2012-13 NEWSLETTER VOLUME 20 Flash version: cjs.ucla.edu
From the Director
Jewish Studies in a Global World It is a great pleasure to welcome you to another exciting year at UCLA's Center for Jewish Studies. Our theme for 2012-13 is Jewish Studies in a global world, focusing on untraditional or underappreciated sites for learning about Jewish culture and history. To that end, we are deepening a new exchange program with Nanjing University to explore Jewish Studies in China and bring renowned Chinese scholars of Judaism to UCLA as well as send UCLA faculty to China for visiting research and teaching appointments. Under the leadership of David N. Myers, the History department is collaborating in this effort. We are also partnering with the Fowler Museum to sponsor programming around their upcoming exhibition, "Light and Shadows: The Story of Iranian Jews," which opens on Oct 21. Finally, the Autry National Center’s exhibition, "Jews in the Los Angeles Mosaic," will feature a digital exhibit on "Mapping Jewish LA," the Center's on-going research initiative to map the cultural and social history of Jews in Los Angeles from the mid-19th century up through the present. CJS will also continue to support the development of Jewish Studies Service Learning courses for undergraduates, which blend traditional instruction with applied knowledge, civic engagement, and community service. These courses in Holocaust studies, Jewish history, theater, and a new course, "Applied Jewish Studies and Social Ethics," place
social justice and Jewish ethics at the center of engagement with real world issues. Through the generosity of our supporters, the Center for Jewish Studies has been able to thrive, even in challenging economic times. Thanks to the generosity of our Advisory Board, the Center has awarded a full year of support to Nadav Molchadsky, an outstanding PhD candidate in History and partial support to Candice Levy, another remarkable PhD candidate in Near Eastern Languages & Cultures. I am deeply appreciative of our entire community of supporters and look forward to welcoming you to our events over the upcoming year. Please feel free to contact me at the CJS office or by email (presner@ucla.edu) to discuss our work and/or your interests.
Todd Samuel Presner Sady and Ludwig Kahn Director, UCLA Center for Jewish Studies Professor, Germanic Languages and Comparative Literature Chair, Digital Humanities Program
Mapping Project Allows Virtual Time Travel Wonder what Jewish LA was like more than a century ago? Mapping Jewish LA visitors can “go back in time” and find out starting with Boyle Heights. From historical maps to the earliest lot parcels, layers of maps reveal the neighborhood that was the heart of Jewish LA in the early 20th century. Dr. Karen Wilson, the Sady and Ludwig Kahn Research Associate, is head curator for the project. "The area was a melting pot of many ethnicities: Russian and Polish Jews, Slavs, Greeks, Mexicans, Italians and Japanese," Wilson noted. "The Home Owners’ Loan Corporation, a Federal government body charged with assessing real estate values, considered Boyle Heights to be filled with 'subversive racial elements.' It was duly 'redlined' in 1939 as a warning to banks not to make mortgage loans." Mapping Jewish LA is an ambitious five-year initiative to create a multimedia archive using the digital media platform HyperCities, created by Center Director Todd Presner in 2007. "Digital mapping technologies add time to the three dimensions of space," Presner said. "When combined with traditional archival research, we can truly travel back in history." Other exhibits will focus on how Jews in Los Angeles have shaped the urban landscape. For example, the first installment of "Builders & Architects" features the Herbert M. Baruch Company that built Wilshire Boulevard Temple and the Hollywood Bowl, among other landmarks. A program of CJS, Mapping Jewish LA is supported by the UCLA Library and the UCLA Humanities Division as well as a generous lead gift from the Sady and Ludwig Kahn Trust. A version will also coincide with the exhibition, "Jews in the Los Angeles Mosaic," which opens on May 3, 2013, at the Autry National Center of the American West. To learn more, please visit: http://www.mappingjewishla.org COVER: Image of the downtown campus of Nanjing University. Photo: Vladimir Menkov. Student: Yasaman Yaghoubian is a Neuroscience major with a minor in Near Eastern Languages and Cultures and a member of the Center’s Student Leadership Council. Photo: David Wu. 2
Box 951485 Los Angeles, CA 90095-1485
www.cjs.ucla.edu cjs@humnet.ucla.edu
editor
Mary Enid Pinkerson design
David Wu
at the
במרכז
center
Center for Jewish Studies
Stephen O. Lesser
Jewish Studies in Nanjing, China Jews who study Chinese language and culture? That’s common. What about Chinese scholars of Judaism? Yes, indeed. Nanjing University boasts The Diane and Guilford Glazer Institute of Jewish Studies. UCLA is building a relationship with Nanjing University with the assistance and support of CJS Advisory Board member Stephen O. Lesser. Deputy Director and Associate Professor of Religious Studies Lihong Song will give two public seminars on Nov. 14 and 15. Plans are also underway to bring Director Xu Xin to UCLA in the spring of 2013 and to explore the prospect of a student exchange program between Nanjing University and UCLA. Founded in 1992 and renamed in 2007 for Los Angeles philanthropists, Diane and Guilford Glazer, the Glazer Institute at Nanjing University was established to meet the growing demand for Judaic Studies in China. David N. Myers, chair of the History Department and former Center director, recently returned from teaching a week-long class at Nanjing on "Jews, Judaism, Jewishness: Modern Jewish Thought from Spinoza." He reports that it was among the most memorable and rewarding experiences of his career. “The students’ level of passion, interest, gratitude, and pure reverence for education is remarkable. I hope to return often to Nanjing and other universities to help foster the ever-expanding interest in China in Jewish history, Jews, and Israel.” In 2010, Prof. Carol Bakhos (NELC) went to Nanjing to present a paper at a conference on “Globalization and Religious Pluralism.” Lesser, once a Foreign Service Officer with the US State Department, first studied Chinese in the 1960’s while posted in Japan and has visited China many times. He earned his MA in International Studies from Johns Hopkins University, which now conducts a joint program with Nanjing University. Lesser noted that in the late 1970s, after Mao Zedong’s death, the Chinese government initiated far-reaching economic and political changes. The Jewish past in Kaifeng China, which stretches back more than a thousand years, and the Jewish present, represented by Israel, became subjects of discussion in the 1980s. Military and economic ties preceded formal diplomatic relations with Israel, announced in January 1992. The Nanjing Institute was founded that May. Today, Jewish Studies is a small but growing field in China. The Glazer Institute offers regular courses on Judaism, Jewish history and culture, and Holocaust studies and enrolls MA and PhD students. It published the first Chinese edition of the Encyclopedia Judaica with over 1,600 entries, and has
David N. Myers (L), Professor and Chair of History at UCLA, gives a presentation at a conference on the Holocaust and Jewish History held at Henan University in Kaifeng in front of conference organizer Jerry Gotel and 75 graduate students in Jewish Studies.
translated into Chinese other works on Jews and Israel. Scholars and former diplomats with ties to both China and the Jewish community have been among its supporters. Indeed, Lesser belongs to the Sino-Judaic Institute, a non-denominational, non-political, non-profit organization, founded in 1985 by an international group of scholars and lay persons to promote understanding and cooperation between Chinese and Jewish peoples. In October 2013, the Center will co-sponsor with the UCLA Confucius Institute an exhibit from the Shanghai Jewish Refugee Museum. From 1933 to 1941, Shanghai received about 25,000 Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Europe. Most were German-speaking Jews from Central Europe, but the refugees also included students of the famed Mir Yeshiva. In the "Designated Area for Stateless Refugees" in Tilanqiao area of Shanghai, about 20,000 Jewish refugees lived harmoniously with local citizens, overcoming numerous difficulties together. After the end of WWII and the establishment of Israel most of the Jewish refugees slowly left Shanghai, but many retained positive memories of their time in China. David Schaberg, Dean of Humanities and Professor of Asian Languages & Cultures, noted, "At a time when Chinese scholars and the Chinese public are reconceptualizing their nation's place in the world and its past, UCLA and our Center for Jewish Studies are very fortunate to be engaged with the Glazer Institute's efforts to bring to light the long history of Jewish life in China."
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Student Achievements
1 2 3 1. POSTER FOR GEORGE A. ROMERO'S NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD 2. TALY RAVID 3. CHRISTOPHER SILVER
Graduate Student Awards NEW in 2012: CJS Board Fellowships ■ Candice Levy [Near Eastern Languages and Cultures]
Maurice Amado Program Summer Research Awards
■ Nadav Molchadsky [History]
■ Alma Heckman [History] ■ Anat Mooreville [History]
CJS Dissertation Fellowship
■ Yehuda Sharim [World Arts & Cultures]
■ Sara (Simchi) Cohen [Comparative Literature]
■ Christopher Silver3 [History]
Cohen’s dissertation, "Hearth of Darkness: The Familiar, the Familial, and the Zombie," analyzes images of the “living dead” in both Yiddish and American Jewish literature and popular culture, including George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead1 (1968).
■ Murat Yildiz [History]
Chaskel and Sara Roter Summer Research Fellowship ■ Michael Casper [History]
Jack H. Skirball Fellowship in Modern Jewish Culture
■ Arnon Degani [History]
■ Taly Ravid2 [English]
■ Alma Heckman [History]
Ravid’s research concerns the intersection of American studies with recent theoretical work on affect and trauma, positing that the tropes of Holocaust literature inform the modes used to represent and interpret other traumas such as Vietnam war narratives, neo-slave narratives, and stories of migration, assimilation, and diaspora.
■ Bryan Kirschen [Spanish & Portuguese]
■ Deb Donig [History]
■ Jason Lustig [History] ■ Jared McBride [History] ■ Anat Mooreville [History] ■ Yehuda Sharim [World Arts and Cultures]
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Check out our website at www.cjs.ucla.edu, including a new section for Alumni.
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4 5 4. TESSA NATH, BEN STEINER & ALI KAROL IN BIALYSTOK, POLAND 5. VELENA HERNANDEZ 6. SERGEY KHALIKULOV PERFORMS AT CONCERT OF JEWISH MUSIC
Undergraduate Kudos Frey Undergraduate Research Prize
Helix Project Visits Eastern Europe4
■ Ben Steiner
■ Ali Karol, Ben Steiner & Tessa Nath recently participated
"Building a Jewish Feminism: From Theory to Theology" Paper written for Professor Ellen DuBois, History 198C
Sarah & Eugene Zinn Memorial Scholarship for Holocaust Studies and Social Justice ■ Velena Hernandez5 "The Holocaust: Stories of Survivors"
Project with the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust A third year Anthropology major, Velena recalls her eighth grade teacher talking about the Holocaust and explaining that soon there will not be any survivors left to tell their stories. As a student in one of Prof. Presner's Holocaust courses, she learned about the Bearing Witness program at UCLA Hillel and took the opportunity to participate. Over the summer Hernandez worked with twin sisters, Rita Kahane and Serena Rubin, to document their stories in an audio tour for the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust and helped to edit tours completed by other students in Presner’ s German 118SL class, Between History and Memory: Interviewing Holocaust Survivors in the Digital Age.
in an all-expense paid, 9 day visit to historic Jewish sites in Lithuania, Poland, and Russia sponsored by Yiddishkayt’s Helix Project. Prior to the summer trip, the students took part in an intensive boot camp in the languages of Jewish life in Eastern Europe (Yiddish, Russia, Belarusian, Lithuanian, Polish), an intensive series of workshops in Jewish cultural history, a seminar in Jewish travel literature, a walk through the history of Jewish life in Boyle Heights, and a seminar in documentary film and photography.
Students Perform Jewish Music ■ CJS Student Leadership Council presented a concert of
Jewish and Jewish themed music6 on March 11, 2012, performed by students from the UCLA voice and instrumental departments, as well as members of the UCLA Chorale. Ali Karol organized the event with assistance from Sergey Khalikulov and Musicology instructor Neal Brostoff. The Council also sponsored two other programs: Yasaman Yaghoubian arranged a Passover lunch with Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller, and Jacob Ashendorf planned "The Joys of Yiddish," a panel featuring PhD candidates Netta Avineri [Applied Linguistics], Naya Lekht [Slavic Languages & Literature], Max Sloves [Spanish & Portuguese] and Mark L. Smith [History] discussing their Yiddish-related research.
To learn more about the Student Leadership Council or student support contact cjs@humnet.ucla.edu
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Applied Jewish Studies The Center is committed to bridging students’ learning in and out of the classroom, allowing them to address real world issues. Under the direction of Community Affairs Coordinator Dr. Mary Pinkerson and Research Associate Dr. Netta Avineri, the Center’s Applied Jewish Studies initiative has developed relationships with over 36 community partners.
Yodit Yazdinian, Rachel Weck, and Ardalan Pezhmannia, members of Prof. Todd Presner’s German 118SL, chat with Holocaust survivor Helen Freeman at the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust launch of student curated audio tours. "The service component of the course allowed the students to become stewards of the survivors' stories and facilitate public knowledge of the Holocaust," Presner said.
Founders of ucLADINO include graduate students Cheri Robinson, Anamaria Buzatu and Bryan Kirschen. The student organization is supported by the Department of Spanish & Portuguese, with which the founders are affiliated, as well as the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies.
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Several Jewish Studies courses now incorporate Service-Learning, and students focused on civic engagement receive scholarships for their innovative work. In spring 2013 Netta Avineri will teach a new course, Applied Jewish Studies and Social Ethics, which will examine both the history of Jewish ethics and contemporary manifestations in the work of multiple community partners in Los Angeles. In winter 2012, students in Todd Presner’s course German 118SL, Between History and Memory: Interviewing Holocaust Survivors in the Digital Age, developed a novel approach to sharing survivors’ stories. The 20 undergraduates worked closely with nine members of Jewish Family Service of Los Angeles’ Café Europa and the “1939” Club in order to create audio tours and digital maps that tell powerful stories of lives uprooted in Europe and reinvented in the U.S. Their final projects are now part of the permanent exhibit at the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust. Students described the class as “a once-in-a-lifetime experience.” Students in Karen Wilson’s Life in the Mosaic: 160 Years of Jews in Los Angeles engaged in archival work for the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center and Westwood Kehilla. In Shelley Salamensky’s Israel & Palestine in Literature, Theater, Film, & Media, students had the opportunity to earn extra credit for performing at least 15 hours of service with diverse community partners, including Creative Visions Foundation, Jewish Family Service of Los Angeles, Mychal's Learning Place, Neighborhood Legal Services, Sephardic Tradition and Recreation (STAR), and Yachad LA (The National Jewish Council for Disabilities). One student who tutored Hebrew wrote that he found the work surprisingly rewarding and that the service unexpectedly changed his attitudes about Judaism. Community engagement is also a feature of ucLADINO, a unique student organization dedicated to learning about the Judeo-Spanish language that evolved upon the expulsion of the Jews from Spain and Portugal beginning in 1492. According to Bryan Kirschen, ‘11-‘12 CJS Jr. civic engagement fellow and one of the founders, “the location for this organization is a perfect setting, as the Sephardic community of LA is the second largest in the U.S.” CJS supported a graduate student research symposium organized by ucLADINO in February 2012.
History students Brenda Coronel (L) and Chanel Katiraie are surrounded by archival materials from the Westwood Kehilla. Greg Smith and Andrea Smith (both past presidents) were among the founders of this Orthodox congregation and have compiled an extensive collection of documents, records, and other materials related to the history of the synagogue.
at the Center For outstanding junior scholars in challenging economic times, the Center can play a vital role in supporting their research and providing teaching opportunities that undergird the future of the field of Jewish Studies as a whole.
The Center was delighted to be able to bring to UCLA in 2011-12 two scholars, Andrew Berns and Paris Papamichos Chronakis, who work on Mediterranean Jewish Studies and Sephardic Studies, respectively. It was also our pleasure to have UCLA host the 2012 conference of the National Association of Professors of Hebrew, June 25-27, 2012. Professor Lev Hakak was the chair of the conference which was cosponsored by the Dean of Humanities Division, the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, the Center for Jewish Studies, the Center for Israel Studies, and the Center for Near Eastern Studies.
Greek scholar Paris Papamichos Chronakis is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of History at Brown University. In 2011-12 he was a visiting research scholar with the Maurice Amado Program in Sephardic Studies at UCLA as well as a Rothschild Foundation post-doctoral teaching fellow at the University of Thessaly. He received his PhD in History from the University of Crete in 2011 and his MA from the University of Essex. His research explores the history of the Mediterranean portcities in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries through a close study of the Jewish, Greek Orthodox and Muslim bourgeoisie of Salonica in the late Ottoman and Modern Greek periods. Chronakis is currently involved in the preparation of two special journal issues on the Jews of Salonica and on the eastern Mediterranean middle classes respectively. Andrew Berns, the Viterbi Visiting Assistant Professor of Mediterranean Jewish Studies in 2011-12, is now a fellow at the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies at Villa I Tatti, Florence. He will take up his new position as Assistant Professor of History at the University of South Carolina in Fall 2013. Berns received his PhD in History at the University of Pennsylvania, and his MPhil degree from Cambridge University. A specialist on the history of the Jews in pre-modern Europe, with a particular focus on the Jews of Renaissance Italy, he recently completed articles on Renaissance coins, antiquarian reconstructions of biblical incense in the sixteenth century, correspondence between Jewish and Christian physicians on monstrous births, and Catholic scholars of Hebrew in Italy.
Professor Lev Hakak (R) with Plenary Session speakers Judea Pearl (C), president of the Daniel Pearl Foundation and professor emeritus of Computer Science at UCLA, and Professor Gil Ribak (L) of the University of Arizona, Tucson. The NAPH panel on “Israel Today� also included UCLA Professor of Political Science Steven Spiegel and David Siegel, Consul General of Israel in Los Angeles.
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New Publications BENEATH THE SUGARCOATING: THE VOICE OF MIRTH BY SASSON MORDEKHAI MOSHEH
DIGITAL_HUMANITIES Anne Burdick, Johanna Drucker, Peter Lunenfeld, Todd Presner and Jeffrey Schnapp
With Introduction, References and Synopses
Lev Hakak: Editor Oshri Hakak: Illustrator
MIT Press, 2012
The Babylonian Jewry Heritage Center - Research Institute of Babylonian Jewry, 2012
Rabbi Sasson Mordekhai Moshe (1747-1830) authored the book Kol Sasson in Baghdad in 1796. It was published for the first time in Livorno in 1859. A book of moral reproof couched in a pleasant form, its fortythree chapters focus on such subjects as modesty, patience, love, hatred, slander, peace and dispute, generosity and greed, arrogance and anger. Each chapter illustrates its concept in three ways: in prose, in parable and in poetry. The new edition has an extensive introduction and a synopsis of each chapter. The many poems are vocalized, and there are hundreds of references to the sources quoted as well as a list of abbreviations used. Hakak also added poetic graphic and clarifying titles. This project is the fifth in a series of books that Hakak has published in this area since 2003, researching the existence of Modern Hebrew creativity from 1735-1950 in Babylon, the country that was the spiritual-religious center of Judaism for many years.
AFFILIATED JEWISH STUDIES FACULTY
Digital_Humanities is a compact, designdriven report on the state of contemporary knowledge production. Answering the question, "What is digital humanities?," this visually compelling volume explores methodologies and techniques unfamiliar to traditional modes of humanistic inquiry— including geospatial analysis, data mining, corpus linguistics, visualization, and simulation—to show their relevance for the Humanities in the 21st Century. Included are chapters on the emerging methods and genres, the social life of the digital humanities, "case studies," "provocations," and "advisories." These persuasively crafted interventions offer a descriptive toolkit for anyone involved in the design, production, oversight, and review of digital projects. The authors argue that the digital humanities offers a revitalization of the liberal arts tradition in the electronically inflected, multimedia language of the 21st century.
*Faculty Advisory Committee member
CAROL BAKHOS*
GIL HOCHBERG
TEOFILO F. RUIZ
Associate Professor of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures.
Associate Professor of Comparative Literature and Gender Studies.
Professor of History.
ARNOLD J. BAND
ELEANOR KAUFMAN*
Professor Emeritus of Hebrew and Comparative Literature.
Professor of Comparative Literature and French and Francophone Studies.
LIA BROZGAL*
MIRIAM KORAL
Assistant Professor of French and Francophone Studies.
Lecturer in Yiddish.
AARON BURKE Associate Professor of Near Eastern Archaeology.
ELLEN DUBOIS Professor of History.
NANCY EZER Lecturer in Hebrew.
SAUL FRIEDLÄNDER “1939” Club Chair of Holocaust Studies and Distinguished Emeritus Professor of History.
LEV HAKAK Professor of Hebrew Literature.
DAVID HIRSCH Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies Biographer, Charles Young Research Library and Adjunct Assistant Professor, NELC. 8
YONA SABAR Professor of Hebrew and Aramaic.
SHELLEY SALAMENSKY* Associate Professor of Theater and Performance Arts.
ARIEH SAPOSNIK
Professor of Comparative Literature.
Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation Chair in Israel Studies and Associate Professor of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures.
DAVID N. MYERS*
WILLIAM SCHNIEDEWIND*
Professor and Chair of History.
Kershaw Chair of Ancient Eastern Mediterranean Studies, Chair of the Dept. of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures and Professor of Biblical Studies and Northwest Semitic Languages.
EFRAIN KRISTAL
TODD S. PRESNER* Professor of Germanic Languages and Comparative Literature, Chair of the Digital Humanities Program, Sady and Ludwig Kahn Director of CJS.
KENNETH REINHARD
JEREMY SMOAK Lecturer in Hebrew Bible and Ancient Near East.
Associate Professor of Comparative Literature and English, Director of UCLA Program in Experimental Critical Theory.
SARAH ABREVAYA STEIN
TIMOTHY RICE*
STEVEN SPIEGEL
Professor of Ethnomusicology and Director of the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music
Professor of Political Science.
Maurice Amado Chair in Sephardic Studies and Professor of History.
Faculty Honors DELEUZE, THE DARK PRECURSOR: DIALECTIC, STRUCTURE, BEING Eleanor Kaufman The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012
Gilles Deleuze is considered one of the most important French philosophers of the twentieth century. Eleanor Kaufman situates Deleuze in relation to others of his generation, such as Jean-Paul Sartre, Pierre Klossowski, Maurice Blanchot, and Claude Lévi-Strauss, and she engages the provocative readings of Deleuze by Alain Badiou and Slavoj Žižek. Deleuze, The Dark Precursor is organized around three themes that critically overlap: dialectic, structure, and being. Kaufman argues that Deleuze's work is deeply concerned with these concepts, even when he advocates for the seemingly opposite notions of univocity, nonsense, and becoming. By drawing on scholastic thought and reading somewhat against the grain, Kaufman suggests that these often-maligned themes allow for a nuanced, even positive reflection on seemingly negative states of being, such as extreme inertia. This attention to the negative or minor category has implications that extend beyond philosophy and into feminist theory, film, American studies, anthropology, and architecture.
ROGER WALDINGER Professor of Sociology.
JONATHAN M. ZASLOFF Professor of Law.
VISITING FACULTY 2012-2013 NAHID PIRNAZAR—Lecturer in Iranian Studies SAM SPINNER—Michael and Irene Ross Visiting Assistant Professor of Yiddish and Jewish Studies
A reception and toast to Saul Friedländer (L), Emeritus Professor of History and '1939' Club Chair in Holocaust Studies, highlighted the international conference, History Unlimited: Probing the Ethics of Holocaust Culture, held at UCLA in April 2012. Dr. Sam Goetz, past president of the "1939" Club, presented Prof. Friedländer with a set of rare book plates from Bernard Picart’s Cérémonies Et Coutumes Religieuses De Tous Les Peuples Du Monde in appreciation for his contributions to the field of Holocaust Studies. The conference was organized by two of Friedländer’s former students, Claudo Fogu (UCSB) and Wulf Kansteiner (Binghampton University), and his colleague Todd Presner, and created an opportunity for intergenerational dialogue between key scholars of Holocaust Studies of the 1980s and 1990s and their successors. Co-sponsored by the Center and the UCLA Department of History, the conference received generous support from the '1939' Club, the UC Humanities Research Institute as well as Elaine and Donald Wolf.
2012-13 UC President's Faculty Research Fellowships in the Humanities Lia Nicole Brozgal, Assistant Professor of French and Francophone Studies "Representing October 17: Algeria, France and the Writing of History"
New Directions Fellowship (Andrew W. Mellon Foundation) Gil Hochberg, Associate Professor of Comparative Literature and Gender Studies
National Humanities Medal (Presented by President Obama) Teofilo F. Ruiz, Professor of History Scholar-in-Residence Spring 2013 (Institute for Advanced Studies,
CJS FELLOWS 2012-2013
Hebrew University, Jerusalem) Yona Sabar, Professor of Hebrew and Aramaic
NETTA AVINERI—Research Associate, Lecturer in Anthropology and Applied Linguistics
Joseph Aviram Award (Dorot Foundation & the American Schools of
MICHAEL CASPER—Jr. Civic Engagement Fellow JAMES LEE—Kahn Research Fellow, Mapping Jewish LA Project KAREN WILSON—Sady and Ludwig Kahn Research Associate, Curator of "Mapping Jewish LA" project and Lecturer in History
Oriental Research)
Jeremy D. Smoak, Lecturer in Hebrew Bible and Ancient Near East "May the LORD Bless You and Guard You from Evil: The Rhetorical Statement of Ketef Hinnom Amulet I and the Background of the Prayers for Deliverance in the Psalms," to be published in the Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions.
Fellow of the American Academy for Jewish Research Sarah A. Stein, Professor of History and Maurice Amado Chair in Sephardic Studies 9
Nadav G. Molchadsky:
Center Advisory Board Fellow Research Focuses on Impact of Israeli Commissions of Inquiry "History in the Public Courtroom: State Commissions of Inquiry and Battles over the Israeli Past" is the title of Nadav Molchadsky’s dissertation. Prof. David N. Myers nominated the fifth year PhD candidate in Modern Jewish History to receive the new fellowship funded by the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies Advisory Board to support a graduate student of exceptional promise. In addition, Candice Levy, a talented PhD candidate in Near Eastern Languages & Cultures, will receive partial support from this new fund to support her dissertation on "The Discourse of Olam Haba in Rabbinic Literature." Molchadsky’s research ranges from the first commission to explore the alleged kidnapping of Yemenite Jewish children in the 1950s, to the Agranat commission that took rise after the 1973 Yom Kippur War, to the most recent Orr commission that investigated the death of Israeli Arabs in the midst of the Second Intifada. He has conducted preliminary research at the Israel State Archives and the archives of the Israeli Supreme Court. He is also looking at the British antecedents of Israeli
Honor Roll 2011–2012 The UCLA Center for Jewish Studies is grateful for the crucial support of our donors. Your generosity has enabled the Center to develop into one of the most distinguished leaders of research and education in Jewish Studies in the world.
commissions, both in Palestine and elsewhere throughout the Empire (e.g., India). A Magnum Cum Laude graduate of Tel Aviv University in Jewish history and political science, Molchadsky has had a long-standing interest in different modes of historical writing and their impact on popular historical consciousness in Israel. In this case, he is also interested in
MANHIGIM (Leaders)
Dr. Kerri & Howard Steinberg
Maurice Amado Foundation
Elaine & Donald Wolf
Dr. Ellen R. Dirksen Sady Kahn Trust
BONIM (Builders)
Resnick Family Foundation
Sanford & Phyllis Beim Family Foundation Drs. Gertrude & Samuel Goetz
AMUDIM (Pillars)
Roslyn & Abner D. Goldstine
Rose & Al A. Finci
Nadine & Israel A. Levy
Mae & Morris Gelb Family Fund
Myra & Bruce Newman
Lee & Luis Lainer
Shirley & Ralph Shapiro
Stephen O. Lesser
Harry Sigman
Abby & Alan Levy
Betty G. Sigoloff
Dr. Elaine & Richard Lindheim
Smotrich Family Foundation
Lucille Ellis Simon Foundation
Shirley T. Tartak Foundation
Sondra & Morey Myers
Drs. Ann & Leonard Walts
Sidney Stern Memorial Trust
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Dr. David N. Myers & Nomi Stolzenberg
CHAVERIM (Friends)
Pamela & E. Randol Schoenberg
Nancy & Dr. Emanuel M. Abrams
Sheila & Milton Hyman Foundation
Sara & Dr. David E. Aftergood
how to differentiate a legal approach to fact-finding and truth from approaches focused on historical narratives and memory. "My study is placed within the context of recent work on Israeli historical memory that stresses the complex and diverse nature of the Jewish and Zionist worlds," Molchadsky notes. "By studying the work of Israeli state commissions of inquiry as quasi-juridical bodies that write history, I seek to focus the spotlight on non-professional historians who are cast in the role of offering judgments and forging historical narratives on matters deemed to be of vital public importance." "Writ large, my study suggests that reports issued by Israeli commissions of inquiry reflect and strengthen fragmented memories of different sections of Israeli society, which struggle over their respective place in the national pantheon. On the other hand, as visible components of an official state
apparatus, the commissions set out to reconcile competing narratives by creating a national master narrative of commemoration regarding the issue at hand. As such, the commissions make a substantial contribution to setting the record for future deliberations about the topic at hand." Molchadsky adds, "I am honored and privileged to receive the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies Board Fellowship for the 2012-13 academic year. The ongoing support I have received from the Center since my enrollment at UCLA has been for me an enormous source of sustenance and pride. The vibrant activity of the Center, the assistance I have received from its faculty and staff, and the fellowships it has awarded me over the years, have all been invaluable in my efforts to complete my doctoral studies."
Center for Jewish Studies Advisory Board Al Finci, Chair Milt Hyman Luis Lainer Stephen O. Lesser Elaine Lindheim E. Randol Schoenberg Kerri Steinberg Andrew Viterbi Elaine Wolf Rabbi David Wolpe* Zev Yaroslavsky *Honorary Member
Elaine Attias
Nancy & Sheldon M. Jaffe
Ann & Dr. Ari Rosenblatt
Susan & Dr. David Boyer
Eva Ballo
Marlene Kabert-Gerson & Victor Gerson
Adrienne & Robert Ross
Adele Clark
Leah Barshap
Dorothy A. & Avram Salkin
Doris & Rabbi Bernard Cohen
Iris & Sydney Bash
Helen & Dr. Isaac R. Kaplan
Ellen K. Schlosberg
Adrienne & Selwin Enzer
Sadelle Brussell Birnbaum
Dr. Myron Kayton
Manuel Fredgant
Anne M. Bodenheimer
Annette & Dr. Charles R. Kleeman
Daniel B. Spitzer & Dr. Elaine Meyers
Barbara T. Brandon
Dr. Snira & Earl Klein
Alice & Charles Trilling
Margot Katz
Esther Lerner Brenner
Shirley Kotler
Dr. Jerome H. Unatin
Ruth & Daniel Merritt
Dr. Gregory L. Charlop
Hannah & Marshall Kramer
Glenda & Uri Urmacher
Jerry Rabow
Rita L. Chotiner
Peachy & Mark C. Levy Family Trust
Marsha & Martin Wasser
Marlene Rotblatt
Lillian Apodaca Weiner
Bea & Leonard H. Mandel
Joyce & Melvin Schwartz
Mary R. Weissmann
Estelle P. Markowitz
Leah & Norman Schweitzer
Diane & George Wolfberg
Dr. Michael D. Miller
Dr. Rose & Roger Steinberg
Marilouise & Dr. Albert Zager
Rachel & Thomas J. Tugend
Elena & Michael Deutsch Elaine & Warren Deutsch Doris & Arnold Dunn Adrienne & Selwyn Enzer Lesley & Dr. Kenneth H. Geiger Harriet & Manuel Glaser David A. Gorlick Esther & Herbert Hecht Florence Irving
Patti & Dr. Albert Mizrahi Dr. Steven Moszkowski & Esther Kleitman
AMITIM (Fellows)
Howard K. Myers & Walter Arlen
Dr. Lilla & Edgar Aftergood
Linda & Shern H. Platt
Miryam Bachrach
Debbie Hopp
Sarita H. Unger Shirley Shore Williamson
Dr. Emanuel M. Abrams
Sandra R. Radoff-Bernstein
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Major Exhibitions 2012-13 Full calendar @ www.cjs.ucla.edu
LIGHT AND SHADOWS:
THE STORY OF IRANIAN JEWS
Sunday, October 21, 2012 • Fowler Museum Opening Celebration: 12 - 5 pm With affiliated programming from the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies
What Remains: The Iranian Jewish Experience Thursday, October 25, 2012 • Hillel at UCL A: 7 - 9 pm Satellite Exhibit of Contemporary Art Opening
BULGARIA AND THE HOLOCAUST:
THE FRAGILITY OF GOODNESS
Thursday, November 8, 2012 • Hillel at UCL A Exhibit Opening & Symposium: 4 pm Screening of The Optimists: 7 pm
FORBIDDEN ART:
CAMP ART FROM THE COLLECTIONS OF THE AUSCHWITZ MEMORIAL Thursday, January 17, 2013 • Hillel at UCL A Exhibit Opening & Symposium: 4 pm
at the
במרכז
center
Center for Jewish Studies
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