Happening @ Michigan https://events.umich.edu/list/rss RSS Feed for Happening @ Michigan Events at the University of Michigan. 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
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
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
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
In this Holy Place: Ritual Healing Sites in Roman and Late Antique Palestine (April 3, 2023 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/106526 106526-21814407@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, April 3, 2023 4:00pm
Location: Tisch Hall
Organized By: Department of Middle East Studies

Part of the Meet the Author Series. In the ancient Mediterranean world, the sick and injured visited sites associated with healing deities in order to be cured. In Palestine, ritual cures were often sought at sites associated with water, and especially at the thermal-mineral springs. This talk will show how evidence from Hammat Gader and Hammat Tiberias indicates that Jews and Christians bathed in these springs alongside devotees of Asclepius, hoping that a divine healer would appear to them in a dream and heal them. Join guest speaker Dr. Megan Nutzman April 3rd at 4:00-5:30pm in Tisch Hall, Room 1014.

Additionally, Dr. Nutzman will be leading a discussion about her book in a different location for a small group of faculty and graduate students at 9:00am. If you are interested please contact Deborah Forger at dkforger@umich.edu to register as space is limited.

*Contested Cures: Identity and Ritual Healing in Roman and Late antique Palestine*

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Lecture / Discussion Tue, 21 Mar 2023 10:38:08 -0400 2023-04-03T16:00:00-04:00 2023-04-03T17:30:00-04:00 Tisch Hall Department of Middle East Studies Lecture / Discussion Poster
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
A Discussion of The Mishnah and its Place in History (September 6, 2023 9:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/111409 111409-21826986@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, September 6, 2023 9:00am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Judaic Studies

This one-day colloquium will reflect on the place and use of the Mishnah in the study of early Judaism, Rabbinic Judaism, and Christianity. Centered in the conversation is the publication of the new Oxford Annotated (2022), edited by Shaye J.D. Cohen and Hayim Lapin.

The event is comprised of two panels, each of which will begin with two or three, 10-15 minute presentations and follow with an open conversation among all participants. The first session (9-11am EST) will discuss the problems of translating the Mishnah in light of the experience of the new edition. The second session (11:30am-1:30pm EST) will instead address the very thorny issue of using the Mishnah for the study of Second Temple Judaism.

Register for this free, virtual event here: https://tinyurl.com/5n677sua


SCHEDULE
** Schedule is set according to Eastern Daylight time / New York Time**

9:00-11:00am EDT Session 1: Translation Issues relating to the publication of the Mishnah

Phil Lieberman (Chair)
Shaye Cohen (Presenter)
Hayim Lapin (Presenter)
Michal Bar Asher Siegal
Gregg Gardner
Richard Sarason
Elizabeth Alexander


11:30am-1:30pm EDT Session 2: The Mishnah and the study of Second Temple Judaism and Christian Origins: To what extent and in what ways can or should we use the Mishnah?

Jonathan Kaplan (Chair)
Adele Reinhartz (Presenter)
Steven Fraade (Presenter)
Krista Dalton (Presenter)
Kelley Coblentz Bautch
Gabriele Boccaccini
Rebecca Wollenberg
Paula Fredricksen
Tal Ilan
Ishay Rosen-Zvi
Lawrence Schiffman

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Livestream / Virtual Fri, 01 Sep 2023 13:08:14 -0400 2023-09-06T09:00:00-04:00 2023-09-06T13:30:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Judaic Studies Livestream / Virtual Event Poster
Daniel Kahn and Jake Shulman-Ment, Perform and Discuss their New Album, The Building and Other Songs (September 21, 2023 6:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/111907 111907-21827880@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, September 21, 2023 6:00pm
Location: Ross School of Business
Organized By: Judaic Studies

Detroit-born, Hamburg-based troubadour and multi-instrumentalist Daniel Kahn and New Yorker master fiddler Jake Shulman-Ment have been playing and traveling together for nearly twenty years. Having worked in so many bands and projects (including The Painted Bird and Brothers Nazaroff), they have finally joined up to record a true analog duo record: The Building & Other Songs. It is, as Kahn says, "the most personal and intimate selection of songs I've ever recorded. And with Jake, it was like recording it with a brother." The interpretations range from radical treatments of modern Yiddish songs such as Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman's title track "Der Binyen / The Building" to new Yiddish translations of some of Kahn's lyrical heroes: Cohen, Brecht, Springsteen, Guthrie, and Waits. Yiddish serves here as a kind of broken mirror, reflecting both despair and repair, exile and ecstasy, loss of trust and wanderlust. The title track is the key to it all: "Imagine your building… how it suddenly burns and falls…a tower of steel on foundations of straw… Why sit and sigh?… Let us dance a tango till the dawn, warming our souls by the burning of straw."

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Performance Thu, 21 Sep 2023 09:26:26 -0400 2023-09-21T18:00:00-04:00 2023-09-21T19:30:00-04:00 Ross School of Business Judaic Studies Performance Ross School of Business
Horror Films Across Boundaries: American, Israeli, Jewish, and Muslim Perspectives (October 4, 2023 4:30pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/113131 113131-21830128@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, October 4, 2023 4:30pm
Location: North Quad
Organized By: Judaic Studies

This roundtable brings together scholars of the horror film working in the contexts of Jewish, Muslim, American and Israeli cinemas. They will discuss these questions and issues: How do we take stock of concurrent developments in Jewish, Muslim, American and Israeli horror films? What are the points of convergence and divergence among them? What does horror add to our understanding of Muslim and Jewish cultures? Alternatively, how do Jewish and Muslim interventions contribute to the horror genre?

Attend in-person, or online at https://myumi.ch/gRAV2

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Film Screening Tue, 26 Sep 2023 15:11:32 -0400 2023-10-04T16:30:00-04:00 2023-10-04T18:30:00-04:00 North Quad Judaic Studies Film Screening Horror Films Across Boundaries: American, Israeli, Jewish, and Muslim Perspectives
Unexpected Gifts: A Convening on Jewish Education in Honor of Harlene Appelman (October 15, 2023 1:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/113198 113198-21830490@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, October 15, 2023 1:00pm
Location: School of Social Work Building
Organized By: Judaic Studies

Please join the Jewish Communal Leadership Program, the Covenant Foundation, and the Frankel Center for Judaic Studies for a convening on Jewish education to honor the memory of master Jewish educator and long-term executive director of the Covenant Foundation, Harlene Winnick Appelman."

This gathering will take place on Sunday, October 15, 2023, from 1 p.m. to 9 p.m., at the University of Michigan School of Social Work and Michigan Hillel in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where Harlene made her home. Dinner will be included for those who RSVP by October 2.

Master educators Dr. Sivan Zakai, Dr. Susie Tanchel, and Rabbi Rebecca Milder will explore the unexpected gifts embedded in children’s capacity for learning and imagination. Musical artists and educators Anthony Mordechai Tzvi Russell and Sarah Aroeste and visual artist Hillel Smith will consider the use of art and culture to challenge our cultural assumptions. Rabba Yaffa Epstein will honor Harlene's work in elevating the entire field with a keynote presentation focused on “The Holy Work of Education: Excellence, Passion, and Empowering Others.” The evening program will include music from Sarah Aroeste as well as words of appreciation and remembrance from some of Harlene’s students, colleagues, and friends.

Additional program sponsors include the Jewish Federation of Greater Ann Arbor, the Mandell L. and Madeleine H. Berman Foundation, Michigan Hillel, the Center for Jewish Studies at Eastern Michigan University, Hillel Day School, and Just-Ice Tea.

This event (including a kosher dinner at Hillel for those who RSVP before October 2) is free and open to the public. We welcome all community members, educators, and Jewish professionals. For more information, please contact Megan Bernard (megberna@umich.edu). Out-of-town guests are invited to be in touch for help with local arrangements.

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Workshop / Seminar Wed, 27 Sep 2023 14:16:22 -0400 2023-10-15T13:00:00-04:00 2023-10-15T21:00:00-04:00 School of Social Work Building Judaic Studies Workshop / Seminar Unexpected Gifts: A Convening on Jewish Education in Honor of Harlene Appelman
Abrahamic Vernaculars: Rivals Thinking Together (October 17, 2023 7:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/111930 111930-21827932@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, October 17, 2023 7:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Judaic Studies

This year's Padnos Public Engagement Lecture will be led by:
Rebecca Scharbach Wollenberg, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Judaic Studies, University of Michigan.

Contemporary media often emphasizes the competitive nature of the Abrahamic monotheisms. This is not entirely unjustified. Relations between Jews, Christians, and Muslims have certainly included their share of religious wars, theological polemic, and oppression. Yet there is also another side to the Abrahamic coin. Even in the midst of communal rivalry, Jewish, Christian and Muslim practitioners have often turned to each other to think through religious concepts, elucidate a shared sense of sacred history, and enrich their ritual practices. From the development of shared ritual practices surrounding childbirth to ecumenical medieval study groups, this talk explores historical moments when Jews, Christians, and Muslim have done their religious thinking together.

--

From Dr. Wollenberg: I teach biblical reception history, or the history of Jewish biblical interpretation. My research explores the diverse ways in which historical Jewish communities have imagined the Hebrew Bible as a revelation and the varied modes in which they have engaged with the biblical tradition in practice. While centering rabbinic Jewish communities, my research frequently looks at loci of intersection between rabbinic Jewish thinkers and neighboring communities, from early Christian lay practitioners, to late antique readers of Homer, and the medieval Muslim scholars who foreshadowed scholarly biblical criticism.

October 17, 7pm
to be followed by a light reception at 8:30pm.
This is a hybrid lecture. See registration link here: gvsu.edu/interfaith/padnos

Hager Auditorium (Room 119)
Cook-Devos Center for Health Sciences
Grand Valley State University
301 Michigan St NE, Grand Rapids, MI 49503

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Lecture / Discussion Fri, 08 Sep 2023 13:12:26 -0400 2023-10-17T19:00:00-04:00 2023-10-17T20:30:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Judaic Studies Lecture / Discussion Event Poster
Rethinking Disability and the Divine Image: Resisting Ableism, Queering Kinship (October 24, 2023 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/113451 113451-21831027@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, October 24, 2023 4:00pm
Location: 202 S. Thayer
Organized By: Judaic Studies

The assertion that humanity is made in the image of God has long been a linchpin of Jewish ethical thought, grounding contemporary commitments to human rights, racial justice, gender equity, disability affirmation, and more. But "divine image" traditions rest on a troubling intellectual history, one that traffics in human exceptionalism, anthropocentrism, and intense ableism. This talk critically examines that complex history and imagines richer alternatives, showing how queer, feminist, and ecologically-informed disability wisdom can catalyze a radical recognition of the sacred among human, animal, and earthy kin.

About Julia:

Julia Watts Belser (she/her) is professor of Jewish Studies at Georgetown University and core faculty in Georgetown’s Disability Studies program, as well as a rabbi and longtime activist for disability and gender justice. Her research centers on gender, sexuality, and disability in rabbinic literature; she also brings classical Jewish texts into conversation with disability studies, feminist and queer theory, and environmental justice. She is the author of several scholarly books, including Rabbinic Tales of Destruction: Gender, Sex, and Disability in the Ruins of Jerusalem (Oxford University Press, 2018). Her latest book is Loving Our Own Bones: Disability Wisdom and the Spiritual Subversiveness of Knowing Ourselves Whole (Beacon Press, 2023).

Join us person in 2022 Thayer or online here: https://myumi.ch/m7MeD

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Lecture / Discussion Tue, 03 Oct 2023 14:57:58 -0400 2023-10-24T16:00:00-04:00 2023-10-24T17:00:00-04:00 202 S. Thayer Judaic Studies Lecture / Discussion Professor Julia Watts Belser
Poetry, Translation, and Solidarity during War (November 8, 2023 5:30pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/113794 113794-21831699@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, November 8, 2023 5:30pm
Location: 202 S. Thayer
Organized By: Judaic Studies

Alex Averbuch will discuss the complex, interwoven, and centuries-long Jewish-Ukrainian relationship through his project on the translation of contemporary Ukrainian poetry into Hebrew. The conversation with Mikhail Krutikov will touch on such topical questions as cultural collaboration and solidarity, as well as shame, guilt, and reconciliation through literature in time of war. Additionally, Averbuch will introduce his forthcoming anthology of contemporary Ukrainian poetry and read some Hebrew translations from it.



Alex Averbuch, a poet, translator, and scholar, is the author of three books of poetry and an array of literary translations between Hebrew, Ukrainian, English, and Russian. His latest book Zhydivs’kyi korol' (The Jewish King) was a finalist for the Shevchenko National Prize, Ukraine’s highest award for culture and literature. Averbuch is active in promoting Ukrainian-Jewish relations. He has translated into Hebrew and published over thirty selections of poetry by contemporary Ukrainian poets. Averbuch is a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University’s Davis Center, and soon to be a research fellow at the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute.

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Lecture / Discussion Tue, 10 Oct 2023 12:09:09 -0400 2023-11-08T17:30:00-05:00 2023-11-08T19:00:00-05:00 202 S. Thayer Judaic Studies Lecture / Discussion Dr. Alex Averbuch of Harvard University
Israel-Russia: Russian Speaking Jewry Today (January 18, 2024 12:30pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/115688 115688-21835382@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, January 18, 2024 12:30pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Judaic Studies

The lecture is devoted to the situation on the Russian-Israeli track due to the military conflict between Russia and Ukraine. We will talk both about the specifics of interstate interaction in the current situation and about possible future developments. A special place in the lecture will be devoted to the new wave of repatriation of Russian-speaking Jews to Israel - its problems, its place in Israeli society, and its role in the development of Israeli-Russian relations.

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Lecture / Discussion Fri, 01 Dec 2023 09:10:03 -0500 2024-01-18T12:30:00-05:00 2024-01-18T14:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Judaic Studies Lecture / Discussion
Let There Be Light (February 6, 2024 4:30pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/115690 115690-21835384@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, February 6, 2024 4:30pm
Location: North Quad
Organized By: Judaic Studies

Liana Finck is a well-known comics artist. Her two recent books, Passing as Human
(2018), and Let there Be Light: The Real Story of Her Creation (2022), whimsically
approach the timeless questions: What does it mean to be human? What is the purpose of our lives? And how should we treat one another? Finck will discuss the ideas and creation of these books and engage in dialogue with faculty and students.

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Presentation Tue, 16 Jan 2024 14:51:31 -0500 2024-02-06T16:30:00-05:00 2024-02-06T18:30:00-05:00 North Quad Judaic Studies Presentation Artist and Author Liana Finck