TUESDAY, OCTOBER 1, 2013 • 314 ROYCE HALL • 5:30 PM
IS REALITY OVERRATED? A TALK & READING Etgar Keret (Author)
Hailed as the voice of young Israel and one of its most radical and extraordinary writers, Etgar Keret is internationally acclaimed for his short stories. His books are bestsellers in Israel and have been published in twenty-two languages. Keret is also the writer of several awardwinning feature screenplays, including Skin Deep (1996). Books available for sale: Suddenly, a Knock on the Door is $14.00 + tax. Girl on the Fridge is $13.00 + tax. Sponsored by the UCLA Younes & Soraya Nazarian Center for Israel Studies Cosponsored by the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies For more info, please contact Maura Resnick at 310-825-9646 or mkresnick@international.ucla.edu
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2013 • 306 ROYCE HALL • 4 PM
CENTER FOR JEWISH STUDIES 20TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION Join us as we celebrate the 20TH anniversary of the Center! Learn about the Center and meet Jewish Studies majors, minors, faculty, and alumni. Open to the public.
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2013 • 306 ROYCE HALL • 12 PM
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2013 • FACULTY CENTER • 4 PM
Michael Morgan (Indiana)
Bo Larsson (Lund University, Sweden) Intro By: Samuel Aroni (UCLA)
TEARS THE CIVIL SERVANT CANNOT SEE: EMMANUEL LEVINAS ON ETHICS, POLITICS, AND ZIONISM Faculty/Student Seminar Series
The core of Emmanuel Levinas’s philosophical and Jewish thought is a conception of social existence as ethical in a fundamental way. Readers of Levinas are divided, however, about how that ethical character is related to concrete decisions and policies, to social and political institutions, and to political practice. Does his conception of human existence imply a particular type of political regime? Does it orient particular types of political practice? In this seminar, Morgan shows how ethics, for Levinas, plays primarily a critical role regarding political life and what he means by placing ethics within a conception of prophetic politics and messianic eschatology. This cluster of themes is central to Levinas’s understanding of the state of Israel, its purpose and character. Sponsored by the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies Cosponsored by the UCLA Department of History UCLA Department of Philosophy UCLA Younes & Soraya Nazarian Center for Israel Studies
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2013 • 10383 BUNCHE HALL • 12 PM
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2013 • 306 ROYCE HALL • 12 PM
EDUCATION AND INITIATION IN THE NOVELS OF THE YIDDISH HASKOLE AND ISLAMIC NEGRITUDE Marc Caplan (Johns Hopkins University) Ross Seminar Series in Yiddish Studies Marc Caplan argues that the literatures of ostensibly marginal modern cultures are key to understanding modernism. By undertaking an unprecedented comparison of 19TH century Yiddish literature and 20TH century Anglophone and Francophone African literature, Caplan reveals unexpected similarities between them. Both of these literatures were created under imperial regimes that brought with them processes of modernization that were already well advanced elsewhere. Sponsored by the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies Cosponsored by the UCLA Department of French and Francophone Studies UCLA Department of Germanic Languages
LAUGHING ALL THE WAY TO FREEDOM: SOCIAL FUNCTIONS OF JEWISH HUMOR OF MODERN-DAY EXODUS Emil Draitser (Hunter College, CUNY)
Drawing on his book, Taking Penguins to the Movies: Ethnic Humor in Russia, Draitser addresses the crucial social role of Jewish humor. In the absence of formal Jewish organizations in Soviet time, Jewish jokelore was instrumental in creating a virtual community. The continuous exchange of humorous bits focusing on the group’s shared predicaments helped Russian Jews to survive oppression, fight discrimination, reaffirm their Jewish identity, and strengthen the ties among fellows-in-misfortune. It also reinforced the group’s boundaries and boosted its morale, helping to overcome fears over the hardships of emigration and challenges of coming to America, where they had to start their lives anew. Sponsored by the UCLA Center for European and Eurasian Studies Cosponsored by the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies For more info, please contact Liana Grancea at lgrancea@international.ucla.edu
PRESERVING JEWISH MEMORIES AND HERITAGE IN THE URBAN ENVIRONMENT OF THREE CITIES HIT BY THE HOLOCAUST AND FORCED MIGRATIONS
JEWISH Refugees IN
SHANGHAI
(1933 - 1941)
COSMOPOLITAN SHANGHAI An International Conference
Speakers will explore the cultural, social, and urban complexity of early 20THcentury Shanghai in transnational perspectives. Panelists will focus on the music, literature, visual arts, and urbanism of the 1920s, 30s, and 40s and the interchange between Chinese and Western culture.
SPEAKERS:
Tang Yating (Shanghai Conservatory of Music) Luo Quin (Shanghai Conservatory of Music) Li Chi (UCLA)
Yomi Braester (University of Washington) Bryna Goodman (University of Oregon) Wen-Hsin Yeh (UC Berkeley)
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2013 • UCLA HILLEL • 4:30 PM
JEWISH REFUGEES IN SHANGHAI (1933-1941) Exhibition Opening Celebration
From 1933 to 1941, Shanghai received some 20,000 Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Europe. In the “Designated Area for Stateless Refugees” in Tilanqiao area of Shanghai, Jewish refugees lived harmoniously with local citizens, overcoming numerous difficulties together. Bringing together for the first time photos, personal stories, and artifacts from Shanghai’s Jewish Refugee Museum, this exhibition highlights the role Shanghai played as a haven during this period of persecution.
OCT 27 UCLA Hillel
Sponsored by the SPEAKERS: UCLA Center for Jewish Studies David Schaberg (UCLA) UCLA Hillel Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum Steven Hochstadt (Illinois College) Cosponsored by the Peter Loewenberg (UCLA) Dortort Center for Creativity and the Arts at UCLA Hillel UCLA Confucius Institute UCLA Center for Chinese Studies UCLA Department of History UCLA Department of Germanic Languages UCLA Department of Ethnomusicology Shanghai Foreign Affairs Office of Hongkou District Facing History and Ourselves
Most CJS Events are free and open to the public. ADVANCE REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED. To RSVP: call (310) 267-5327 or email cjsrsvp@humnet.ucla.edu For maps and parking information please visit www.transportation.ucla.edu. Please note that events are subject to change without notice. For an up-to-date schedule, please visit www.cjs.ucla.edu
CJS Cosponsored Event
2013 - 2014
The “1939” Club Lecture in Holocaust Studies Before the Holocaust, Jews were the largest or second largest ethnic group in Lviv (Lemberg), Chernivtsi (Czernowitz, ČCernivci), and Chisinau (Kishinev), having a significant role in all fields of daily city life. These traditionally multi-ethnic cities, today belonging to Ukraine or Moldova, were included in the Soviet Union from Poland or Romania after World War II. The present city environment still strongly reflects the Jews and other vanished population groups. What about the future? This is a challenge for urban planning and preservation policy.
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2013 • 306 ROYCE HALL • 12 PM
URBAN PLANNING AND THE TREATMENT OF VANISHED POPULATION GROUPS: THE CASE OF THREE EAST EUROPEAN CITIES Bo Larsson (Lund University, Sweden) The “1939” Club Seminar in Holocaust Studies
This seminar will focus on the project that Larsson leads at Lund University in the framework of a Memory Studies research program. Entitled, “The Memory of Vanished Population Groups in Today’s Eastern and Central European Urban Environments: Memory Treatment and Urban Planning in Lviv, Cernivci, Chisinau, and Wroclaw,” the project is jointly funded by the Lund University Center for European Studies and the Tercentenary Foundation of the Swedish National Bank. Sponsored by the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies Cosponsored by the UCLA Department of History UCLA Department of Urban Planning UCLA Department of Architecture and Urban Design UCLA Center for European and Eurasian Studies
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2013 • UCLA HILLEL • 1-6 PM
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2014 • 306 ROYCE HALL • 12 PM
Samuel Spinner (UCLA) • Karen Wilson (UCLA) • Caroline Luce (UCLA) • Miriam Koral (UCLA) • Robert Adler Peckerar (Yiddishkayt)
Tamara Eskenazi (HUC-JIR)
YIDDISH STAR TOUR & CONCERT FEATURING “ELLA FITZGERALDBERG” Performance by:
Tali Tadmor (Cal Arts) The Ross Program in Yiddish Studies Los Angeles was once a center of Yiddish culture, trailing New York in size but not in quality! Come see the places where the “stars” of Yiddish culture lived and worked, from Boyle Heights to Hollywood. We will learn how poets, novelists, journalists, and industry insiders developed the local scene and contributed to the flourishing of American and global Yiddish literature. Bus tour will originate at UCLA Hillel and wrap up there for a performance of classic and original Yiddish Swing Music by Six Points Fellow Tali Tadmor.
OUT FROM THE SHADOWS: BIBLICAL WOMEN IN THE PERSIAN PERIOD (6TH-4TH CENTURY BCE) The Bible and Its Interpreters Seminar Series Women come boldly to the fore in biblical literature from the Persian period, which was pivotal in the formation of the Hebrew Bible and a time of reconstruction of Jewish life under Persian imperial rule. Women are prominent in many of these writings, which make up the Ketuvim, third division of the Hebrew Bible, with the book of Esther as one of the most dramatic examples. Eskenazi’s research compares the representations of women in the Ketuvim with women’s lives in the ancient contemporaneous world, revealing the rethinking about women and gender that appear in these works. Sponsored by the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies Cosponsored by the UCLA Department of Near Eastern Languages & Cultures UCLA Center for the Study of Women
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2014 • 306 ROYCE HALL • 12 PM
KING DAVID AND THE POLITICS OF WAR COMMEMORATION Jacob Wright (Emory) The Bible and Its Interpreters Seminar Series
DECEMBER 2-8, 2013 • MULTIPLE VENUES/TIMES
SPACE IS LIMITED, PRE-REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED. CONTACT CJS FOR DETAILS. TICKETS: $50 by 10/31, $75 after 10/31 (Price includes tour, dinner, and concert)
In this lecture, Jacob L. Wright will present his NEH funded research on war commemoration. The lecture begins with both ancient and modern examples before turning to tales of King David. Wright presents a fresh and controversial perspective on the formation of this iconic figure.
In Residence
Sponsored by the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies Cosponsored by Yiddishkayt Six Points
Sponsored by the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies Cosponsored by the UCLA Department of Near Eastern Languages & Cultures
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 15, 2014 • 314 ROYCE HALL • 4 PM
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 2014 • 306 ROYCE HALL • 12 PM
LISTENING TO THE OTHER: MIDEAST MUSICAL DIALOGUES
Acclaimed Arab-American composer Mohammed Fairouz, virtuoso clarinetist David Krakauer and esteemed Israeli composer Betty Olivero will be in residence at UCLA, leading master classes, spearheading concerts and participating in university-wide panels to highlight the role music can play in promoting cross-cultural understanding and transnational reconciliation. CONCERT:*
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2013 • UCLA HILLEL • 11 AM-4 PM
ANNUAL CALENDAR OF EVENTS
CJS Event
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2013 • ROYCE HALL • 7 PM Sponsored by the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music Mickey Katz Endowed Chair in Jewish Music at UCLA The UCLA Robert U. Nelson Fund Cosponsored by the Consulate General of Israel in Los Angeles Muslims for Progressive Values Limmud LA reGeneration Education Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA UCLA Center for Jewish Studies UCLA Nazarian Center for Israel Studies Hillel at UCLA All Saints Church, Pasadena Islamic Center for Southern California New Visions Partners Abrahamic Faiths Peacemakers Initiative *For more info, tickets, and full schedule of all events, please visit www.listeningtotheother.org For general questions, contact Neal Brostoff: neal@nealbrostoff.com
LISTENING TO THE OTHER Mideast Musical Dialogues
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2013 • FACULTY CENTER • 4 PM
ANTI-ZIONISM, RADICAL POLITICS AND TERRORISM IN ITALY 1967-1982 Guri Schwarz (Italian Rabbinical College) The Viterbi Lecture in Mediterranean Jewish Studies In Italy the radical juvenile political movements that took shape since the late 1960s played a key role in the cultural and political battles of the following decade. The Palestinian struggle rapidly became a key reference point in the collective imagination of those young militants, and in the second half of the 1970s meaningful operational ties were developed between Palestinian organizations and Italian terrorist movements. This presentation will illustrate such developments and offer an analysis of the processes that generated growing anti-Israeli sentiment (sometimes with anti-Semitic connotations) in Italian society in the time period comprised between the Six Days War and the Lebanon War. Sponsored by the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies Cosponsored by the UCLA Department of Italian
REDISCOVERY OF A REPRESSED PAST: LEGENDS OF TALMUDIC RABBIS AS A SOURCE OF CULTURAL RENEWAL IN CONTEMPORARY ISRAEL
ALTERNATIVE VECTORS OF INSIGHT FROM VIENNA: JEWS AND PHOTOGRAPHY
David C. Jacobson (Brown)
This talk explores Vienna, from the 1850s to the present, as an unusually rich source for studying the history of Jews in photography. The majority of ‘quality studios’ in Vienna before 1938 were run by Jewish women, and over one hundred fifty Jewish photographers were among the prisoners at the Mauthausen concentration camp during World War II. Berkowitz argues that the historiography of photography is unsettled when a notion of Jewish ‘difference’ is integrated, emphasizing novel approaches promoted by networks of Jews and applications to the wider world— including Los Angeles.
The Arnold Band Distinguished Lecture in Jewish Studies The Bible has been central to the teaching of the Jewish heritage in secular Israeli schools since the state’s founding. Secularists saw the Bible as the most relevant precursor to the Zionist enterprise and largely ignored rabbinic texts such as Talmud and Midrash, which they associated with the Diaspora culture against which Zionism rebelled. In the late 20TH and early 21ST centuries, a resurgence of interest in legends about Talmudic rabbis has developed among secular Israelis, who now find them a source of cultural renewal in the context of the complex challenges of Israeli existence. Alternative study houses provide secular Israelis with the opportunity to study these legends, a number of writers have published works seeking to discern their contemporary relevance, as well as plays and novels drawing on them. Sponsored by the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies With the Generous Support of Milt & Sheila Hyman
Michael Berkowitz (University College London) Annual Vienna in Los Angeles Seminar Series
Sponsored by the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies Cosponsored by the Austrian Consulate General in Los Angeles UCLA Department of Germanic Languages
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2014 • 306 ROYCE HALL • 12 PM
THE LEGACY OF ISRAEL IN JUDAH’S BIBLE TUESDAY, JANUARY 28, 2014 • 306 ROYCE HALL • 12 PM
A NEW HEBREW “ISRAELI” TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE? IS IT NECESSARY? IS IT ADVISABLE? Yona Sabar (UCLA) Faculty/Student Seminar Series Recently a new project has begun in Israel of translating the Hebrew biblical text into a more contemporary “Israeli” Hebrew to enable many students who have difficulties in understanding the original “archaic” text to understand the Bible without the “barrier” of its ancient language. Examples of this translation and comparison with the original will be given and discussed. Is it a good idea to “divorce” a classical text from its original language, just to make it more understandable? Sponsored by the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies
Daniel E. Fleming (NYU) The Bible and Its Interpreters Seminar Series At a time when the relationship between the Bible and history is particularly fraught, there is need for fresh inquiry about potential connections. Fleming undertakes to recast the debate by reconsidering the nature of Israel as it existed before the people of Judah laid claim to its heritage. As he sees it, the biblical story from Genesis through Kings was framed by primary ingredients preserved in Israel through the time of its “northern” kingdom, so that distinguishing these from Judah’s voice becomes the first step in recalibrating the usefulness of this narrative for questions of history. Sponsored by the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies Cosponsored by the UCLA Department of Near Eastern Languages & Cultures UCLA Department of History
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2014 • 6275 BUNCHE HALL • 12 PM
Yaakov Dweck (Princeton)
MIXING MUSICS: ISTANBUL JEWS AND THEIR SACRED SONGS
Maurice Amado Seminar in Sephardic Studies
Maureen Jackson (Carleton College) & MÜnir Beken (UCLA)
THE MESSIAH, THE CROWD, AND THE CRITIC An itinerant Sephardic rabbi, Jacob Sasportas (1610-1698), emerged in the middle of the 1660s as the most articulate opponent of the mass messianic movement coalescing around Sabbetai Zevi and his prophet Nathan of Gaza. This talk will focus on a central strand of his criticism, the enthusiasm of the Jewish crowd, and examine the different components of his criticism. Sponsored by the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies
TUESDAY, MARCH 4, 2014 • 306 ROYCE HALL • 12 PM
IMAGINING THE UNIMAGINABLE: THE HOLOCAUST AND ITS LEGACY IN ISRAELI VISUAL CULTURE Anat Gilboa (UCLA)
Faculty/Student Seminar Series
Central to Israeli identity is the experience and memory of the Holocaust and the emergent concept of Israel strong enough to protect itself. Survivors of the Holocaust, and the memory of those who were killed, shaped the creation of the nation. The will to survive individually and as a people made the creation of a new nation possible. The memory of the Shoah is, however, also a commonly felt burden, and the conflicting feelings of that memory have significantly impacted later generations. This is a memory that is at the same time omnipresent and a taboo. Imagining the unimaginable, visualizing a darkness of human existence that defies adequate representation and negates artistic interpretation, has become a central challenge and theme in Israeli visual culture. Sponsored by the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies Cosponsored by the UCLA Younes & Soraya Nazarian Center for Israel Studies UCLA Department of Germanic Languages
MARCH 5-6, 2014 • YOUNG RESEARCH LIBRARY • 9:30 AM
JUDEO-SPANISH REVITALIZATION Third Annual ucLADINO symposium The third annual ucLADINO symposium will focus on Judeo-Spanish revitalization efforts in all spheres and domains, with particular focus toward the 21ST century. Renowned scholars, graduate students, professors, and community activists from a variety of disciplines will present research and discuss programming efforts in Judeo-Spanish speaking communities across the globe. Sponsored by ucLADINO Cosponsored by the UCLA Spanish & Portuguese Department UCLA Center for Jewish Studies UCLA Center for Near Eastern Studies UCLA Center for Student Programming UCLA Graduate Student Association UCLA Maurice Amado Program in Sephardic Studies
TUESDAY, MARCH 11, 2014 • 306 ROYCE HALL • 12 PM
CIVIL MARRIAGE AND RELIGIOUS LAW: ITALIAN JEWS AFTER 1866 Carlotta Ferrara Degli Uberti
(Fondazione Centro di Documentazione Ebraica Contemporanea) The Viterbi Seminar in Mediterranean Jewish Studies This talk will address the various issues connected to the introduction of civil marriage in Italy and its effects on Jewish communities and on Jewish women in particular. Civil marriage represented a cultural shock and — at the same time — a threat to the authority of the Jewish communal institutions, since it would limit their control on marriage practices and on the life choices of Jewish women. Sponsored by the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 12, 2014 • FACULTY CENTER • 4:30 PM
ARNOLD SCHOENBERG’S ‘A SURVIVOR FROM WARSAW’ IN POSTWAR EUROPE Joy Calico (Vanderbilt) The Sady and Ludwig Kahn Lecture in German Jewish Studies
Arnold Schoenberg’s A Survivor from Warsaw (1947) seemed designed to irritate every exposed nerve in postwar Europe. A twelve-tone piece in three languages about the Holocaust, it was written for an American audience by a Jewish émigré composer whose oeuvre had been the Nazis’ prime exemplar of entartete (degenerate) music. An examination of European responses to A Survivor will be followed by a screening and discussion of a performance of the piece. Sponsored by the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies
THURSDAY, MAY 15, 2014 • 306 ROYCE HALL • 12 PM
THURSDAY, APRIL 3, 2014 • TBA • 4 PM
AGAINST AUTOBIOGRAPHY: ALBERT MEMMI AND THE PRODUCTION OF THEORY Maurice Amado Lecture in Sephardic Studies / Book Launch
This lecture-demonstration explores the linked histories of Istanbul, its Jewish community, and historical musical traces of multi-religious music-making in Ottoman and Turkish society. Author of the newly published Mixing Musics: Turkish Jewry and the Urban Landscape of a Sacred Song (Stanford UP), Jackson focuses on the Jewish religious repertoire known as the Maftirim, which developed in interaction with Ottoman court music. Ethnomusicologist and oud master, Münir Beken, will bring to life the Turkish musical forms at the heart of Jackson’s study. Sponsored by the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies Maurice Amado Program in Sephardic Studies
The novels and essays of Judeo-Tunisian writer and thinker Albert Memmi are often understood to be deeply autobiographical and, indeed, much prevailing criticism of Memmi (and his Maghrebi contemporaries) remains invested in questions of authenticity, verisimilitude, and authorial identity. In this talk, Brozgal shifts the focus from the author to theoretical questions by setting Memmi’s work in dialogue with several major critical shifts in the late 20TH century literary and cultural landscape. Showing how Memmi’s novels and essays produce theories that resonate both within and beyond their original contexts allows works of Francophone Maghrebi literature to be read as complex literary objects, rather than as ethnographic curios.
BECOMING OTTOMANS: SEPHARDI JEWS AND IMPERIAL CITIZENSHIP IN THE MODERN ERA Maurice Amado Seminar in Sephardic Studies / Book Launch Sephardi Jews’ relationship with Islamic Ottomanism was in many cases deeply ambivalent. Finding themselves torn between civic and Islamic forms of imperial identification during the Ottoman Empire of the late 19TH century, Otoman Jews soon learned that both positions could entail uncomfortable choices and disturbing consequences.
THURSDAY, MAY 29, 2014 • FACULTY CENTER • 4 PM
For an up-to-date schedule, please visit www.cjs.ucla.edu
CENTER STAFF
Paul Jaskot (DePaul University) The “1939” Club Lecture in Holocaust Studies This talk addresses the significant role architects and forced-laborers played in the construction history of the SS concentration camp at Auschwitz. Working (in conjunction with his collaborator, Anne Kelly Knowles) from the massive archive remaining from the SS building office as well as extensive digital visualizations of the space, Jaskot focuses on how the cultural goals of the SS related spatially and functionally to the destructive development of forced labor practices and the genocide. How do digital tools help us deal with the massive human and geographic scale of the site? What might a focus on the vernacular architecture and the SS architects tell us that challenges or expands the history we already know of the camp? In sum, this presentation seeks to argue for the need for a more comprehensive approach to space to understand this important site of the Holocaust.
Sponsored by the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies
WEDNESDAY, MAY 7, 2014 • 306 ROYCE HALL • 12 PM
YIDDISH CHINOISERIE: CHINA IN MODERNIST YIDDISH CULTURE Kathryn Hellerstein (Penn) Ross Seminar in Yiddish Studies
This talk is drawn from Hellerstein’s new book project, China through Yiddish Eyes: Translating Culture in the Early Twentieth Century, a study of Yiddish writings about China. These works— poems, translations, fiction, travelogues, journalism, and memoirs—were written and published in the first half of the 20th century in Shanghai, Warsaw, and New York. Focusing on Yiddish translations of Chinese poems that appeared in the New York modernist journal, Shriftn (Writings), Hellerstein will draw connections between the 8TH century classical Chinese poet Li Bai and American literary figures.
Prof. Todd S. Presner Sady and Ludwig Kahn Director
David Wu Digital Projects & Program Coordinator
Vivian Holenbeck Assistant Director
Chelsea White Program Coordinator
Mary Enid Pinkerson, PhD Community Affairs Coordinator
Hali Mason Financial & Administrative Coordinator
Sponsored by the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies The “1939” Club Cosponsored by the UCLA Department of Germanic Languages
במרכז
center
Center for Jewish Studies
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At the Center 302 Royce Hall, Box 951485 Los Angeles, CA 90095-1485
Phone: 310.825.5387 RSVP line: 310.267.5327 cjs@humnet.ucla.edu Center for Jewish Studies
Business hours: M-TH 9am-12 pm, 1-5pm
design
David Wu
YIDDISH BOOK CLUB DECEMBER 10, MARCH 11, MAY 20 • 236 ROYCE HALL • 7 PM
Sponsored by the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies
YIDDISH LITERATURE IN THE NEW WORLD
THE MONK’S HAGGADAH: THE REMARKABLE 15 C. PASSOVER HAGGADAH FROM THE MONASTERY OF ST. QUIRINUS AND ITS MODERN DISCOVERY TH
David M. Stern (Penn) This talk will tell two stories: the history of a South German illustrated Passover Haggadah from the late Middle Ages with a lengthy prologue by a contemporary 15th century friar, and the tale of how three modern scholars unraveled its complicated and astounding history. Sponsored by the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies
MAY 13, 20, 21, 2014 • 306 ROYCE HALL • 12 PM
SCHOLARLY FAMILIES OF SEPHARDIC ORIGIN IN EARLY RENAISSANCE ITALY - THREE SEMINARS Fabrizio Lelli (University of Leece) Viterbi Seminar Series in Mediterranean Jewish Studies MAY 13 • The Influence of Humanist Culture on Sephardi Scholars Active in Medieval Italy This talk will set the context by introducing three generations of the Iberian Shohams, a late 14TH-mid-15TH century Sephardic family moving from Sicily to Apulia and Calabria. MAY 20 • The Ibn Shoham Family and Their Cultural Legacy The migration of the Halfan family—from Southern Italy to the Venetian area in the early 1500s illustrates the next stage of Sephardi movement and the many ways their thought affected Renaissance Jewish and non-Jewish culture.
Sponsored by the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies
Most CJS Events are free and open to the public. ADVANCE REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED. To RSVP: call (310) 267-5327 or email cjsrsvp@humnet.ucla.edu
For maps and parking information please visit www.transportation.ucla.edu. Please note that events are subject to change without notice.
MAPPING THE VERNACULAR ARCHITECTURE AT AUSCHWITZ: THE INTERSECTION OF CULTURE AND GENOCIDE IN THE SS AMBITIONS FOR THE EAST
Julia Phillips Cohen (Vanderbilt)
CJS Cosponsored Event
Sponsored by the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies Cosponsored by the UCLA Department of French and Francophone Studies
TUESDAY, MAY 6, 2014 • 306 ROYCE HALL • 12 PM
MAY 21 • Reshaping 16th Century Sephardi Identities after the Iberian and Southern Italian Gerushim (expulsions) The final seminar will consider the Kabbalah doctrine popular in 16TH century Northern Italy, by focusing on a member of the Halfan family who followed different interpretations of the traditional mystical lore than his Italian predecessors.
at the
Lia Brozgal (UCLA)
Maurice Amado Program in Sephardic Studies
THURSDAY, MAY 8, 2014 • 306 ROYCE HALL • 4 PM
CJS Event
THREE TUESDAYS: DECEMBER 10, 2013 MARCH 11, 2014 MAY 20, 2014
Yiddish Literature in the western hemisphere will be the overarching theme of the Yiddish Book Club. The United States, together with Canada and Latin America, fostered a body of Yiddish literature that rivaled Eastern Europe. Some of the most important Yiddish poets, novelists, and essayists pursued their careers mostly or entirely in America, engaging with global Yiddish literature on the one hand and the particular concerns of American literature on the other.
ANNUAL CALENDAR OF EVENTS
Each session will tackle a set of issues explored in Yiddish literature and will feature an introduction by an expert in the subject, followed by a discussion of pre-distributed texts (all in English translation). Topics to be examined include the Yiddish literary response to the civil rights struggle in America; the development and role of the American Yiddish press; and the American landscape in Yiddish literature.
2013 - 2014
The Yiddish Book Club was started last year by Dr. Samuel Spinner, the Michael and Irene Ross Visiting Assistant Professor of Yiddish and Jewish Studies. Each of six sessions explored the works of a major author (in English translation) and tackled some of the big questions of Yiddish literary history and Jewish cultural history, starting with Chaim Grade, and moving backwards chronologically to Nobel Laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer; best-selling novelist Sholem Asch; Los Angeles’ own Lamed Shapiro; and the icon of modern Yiddish literature I. L. Peretz. The year ended with the beloved Sholem Aleichem.
Please be sure to RSVP to receive the texts. For more information contact
Samuel Spinner
samspinner@ucla.edu
Sponsored by the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies UCLA Mickey Ross Program in Yiddish Studies
COVER: Past CJS Directors Arnold Band, David N. Myers, Kenneth Reinhard, Carol Bakhos, and Todd S. Presner.