Center News
Center for Jewish Culture
UMass Dartmouth
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Welcome The UMass Dartmouth Center for Jewish Culture 5779 (2018-2019) season has been a very successful one, highlighted by a variety of thoughtful, stimulating programs that reflected and supported its mission which is to promote mutual understanding and interchange between Jewish and non-Jewish people of the SouthCoast Massachusetts region and beyond, and to enhance the region’s cultural life. The CJC’s activities serve not only the students, faculty and staff of UMass Dartmouth, but also the surrounding communities. About the editor Rabbi Jacqueline Satlow, Coordinator for Jewish Culture and Director of the Center for Religious and Spiritual Life at UMass Dartmouth, is a core member of the Judaic Studies and Religious Studies Programs on campus. She serves as Faculty Advisor for UMass Dartmouth Hillel and supervises its professional staff. Since she began in 2007, the CJC has sponsored more than 60 programs alone and in cooperation with over 20 campus and community organizations. In addition to her responsibilities in regard to Jewish Culture on Campus, she now coordinates campus clergy of many different faiths. Contact information UMass Dartmouth Center for Jewish Culture 285 Old Westport Road Dartmouth, MA 02747-2300 508.910.6551 jsatlow@umassd.edu www.umassd.edu/cjc/
A NEWSLET TER FOR FRIENDS AND BENEFACTORS OF THE CENTER FOR JEWISH CULTURE
Highlights of 5779 (2018-2019) Thank you for your support for the Center for Jewish Culture during the 2018-2019 academic year. (5779 in the Jewish calendar). This past year was an active and dynamic one. We began our programming year after the Jewish holidays in the fall when Professor Chuck Freilich, a senior fellow at Harvard’s Belfer Center and former deputy Israeli national security adviser, presented an authoritative analysis of the cyberthreat and military, diplomatic, demographic, and societal challenges Israel faces today, along with recommendations for US and Israeli policy. National security has certainly been at the forefront of Israeli life for seven decades. Prof. Freilich is the author of several books including Israeli National Security: A New Strategy for an Era of Change (Oxford Press 2018). In November, we welcomed a panel of Israelis to campus to discuss “Inter-Religious Dialogue in Israel.” Peaceful, respectful diversity within community is incredibly difficult to create. The people who live in Israel come in all shapes, sizes, colors, backgrounds, religious and political outlooks. Learning to live together with peace, understanding and respect is part of an ongoing mission. Our panelists included Amir Cahaner, a secular Israeli, Amani Maslha Zoabi, a Muslim Arab-Israeli and Ayala Carmi, an Orthodox-Jewish Israeli. This past year was a tragic one with anti-Semitism on the rise and reports of violent hate crimes all too frequent. The only points of light in this darkness is seeing the wonderful people Rabbi Satlow (l) with who stand together to Tova Mirvis, Jan. 2019 condemn the hatred. I organized a campus wide vigil in response to the murder of 11 Jews in a Pittsburg synagogue in late October. Thank you to speakers Chancellor
Robert Johnson, Dr. Donna Lisker, Dr. Lisa Maya Knauer, Dr. Ilana Offenberger, Deacon Frank Lucca, Pastor Neil Damgaard, Matt Litchfield, and Nicole Williams. Thank you also to UMass Dartmouth students Christian Louis, Osama Maqsood, Shaya Prof. Chuck Freilich Weidmann and the UMass Dartmouth Gospel Choir. My own words are elsewhere in this newsletter. Also in this newsletter are my words in memory of the Muslims killed in the New Zealand massacre which our Muslim Student Association held on campus during the winter. There is not enough room to also include my prayers for the victims of the Easter attacks in Sri Lanka and other hate crimes. Speaking of points of light…. Hanukkah fell during the fall semester this year (rather than during vacation, which happens often). UMass Dartmouth Hillel and the Center for Jewish Culture cosponsored a successful holiday celebration. Latkes and sufganiyot were enjoyed by all. In January, we welcomed author Tova Mirvis to UMass Dartmouth. She is the author of The Book of Separation, a memoir, as well as three novels, Visible City, The Outside World, and The Ladies Auxiliary which was a national bestseller. I enjoyed reading The Ladies Auxiliary several years ago. The protagonist, Batsheva, is newly widowed and a convert to Judaism. She moves into the tightly knit Orthodox community of Memphis, TN. She is a bit of a free spirit and her passion for Jewish ritual is either a breath of fresh air, or quite shocking (depending how you look at it) to the Jews of Memphis. In the novel, Mirvis captures some of the beauty of observant Judaism while also capturing some of its frustrations. In The Book of Separation, Mirvis strikes a cord for me in many ways. First of all, while I am not from Memphis, other aspects of Mirvis’ Highlights continued on page 2