researcher with the Institute on Culture, Religion & World Affairs, Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University. Her research interests are on decolonial feminism, ethno-religious politics, and gender in South-east Asia. Saleena holds a Master of Science in Political Science from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Master of Science in Business and Economics Journalism from Boston University. She has held research positions at the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, and at the Centre for Asia and Globalisation, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore.

*Karla Goldman* is the Sol Drachler Professor of Social Work, School of Social Work, and Professor of Judaic Studies, College of LS&A. Her research focuses on the history of the American Jewish experience with special attention to the history of American Jewish communities and the evolving roles and contributions of American Jewish women. She directs the University of Michigan Jewish Communal Leadership Program, a collaborative effort between the School of Social Work and the Frankel Center for Judaic Studies.

*Adi Saleem Bharat *is a scholar of modern and contemporary France. He is an Assistant Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures and Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan. He conducts research and teaches courses on race and religion in contemporary French society, with a particular focus on Jews and Muslims. He is currently working on a manuscript tentatively titled Beyond Jews and Muslims, which examines and challenges the construction of a polarized, oppositional category of “Jewish-Muslim relations” in media and political discourse in contemporary French society.

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Lecture / Discussion Thu, 27 Oct 2022 12:23:11 -0400 2022-11-15T16:00:00-05:00 2022-11-15T17:30:00-05:00 202 S. Thayer Judaic Studies Lecture / Discussion Faith and Feminism
Judaic Studies Course Pitch Night - WN23 (November 15, 2022 6:30pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/100966 100966-21800611@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, November 15, 2022 6:30pm
Location: 202 S. Thayer
Organized By: Judaic Studies

Would you like to learn more about WN23 course offerings in Judaic Studies straight from the faculty teaching them?! Please stop by room 2022 of the South Thayer Building on Tuesday, November 15 at 6:30pm for our course pitch night. There will also be food. Hope to see you there!

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Reception / Open House Wed, 02 Nov 2022 08:43:08 -0400 2022-11-15T18:30:00-05:00 2022-11-15T20:00:00-05:00 202 S. Thayer Judaic Studies Reception / Open House Course Pitch Night
Frontiers of Justice: Jews & Muslims in Christian Iberian legislation, 11-12th centuries (November 29, 2022 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/101335 101335-21801231@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, November 29, 2022 4:00pm
Location: Tisch Hall
Organized By: Romance Languages & Literatures

When appraising the position of Jews and Muslims in premodern European societies – and, therefore, the extent to which non-Christians were tolerated, persecuted, and ‘racialised’ in the Latin West – historians habitually turn to legislation as a point of reference. But what social, political, and intellectual work, exactly, did legal texts do in framing religious difference? This talk answers this question through the example of medieval Iberia – where inter-religious encounters were particularly intense, and especially visible in the extant legal records.

The talk highlights the need to better understand the tension between legal norms and practices in discussing how Christian legislation framed religious minorities. To do so, it focuses on the negotiation of violent transgressions against Jews and Muslims in legal franchises drafted during the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The talk explores how the regulation of non-Christian violence served as an instrument of political legitimation. It then unfolds how such regulations were resisted, reformed, and accepted at the local level. These texts reflected not simply norms on Christian-Muslim-Jewish interaction, but norms as they were being contested.

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Lecture / Discussion Mon, 14 Nov 2022 08:40:18 -0500 2022-11-29T16:00:00-05:00 2022-11-29T18:00:00-05:00 Tisch Hall Romance Languages & Literatures Lecture / Discussion Poster
Frankel Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies Fall Symposium: “Mizrahi Studies at the Intersection: Rewriting Body, Language, and Cultural Memory” (November 30, 2022 10:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/97313 97313-21794308@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, November 30, 2022 10:00am
Location: Rackham Graduate School (Horace H.)
Organized By: Judaic Studies

As an interdisciplinary formation, the field of Mizrahi Studies has generated engaged scholarship that questions the ready-made paradigms of knowledge production. A critical strain has been key to shaping a cross-border Mizrahi epistemology, performed in conversation with multiple fields such as ethnic and race studies, gender studies, cultural studies, and post/colonial studies. Yet the intellectual home of Mizrahi studies remains fraught with ambiguities, symptomatic of an in-between identity which does not always fit neatly into a single institutional space. The very name of the field, “Mizrahi,” exists in relation to other rubrics -- Sephardis, Arab Jews, Jews from Muslim countries, Middle Eastern Jews, Asian and African Jews, etc. -- each suggesting different mappings and frames of reference. Although not necessarily mutually exclusive, these diverse rubrics suggest the intricacies of a historically recent constructed identity and the multiple genealogies and orientations that mark this compelling area of inquiry. Critical Mizrahi scholars themselves, as writing subjects, have deepened the study of their own variegated communal stories and experiences across multiple geographies.

This symposium aims to address some of the key issues raised by Mizrahi studies as conceptualized through a transnational, transregional, multidirectional, and intersectional prism. Rather than produce a Mizrahi subject in isolation, the symposium will problematize any fixed understanding of Mizrahiness by highlighting the ways this concept is dynamically shaped by class, race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, religion, nation, and so forth. The symposium strives to illuminate Mizrahi studies as a critical field not simply about the Mizrahim but also about decolonization of knowledge. It hopes to interrogate established categories by asking what constitutes legitimate knowledge when ways of knowing may themselves have to be reconceptualized in a discursive climate saturated with hierarchical, exclusionary, and even violent assumptions? Some additional questions posed by the symposium include: Which methodological paradigms and epistemic frameworks enable the shaping of fragmented memories into a broader and more relational narrative? What kind of obstacles do scholars face in the process of carrying out research involving archival documentation and oral transmission, when such data collection is entangled in histories of obscuring and silencing? What challenges does an academically normative discourse pose for those writing on subjects that touch on traumatic experiences and memories, at once personal, familial, and communal? And what lessons could be learned from more self-reflexive research practices and coping strategies in terms of future scholarship. In sum, this one-day symposium brings together a committed group of scholars working within the broadly construed field of Mizrahi studies, while also reflecting on critical interventions in the field itself.

Program:

9:00 Coffee/ Breakfast

10:00: Welcoming Words
Maya Barzilai, Director, Frankel Center for Judaic Studies
Ruth Tsoffar
Ella Shohat

Panel I, 10:30- 12:00: Reframing Mizrahi Memory
Ruth Tsoffar, Moderator
Orit Ouaknine-Yekutieli: "Movements of Return between Israel and Morocco: Discourses and Practices"
Daniel Schroeter: "Remembering Morocco: The Global Moroccan Jewish Diaspora"
Yali Hashash: “The Lost Academic Work of Mizrahi Women”
Erez Tzfadia: “Home and Citizenship: Mizrahiyut and Informality in Settler-colonial Spatiality”

Lunch: 12:00-1:00

Panel II, 1:00-3:00: Discourses of Mizrahi Belonging
Gal Levy, Moderator
Merav Aloush Levron: “Mizrahi Autoethnography and the Inter-generational Art of Memory”
Naphtaly Shem-Tov: “‘Fricha is a Beautiful Name: Performance as Theatrical Interruption”
Rafael Balulu: “Thoughts about the Possibilities of Metaverse for Mizrahi History and Aesthetics”

Coffee Break: 3:00-3:30

Panel III, 3:30- 5:00: Decolonizing the Mizrahi Body
Liron Mor, Moderator
Shoshana Madmoni-Gerber: “‘Maybe We Did Them a Favor:’ Reading the Kidnapped Babies Affair Through Intersectional Feminist Lens”
Inbal Blau (Maimon): "Healing the Wounds: Legal Perspective on Injustices against the Mizrahim"
Raz Yosef: “Ethnicity, Disidentification, and Queer Performativity: The Arisa Mizrahi Party Line Videos”

Discussion: 5:15- 5:45

Dinner: 6:00

This is a hybrid event.
Rackham East and West Conference Rooms
Zoom Registration: https://myumi.ch/wMPxz

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Conference / Symposium Thu, 08 Dec 2022 14:22:49 -0500 2022-11-30T10:00:00-05:00 2022-11-30T17:30:00-05:00 Rackham Graduate School (Horace H.) Judaic Studies Conference / Symposium Frankel Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies
WCEE Film and Discussion. *Kalinindorf* (January 27, 2023 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/102772 102772-21805122@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, January 27, 2023 12:00pm
Location: Weiser Hall
Organized By: Weiser Center for Europe and Eurasia

*Kalinindorf,* Yurii Kaparulin and Les Kasyanov, directors (29 min, 2020). Following the film screening, Kaparulin will lead the discussion.

The documentary film tells the story of Kalynivske, a village in the Kherson region. Between 1927 and 1944, the village–then known as Kalinindorf–was the center of the first Jewish oblast in Ukraine. Through their encounters with the inhabitants of Kalynivske and of several other former Jewish settlements, the film directors explore the common history of Ukrainian and Jews, complex Ukrainian-Jewish relations, and the Holocaust, and investigate how that layered history is remembered today. The story of Kalynivske and Jewish settlements in the region takes on new meaning following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24th, 2022, as the region was occupied by Russian troops and then annexed to the Russian Federation. After their liberation by the Armed Forces of Ukraine on November 9, 2022, war crimes committed by the Russian army are being discovered and investigated, providing the occasion to revisit the history of violence in the region.

Les Kasyanov is a photographer and filmmaker who has been working with the French historical organization Yahad—In Unum since 2011 collecting evidence of the Holocaust. Les was responsible for principal photography, sound, and editing.

Yurii Kaparulin, associate professor and director of the Raphael Lemkin Center for Genocide Studies at Kherson State University, is a legal scholar and Scholars at Risk Fellow at the University of Michigan Weiser Center for Europe and Eurasia. He has been researching the history of Jewish agricultural settlements in southern Ukraine for the past five years. Prof. Kaparulin researched and produced the film.

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Film Screening Tue, 10 Jan 2023 11:16:31 -0500 2023-01-27T12:00:00-05:00 2023-01-27T13:20:00-05:00 Weiser Hall Weiser Center for Europe and Eurasia Film Screening Kalinindorf film
Frankel Institute Film Screening (February 2, 2023 5:30pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/102702 102702-21805008@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, February 2, 2023 5:30pm
Location: Modern Languages Building
Organized By: Judaic Studies

Join the Frankel Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies for a film screening with director and Frankel Fellow, Rafael Balulu.

The Frankel Institute will be Screening *Levantine - Jacqueline Kahanoff* in MLB 1420 - Lec 2 at 5:30pm on February 2. Film Description:

Jacqueline Kahanoff lived in ebullient Cairo, Paris, and New York, but died lonely in an old-age home in Tel Aviv, Israel. She was the first to write of Levantine and Mizrachi identities and was charismatic and admired, but only a few people knew her work during her lifetime. Director Rafael Balulu goes on a journey in the footsteps of “Levantine thinker” and author, through encounters with her friends in Paris, with intellectuals in the Mizrachi discourse, and with Levantine artists, he not only draws a portrait of this impressive thinker and writer, but also chronicles the trajectory of Levantine identity in Israel as a cultural option.

Trailer:
https://youtu.be/OSd53dGCi_I


*Rafael Balulu* was born in Israel to a Jewish Moroccan family. He is the director of the films A Song of Loves, R. David Buzaglo, and Levantine, Jacqueline Kahanoff. He is currently working on a monumental documentary series recounting the history of the Jews in the The Muslim world, writing a feature film about the Israeli Black Panther movement, and directing a documentary feature film about the life and politics of Rabbi Israel Abuhazira – the Baba Sali. Balulu participated at the Berlinale Talent Campus in 2008, 2011, and 2012. He also participated at the TIFF Talent Lab and Greenhouse Film Centre. Balulu has written and directed projects for television and eight shorts that won international prizes. Among them – Such Eyes which won the NYC Shorts. Batman at the Checkpoint, which won the Berlin Today Award at the 62nd Berlinale. My Name Is Solomon Hagos, which premiered at the 2013 TIFF. Close Your Eyes premiered at the Jerusalem Film Fest Rafael teaches film studies at the Technion’s department of architecture, is a board member of the Israeli Documentary Filmmakers Forum, a member of the Israeli Academy of Film and Television, and a board member of The Lottery Council for Culture and the Arts where is held the position of the chairperson to the subcommittee of Film & Television. He holds a bachelor’s degree in film studies from the Sam Spiegel Film and Television School. He lives in Jaffa.

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Film Screening Tue, 31 Jan 2023 12:18:37 -0500 2023-02-02T17:30:00-05:00 2023-02-02T19:00:00-05:00 Modern Languages Building Judaic Studies Film Screening Rafael Balulu
New Translations from Yiddish (February 9, 2023 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/102703 102703-21805016@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, February 9, 2023 12:00pm
Location: 202 S. Thayer
Organized By: Judaic Studies

Public lecture by Anita Norich and Julian Levinson about two new translations of Yiddish fiction: "Fear" by Chana Blankshteyn and "Flames from the Earth" by Isaiah Spiegel. Norich and Levinson will introduce these works, discuss broader issues surrounding Yiddish translation, and read excerpts.

This is a hybrid event in 2022 South Thayer Building.
Zoom: https://myumi.ch/W2RRW

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Lecture / Discussion Fri, 03 Feb 2023 08:23:41 -0500 2023-02-09T12:00:00-05:00 2023-02-09T13:30:00-05:00 202 S. Thayer Judaic Studies Lecture / Discussion New Translations from Yiddish
"An Ideological Suitcase Ripe for Stuffing": How the Soviet Jew Was Made (February 21, 2023 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/104065 104065-21808356@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, February 21, 2023 4:00pm
Location: 202 S. Thayer
Organized By: Judaic Studies

In this presentation, Sasha Senderovich will discuss his new book, *How the Soviet Jew Was Made* (Harvard University Press, 2022), which was named a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award. In the book, Senderovich offers a close reading of postrevolutionary Russian and Yiddish literature and film that recast the Soviet Jew as a novel cultural figure: not just a minority but an ambivalent character navigating between the Jewish past and Bolshevik modernity.

After the revolution of 1917, Jews who had previously lived in the Russian Empire’s Pale of Settlement quickly exited the shtetls, seeking prospects elsewhere. Some left for bigger cities in different parts of the new Bolshevik state, others for Europe, America, or Palestine. Thousands tried their luck in the newly established Jewish Autonomous Region in the Far East, where urban merchants would become tillers of the soil. For these Jews, Soviet modernity meant freedom, the possibility of the new, and the pressure to discard old ways of life.

This ambivalence was embodied in the Soviet Jew—not just a descriptive demographic term but a novel cultural figure. In insightful readings of Yiddish and Russian literature, films, and reportage, Senderovich finds characters traversing space and history and carrying with them the dislodged practices and archetypes of a lost Jewish world. Senderovich urges us to see the Soviet Jew anew, as not only a minority but also a particular kind of liminal being in a shifting landscape.


This is a hybrid event in 2022 South Thayer Building.
Zoom Registration: https://myumi.ch/73eJy

*Sasha Senderovich* is an Assistant Professor in Slavic Languages & Literatures and the Jackson School of International Studies, and a faculty affiliate at the Stroum Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Washington in Seattle. Together with Harriet Murav, he translated, from the Yiddish, David Bergelson’s novel *Judgment *(Northwestern University Press, 2017). Together with Harriet Murav, he is currently working on* In the Shadow of the Holocaust: Short Fiction by Jewish Writers from the Soviet Union*, a collection of stories by several different authors translated from both Yiddish and Russian. He has also published on contemporary Soviet-born immigrant Jewish authors in America. His first monograph, *How the Soviet Jew Was Made*, was published by Harvard University Press in 2022. In addition to scholarly work, he has also published essays on literary, cultural, and political topics in the *Los Angeles Review of Books*, the *New York Times*, the *Forward*, *Lilith*, *Jewish Currents*, the *Stranger*, and the *New Republic*.

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Lecture / Discussion Thu, 26 Jan 2023 13:36:58 -0500 2023-02-21T16:00:00-05:00 2023-02-21T17:30:00-05:00 202 S. Thayer Judaic Studies Lecture / Discussion Sasha Senderovich
Winter DEI Film Discussion Series | "Denial" (March 9, 2023 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/103321 103321-21807025@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, March 9, 2023 12:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: MSA Diversity Equity & Inclusion

This riveting 2016 drama is based on Deborah Lipstadt's 2005 book, "History on Trial: My Day in Court with a Holocaust Denier." An award-winning theatrical release starring Rachel Weisz, Timothy Spall, and Tom Wilkinson, it's an account of the Irving v Penguin Books Ltd case, in which Holocaust scholar Lipstadt was sued by Holocaust denier David Irving for libel in London's High Court of Justice in 1996. Available to stream FREE Kanopy for everyone in the U-M community. This discussion is open to all, but please register to receive the Zoom link prior to the session.

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Other Thu, 12 Jan 2023 14:50:01 -0500 2023-03-09T12:00:00-05:00 2023-03-09T13:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location MSA Diversity Equity & Inclusion Other "Denial" original theatrical film poster featuring actors (left to right) Timothy Spall, Rachel Weisz, and Tom Wilkinson.
Winter DEI Film Discussion Series | "Denial" (March 9, 2023 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/105469 105469-21811912@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, March 9, 2023 12:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: MSA Diversity Equity & Inclusion

This riveting 2016 drama is based on Deborah Lipstadt's 2005 book, "History on Trial: My Day in Court with a Holocaust Denier." An award-winning theatrical release starring Rachel Weisz, Timothy Spall, and Tom Wilkinson, "Denial" is the account of the Irving v Penguin Books Ltd case, in which Holocaust scholar Lipstadt was sued by Holocaust denier David Irving for libel in London's High Court of Justice in 1996. Available to stream FREE Kanopy for everyone in the U-M community. This discussion is open to all, but please register to receive the Zoom link prior to the session.

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Other Mon, 27 Feb 2023 14:49:35 -0500 2023-03-09T12:00:00-05:00 2023-03-09T13:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location MSA Diversity Equity & Inclusion Other Theatrical poster for film "Denial," with actors (left to right) Timothy Spall, Rachel Weisz, and Tom Wilkinson.
STS Speaker Series. Queering and Transing the Life Cycle in Jewish Ritual (March 13, 2023 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/102182 102182-21803655@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, March 13, 2023 4:00pm
Location: Tisch Hall
Organized By: Science, Technology & Society

The term “life cycle ritual” is used widely in Jewish Studies. In this talk I trace the idea of the life cycle and its development, while considering the racialized, gendered, and sexual politics of the term, and the way it borrows from biological sciences. Scholars have argued that the concept of the life cycle in Judaism originates with the rabbis in late antiquity. Eunuchs and androgynes, who are found prolifically in rabbinic literature, can trouble the assumption that the rabbis are invested in an orderly cycle of life. I weave together trans and queer theory with Jewish sources to examine legal attempts to channel messy embodiment into a life trajectory.

Max Strassfeld is an Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Arizona. They are the author of Trans Talmud: Androgynes and Eunuchs in Rabbinic Literature, which was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Awards in 2022.

Co-sponsors: Departments of Women’s and Gender Studies; Classical Studies; Center for Judaic Studies

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Lecture / Discussion Tue, 31 Jan 2023 13:05:04 -0500 2023-03-13T16:00:00-04:00 2023-03-13T17:30:00-04:00 Tisch Hall Science, Technology & Society Lecture / Discussion Prof. Max Strassfeld
33rd Belin Lecture: An Evening with Gary Shteyngart (March 16, 2023 5:30pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/102705 102705-21805017@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, March 16, 2023 5:30pm
Location: Weiser Hall
Organized By: Judaic Studies

Join the Frankel Center for the 33rd Annual David W. Belin lecture with author Gary Shteyngart. The lecture will be preceded by a reception at 5:30pm and followed by a book signing with Shteyngart at 7:30pm. This is a hybrid event in the Weiser Hall 10th Floor Event Space. Zoom registration: https://myumi.ch/Qqqrq

In this evening with Gary Shteyngart, the author will read from his work; discuss past Jewish immigration and current Jewish American affairs; and candidly answer audience questions about a wide range of social and literary topics.

*New York Times* bestselling author Gary Shteyngart wins over readers and audiences with his blistering humor, his satirical takedowns of contemporary society, and his compassionate examination of modern love and loss. With his recent memoir *Little Failure*, Shteyngart speaks to the American immigrant story with heart, humor, and biting wit. His book, *Lake Success*, tells the tale of a modern American living as a member of the one percent who abandons everything to discover the "real America."

The Belin lecture series was established in 1991 through a generous gift from the late David W. Belin of Des Moines and New York to provide an academic forum for the discussion of contemporary Jewish life in the United States. Previous scholars to hold this honor include Deborah Lipstadt, Samuel Freedman, Ruth Messinger, Jim Loeffler, Beth Wenger, and Lila Corwin Berman among others. Each year, the lecture is also published in written form in collaboration with Michigan Publishing.

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Lecture / Discussion Thu, 02 Mar 2023 12:16:28 -0500 2023-03-16T17:30:00-04:00 2023-03-16T20:00:00-04:00 Weiser Hall Judaic Studies Lecture / Discussion Gary Shteyngart, Photo credit: Brigitte Lacombe
Annual Copernicus Lecture. Survivors Saving Survivors (March 22, 2023 5:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/103584 103584-21807516@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, March 22, 2023 5:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: Copernicus Center for Polish Studies

The 2023 Annual Copernicus Lecture will feature two presentations on how JCC Krakow has organized volunteers to aid Ukrainian refugees who fled to Poland. Following the presentations, the two speakers will join a conversation led by CCPS Director Geneviève Zubrzycki.

"In the Shadow of Auschwitz: How JCC Krakow is Rebuilding Jewish Life in Poland and Supporting Ukrainian Refugees"

JCC Krakow (est.2008) is the vibrant center of reborn Jewish life in Kraków, with over 850 members. With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, it quickly morphed into one of Kraków’s most important humanitarian aid centers, providing services to over 150,000 Ukrainian refugees to date. In this talk, JCC Krakow CEO Jonathan Ornstein will discuss the center's mission to rebuild Jewish communal life in the shadow of Auschwitz, and the impact of the Jewish community’s work with Ukrainian refugees.

"Survivors Saving Survivors: Photographing the Ukrainian Refugee Experience in Poland"

In April and June 2022, at the invitation of JCC Krakow, Chuck Fishman traveled to Poland to document the JCC and the Jewish community’s commitment to helping Ukrainian refugees fleeing their war-torn country. What he witnessed and captured in a series of gripping photographs is tikkun olam, a central concept in Judaism that denotes activities that repair and improve the world we live in. Fishman will discuss his experience and the accompanying exhibit--on display in Weiser Hall in March and April--that shifts the lens away from the horror the refugees have endured to focus instead on human goodness and how it can overcome lingering evil.

Jonathan Ornstein is the Chief Executive Officer of the Jewish Community Centre of Krakow. The JCC boasts over 850 Jewish members, welcomes 10,000 visitors a month and has become one of Poland’s most visible signs of Jewish revival. Ornstein created the annual Ride For The Living and Holocaust Survivor Day, two global initiatives with tens of thousands of participants. Prior to occupying his post at the JCC, Ornstein lectured in Modern Hebrew at Jagiellonian University, founded the “Gesher” association for Polish-Israeli dialogue, and is a founding member of the Krakow Association of Christians and Jews where he serves as vice president.

In his 45-year career, freelance photographer Chuck Fishman has focused on social and political issues with a strong humanistic concern. His work on Jewish life in Poland, begun in 1975, continues to the present day.Fishman’s work has been extensively published, exhibited, and collected worldwide, and has earned him prestigious World Press Photo Foundation medals four times. His photographs have appeared on the covers of *Time, Life, Fortune, Newsweek, The London Sunday Times, The Economist* and numerous others. Fishman’s work is included in the collections of the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery; the United Nations; POLIN: The Museum of the History of Polish Jews and the Stanford University and New York Public Libraries, to name a few, as well as private and corporate collections.

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Lecture / Discussion Wed, 22 Mar 2023 11:29:24 -0400 2023-03-22T17:00:00-04:00 2023-03-22T18:30:00-04:00 Museum of Art Copernicus Center for Polish Studies Lecture / Discussion Copernicus Lecture banner
Aspects of Disgust and Rabbinic Judaism (March 23, 2023 12:30pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/102708 102708-21805020@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, March 23, 2023 12:30pm
Location: 202 S. Thayer
Organized By: Judaic Studies

In the study of Rabbinic Judaism (200-700 CE), the emotion of disgust has received minimal attention. Yet disgust plays a role in almost every category of rabbinic law and thought, including dietary regulations, impurity, sacrifices, forbidden sex, divorce, prayer, social relations with gentiles and “Others,” and ethical character. This lecture begins by discussing theoretical aspects of disgust and then surveys the ways disgust impacts these different dimensions of rabbinic Judaism. It concludes by charting some questions for further study and productive avenues for further research.

This is a hybrid event in 2022 South Thayer Building.
Zoom Registration https://myumi.ch/MrzeV

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Lecture / Discussion Thu, 23 Feb 2023 12:20:47 -0500 2023-03-23T12:30:00-04:00 2023-03-23T14:00:00-04:00 202 S. Thayer Judaic Studies Lecture / Discussion Dr. Jeffrey L. Rubenstein
Representations of the Theresienstadt ghetto in survivors' testimonies (March 28, 2023 5:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/105801 105801-21812971@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, March 28, 2023 5:00pm
Location: Modern Languages Building
Organized By: Slavic Languages & Literatures

Please join us for this Presentation on narratives of the Theresienstadt Ghetto in early postwar Czechoslovakia based on two reports written by Czech Jewish survivors: Mirko Tůma’s “A ghetto of our days” (1946) and Richard Feder's “Jewish tragedy – Last act” (1947). Analyzing how those narratives were perceived by contemporaries in Czech media.

Lena Franke studied European Studies (BA) and Slavic Studies (MA) at the universities of Passau, Tübingen and Regensburg and spent semesters abroad in Kazan, Riga and Prague. In 2020 she worked as a research assistant for the project “Grenze/n in nationalen und transnationalen Erinnerungskulturen zwischen Tschechien und Bayern” at Bohemicum, Center for Czech Studies, University of Regensburg. During her Ph.D., research stays in Prague were supported by the Bavarian-Czech Academic Agency and by a Josef Dobrovský Fellowship at the Institute for Czech literature at the Czech Academy of Sciences. Since April 2021 she is a scholarship holder at the Graduate School for East and Southeast European Studies in Regensburg.

If there is anything we can do to make this event accessible to you, please contact us at slavic@umich.edu. Advance notice is necessary as some accommodations may require more time for the university to arrange. Thank you!

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Presentation Wed, 08 Mar 2023 10:59:49 -0500 2023-03-28T17:00:00-04:00 2023-03-28T19:00:00-04:00 Modern Languages Building Slavic Languages & Literatures Presentation Theresienstadt ghetto
Wieseneck and Frankel Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies Spring Symposium, “Mizrahi Studies at the Intersection” (March 29, 2023 9:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/102709 102709-21805021@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, March 29, 2023 9:00am
Location: Michigan League
Organized By: Judaic Studies

The Frankel Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies is hosting the Wieseneck Symposium, “Mizrahi Studies at the Intersection" on March 29-30 in the Michigan League's Michigan Room. The symposium will be followed by a performance by Neta Elkayam and Amit Hai Cohen at 7pm on the 30th.

This event is a part of the Frankel Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies theme year “Mizrahim and the Politics of Ethnicity,” led by co-head fellows Ruth Tsoffar, U-M Professor of Comparative Literature, Women’s and Gender Studies, and Judaic Studies, and Ella Shohat, professor of Cultural Studies at New York University. This theme year brings together thirteen scholars from three countries who will explore interdisciplinary and intersectional conversations on the meaning of ethnicity in the study of Mizrahi (Arab-Jewish) culture. The group consists of a dynamic forum of scholars from a variety of disciplines aiming to reflect and further expand, diversify, and theorize the discussion of Jewish/Israeli society and culture.

This symposium aims at addressing some of the key issues raised by Mizrahi studies as conceptualized through a transnational, transregional, multidirectional, and intersectional prism. Rather than producing a Mizrahi subject in isolation, the symposium seeks to problematize any fixed understanding of Mizrahiness by highlighting the ways this concept is dynamically shaped by class, race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, religion, nation, and so forth. As such, the symposium strives to illuminate Mizrahi studies as a critical field not simply about the Mizrahim but also about decolonization of knowledge. It hopes to interrogate established categories by asking what constitutes legitimate knowledge when ways of knowing may themselves have to be reconceptualized in a discursive climate saturated with hierarchical, exclusionary, and even violent assumptions? Some additional questions posed by the symposium include: Which methodological paradigms and epistemic frameworks enable the shaping of fragmented memories into a broader and more relational narrative? What kind of obstacles do scholars face in the process of carrying out research involving archival documentation and oral transmission, when such data collection is entangled in histories of obscuring and silencing? What challenges does an academically normative discourse pose for those writing on subjects that touch on traumatic experiences and memories, at once personal, familial, and communal? And what lessons could be learned from more self-reflexive research practices and coping strategies in terms of future scholarship.

The participants will also reflect on the symposium in a closed discussion on Friday, March 31st at Rackham Graduate School.

This event is co-sponsored by the departments of Comparative Literature, Middle East Studies, Women’s Studies and Gender, Institute for Research on Women & Gender, and Anthropology.

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Conference / Symposium Tue, 28 Mar 2023 13:18:04 -0400 2023-03-29T09:00:00-04:00 2023-03-29T18:00:00-04:00 Michigan League Judaic Studies Conference / Symposium Image: Neta Elkayam and Amit Hai Cohen’s Muima, 2022
Wieseneck and Frankel Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies Spring Symposium, “Mizrahi Studies at the Intersection” (March 30, 2023 9:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/102709 102709-21805022@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, March 30, 2023 9:00am
Location: Michigan League
Organized By: Judaic Studies

The Frankel Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies is hosting the Wieseneck Symposium, “Mizrahi Studies at the Intersection" on March 29-30 in the Michigan League's Michigan Room. The symposium will be followed by a performance by Neta Elkayam and Amit Hai Cohen at 7pm on the 30th.

This event is a part of the Frankel Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies theme year “Mizrahim and the Politics of Ethnicity,” led by co-head fellows Ruth Tsoffar, U-M Professor of Comparative Literature, Women’s and Gender Studies, and Judaic Studies, and Ella Shohat, professor of Cultural Studies at New York University. This theme year brings together thirteen scholars from three countries who will explore interdisciplinary and intersectional conversations on the meaning of ethnicity in the study of Mizrahi (Arab-Jewish) culture. The group consists of a dynamic forum of scholars from a variety of disciplines aiming to reflect and further expand, diversify, and theorize the discussion of Jewish/Israeli society and culture.

This symposium aims at addressing some of the key issues raised by Mizrahi studies as conceptualized through a transnational, transregional, multidirectional, and intersectional prism. Rather than producing a Mizrahi subject in isolation, the symposium seeks to problematize any fixed understanding of Mizrahiness by highlighting the ways this concept is dynamically shaped by class, race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, religion, nation, and so forth. As such, the symposium strives to illuminate Mizrahi studies as a critical field not simply about the Mizrahim but also about decolonization of knowledge. It hopes to interrogate established categories by asking what constitutes legitimate knowledge when ways of knowing may themselves have to be reconceptualized in a discursive climate saturated with hierarchical, exclusionary, and even violent assumptions? Some additional questions posed by the symposium include: Which methodological paradigms and epistemic frameworks enable the shaping of fragmented memories into a broader and more relational narrative? What kind of obstacles do scholars face in the process of carrying out research involving archival documentation and oral transmission, when such data collection is entangled in histories of obscuring and silencing? What challenges does an academically normative discourse pose for those writing on subjects that touch on traumatic experiences and memories, at once personal, familial, and communal? And what lessons could be learned from more self-reflexive research practices and coping strategies in terms of future scholarship.

The participants will also reflect on the symposium in a closed discussion on Friday, March 31st at Rackham Graduate School.

This event is co-sponsored by the departments of Comparative Literature, Middle East Studies, Women’s Studies and Gender, Institute for Research on Women & Gender, and Anthropology.

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Conference / Symposium Tue, 28 Mar 2023 13:18:04 -0400 2023-03-30T09:00:00-04:00 2023-03-30T18:00:00-04:00 Michigan League Judaic Studies Conference / Symposium Image: Neta Elkayam and Amit Hai Cohen’s Muima, 2022
Wieseneck and Frankel Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies Spring Symposium, “Mizrahi Studies at the Intersection” (March 31, 2023 9:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/102709 102709-21805023@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, March 31, 2023 9:00am
Location: Michigan League
Organized By: Judaic Studies

The Frankel Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies is hosting the Wieseneck Symposium, “Mizrahi Studies at the Intersection" on March 29-30 in the Michigan League's Michigan Room. The symposium will be followed by a performance by Neta Elkayam and Amit Hai Cohen at 7pm on the 30th.

This event is a part of the Frankel Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies theme year “Mizrahim and the Politics of Ethnicity,” led by co-head fellows Ruth Tsoffar, U-M Professor of Comparative Literature, Women’s and Gender Studies, and Judaic Studies, and Ella Shohat, professor of Cultural Studies at New York University. This theme year brings together thirteen scholars from three countries who will explore interdisciplinary and intersectional conversations on the meaning of ethnicity in the study of Mizrahi (Arab-Jewish) culture. The group consists of a dynamic forum of scholars from a variety of disciplines aiming to reflect and further expand, diversify, and theorize the discussion of Jewish/Israeli society and culture.

This symposium aims at addressing some of the key issues raised by Mizrahi studies as conceptualized through a transnational, transregional, multidirectional, and intersectional prism. Rather than producing a Mizrahi subject in isolation, the symposium seeks to problematize any fixed understanding of Mizrahiness by highlighting the ways this concept is dynamically shaped by class, race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, religion, nation, and so forth. As such, the symposium strives to illuminate Mizrahi studies as a critical field not simply about the Mizrahim but also about decolonization of knowledge. It hopes to interrogate established categories by asking what constitutes legitimate knowledge when ways of knowing may themselves have to be reconceptualized in a discursive climate saturated with hierarchical, exclusionary, and even violent assumptions? Some additional questions posed by the symposium include: Which methodological paradigms and epistemic frameworks enable the shaping of fragmented memories into a broader and more relational narrative? What kind of obstacles do scholars face in the process of carrying out research involving archival documentation and oral transmission, when such data collection is entangled in histories of obscuring and silencing? What challenges does an academically normative discourse pose for those writing on subjects that touch on traumatic experiences and memories, at once personal, familial, and communal? And what lessons could be learned from more self-reflexive research practices and coping strategies in terms of future scholarship.

The participants will also reflect on the symposium in a closed discussion on Friday, March 31st at Rackham Graduate School.

This event is co-sponsored by the departments of Comparative Literature, Middle East Studies, Women’s Studies and Gender, Institute for Research on Women & Gender, and Anthropology.

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Conference / Symposium Tue, 28 Mar 2023 13:18:04 -0400 2023-03-31T09:00:00-04:00 2023-03-31T14:00:00-04:00 Michigan League Judaic Studies Conference / Symposium Image: Neta Elkayam and Amit Hai Cohen’s Muima, 2022
Queering Identity: A Conversation with 2Fik (April 10, 2023 1:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/106868 106868-21814954@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, April 10, 2023 1:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Judaic Studies

Join 2Fik in conversation with Adi Saleem Bharat for a discussion about deconstructing reified, oppositional notions of Jewishness and Muslimness through performance art and the possibility of broadening (or queering) our understandings of what it means to be Jewish and Muslim in the twenty-first century. 2Fik is a multidisciplinary artist known for embodying multiple, unique characters. Through his social and political works, 2Fik creates lives for characters who almost seem real, whose stories, personalities, and interests are rooted in our world. Each of his creations are conceived in a voyeuristic way that pushes the spectator to wonder what exists beyond the scope of the work. Each character in this humorous and interpretative world becomes a reflection of our society. Québécois by adoption, French by birth, and Moroccan by origin, 2Fik stages his characters much in the manner of a soap opera/reality show, thus creating a dialogue between reality and fiction that provokes a reflection on our society and our place in it. A pioneer in his field with a nearly twenty-year career, he masters the art of caricature and encourages the reflection on universality, equality between men and women, and the acceptance of oneself as a unique being. His work has been the subject of a number of critical scholarly analyses, from Denis Provencher's book Queer Maghrebi French: Language, Temporalities, Transfiliations (2017) to Gil Hochberg's article "From 'sexy Semite' to Semitic ghosts: contemporary art between Arab and Jew" (2020).


Register for the virtual event here: https://myumi.ch/qG26Z

Credit : Albert Zablit

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Livestream / Virtual Fri, 07 Apr 2023 11:25:40 -0400 2023-04-10T13:00:00-04:00 2023-04-10T14:30:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Judaic Studies Livestream / Virtual Image Credit: Albert Zablit