Maurice Greenberg Center for Judaic Studies 2023 Newsletter

MAURICE GREENBERG CENTER FOR JUDAIC STUDIES 2023 Newsletter

FROM THE DIRECTOR

What a year it has been at the Greenberg Center!

Now that the 2022–23 academic year has ended, I’d like to take this opportunity to highlight all that we have accomplished in the past year. I’m also looking forward to all of the exciting undergraduate courses, public programs, and student internships taking place in the fall.

The Maurice Greenberg Center for Judaic Studies welcomed a new faculty member this year: Ayelet Brinn, assistant professor of Judaic Studies and History and the Philip D. Feltman Professor of Modern Jewish History. Professor Brinn is also the Associate Director of the Greenberg Center. Her research focuses on American Jewish history, the Yiddish press, and gender studies. You can read more about her research in the following pages of this newsletter.

Judaic Studies is inherently an interdisciplinary field and we pride ourselves on building connections across the University of Hartford’s seven schools and colleges and throughout the greater Hartford community. To this end, we partnered with the Avon Free Public Library, Beth El Temple, The Emanuel Synagogue, the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Hartford, the Mandell JCC of Greater Hartford, UConn’s Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary Jewish Life, and the University of Hartford’s Presidents’ College. We look forward to including several more community voices to our programs in the coming year.

The Greenberg Center also collaborated with the University’s Art on Campus program to install its latest exhibit, Let There Be Light: The Story of Her Creation. This exhibit showcases original artwork by Liana Finck, the winner of this year’s Edward Lewis Wallant Award. The artwork, which formed the basis of Finck’s latest graphic novel, will be on display in the Greenberg Center through December 17, 2023.

This past year the Department of Judaic Studies offered several internship opportunities, and is currently planning placements for the next academic year. In 2022–23, students Julianne Goodman ’27, Noah Kell ’24,

Zak Kimiabakhsh ’26, and Alli Layman ’25 interned with University of Hartford Hillel, where they developed leadership and engagement skills. Lauren Abrams ’24 interned with the Jewish Teen Learning Connection (JTConnect). During the fall 2023 semester, Judaic Studies minor Hilary Bareiss ’25 will complete an internship with the Mandell JCC of Greater Hartford, cataloging their art collection and brainstorming ideas for future exhibitions. Frankie Goldberg-Doyle ’26, an art history major, will serve as an intern with the Greenberg Center’s Museum of Jewish Civilization, helping to curate upcoming exhibits and offer guided tours.

Our Judaic Studies faculty are experts in their fields and innovators in the classroom. Some of the course offerings from 2022–23 included American Jewish Literature; Introduction to World Religions; the History of Gender, Race, and American Media; Arabic and Hebrew language courses; Jewish History from Exile to Enlightenment; and Modern Jewish History. We recently revised the Judaic Studies curriculum, ensuring the major and minor programs continue to be competitive in the field of Jewish Studies for years to come. These revisions also more closely aligned our curriculum with the university’s general education requirements. Lastly, I’m pleased to report that of the seven recipients of the University’s 2023–24 Greenberg Junior Faculty Research Grants, awards were made to each of Judaic Studies’ two fulltime faculty members (Ayelet Brinn and myself)! I look forward to sharing the findings of the research made possible by this competitive grant.

Amy Weiss

Director, Maurice Greenberg Center for Judaic Studies

Director, Museum of Jewish Civilization

Assistant Professor of Judaic Studies and History, and Maurice Greenberg Chair of Judaic Studies

FROM THE ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR

It’s been an honor and a delight to join the faculty of the Greenberg Center for Judaic Studies this year. I’ve so appreciated the warm welcome I have received. I have enjoyed meeting and learning with those of you I have had a chance to meet so far, and look forward to meeting more of you in the near future.

In addition to teaching classes and working with Director Amy Weiss on the Center’s public programs and curricular endeavors, I have been hard at work on my first book manuscript, A Revolution in Type: Gender and the Making of the American Yiddish Press, which will be published by New York University Press in November 2023. I presented materials related to this research at the World Congress for Jewish Studies in Jerusalem in August 2022, the Association for Jewish Studies Annual Conference in Boston, Massachusetts in December 2022, and a talk sponsored by the Greenberg Center and UConn’s Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary Jewish Life. My chapter on the Yiddish Press’s coverage of the McKinley Assassination in 1901 has been published in an anthology called With Freedom in Our Ears: Histories of Jewish Anarchism (University of Illinois Press, 2023).

This summer, I will be conducting preliminary research for my second book project, which will explore the history of government censorship of the American Yiddish Press. This research will be funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, and I am excited to share anything I find with the Greenberg Center community next year.

Ayelet Brinn

Associate Director, Maurice Greenberg Center for Judaic Studies

Philip D. Feltman Professor of Modern Jewish History

GREENBERG CENTER PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS

The Literary Mafia: Jews, Publishing, and Postwar American Literature

Josh Lambert (Wellesley College) presented his book on Jews and the American publishing industry, in conversation with Amy Weiss (University of Hartford). Drawing on interviews and tens of thousands of pages of letters and manuscripts, The Literary Mafia offers striking new discoveries about celebrated figures such as Lionel Trilling and Gordon Lish, and neglected fiction by writers like Ivan Gold, Ann Birstein, and Trudy Gertler.

Into the Forest: A Holocaust Story of Survival, Triumph, and Love

New York Times

best-selling author and West Hartford native, Rebecca Frankel, shared the inspiring story of the Rabinowitz family who narrowly escaped the Nazi ghetto in their Polish town by fleeing to the forbidding Bialowieza Forest. Into the Forest was named a 2021 National Jewish Book Award finalist and one of Smithsonian Magazine’s “Ten Best History Books of 2021.”

YidLife Crisis: A Collaborative Community Event

Jamie Elman and Eli Batalion, the creators and stars of the award-winning Yiddish-ish web series YidLife Crisis, presented an evening of comedy, film, and music reflecting their unique take on the modern Jewish experience.

Advice Columns and the Making of the American Yiddish Press

Ayelet Brinn (University of Hartford) explored the crucial role of advice columns in the development of the Yiddish press. The talk highlighted how these columns shaped the relationships between newspapers and their readers and how central advice columns became to the acclimation process of new immigrants anxious to learn more about American life.

A Conversation about Antisemitism in American History

Kirsten Fermaglich (Michigan State University) in conversation with Greenberg Center director Amy Weiss, discussed her recent book A Rosenberg By Any Other Name: A History of Jewish Name Changing in America and her current project examining the history of antisemitism in the United States.

EDWARD LEWIS WALLANT AWARD

timeless wisdom of the original text, infusing it with wit and whimsy while retaining every ounce of its spiritual heft.

The annual award recognizes an author whose published work of fiction is deemed to have significance for American Jewish history and culture.

The Maurice Greenberg Center for Judaic Studies named author Liana Finck as the winner of the 2022 Edward Lewis Wallant Award. Finck is the author of the graphic novel, Let There Be Light: The Real Story of Her Creation (Penguin Random House, 2022). The award ceremony took place at the Greenberg Center on Wednesday, April 26, 2023.

In this ambitious and transcendent graphic novel, Liana Finck turns her keen eye to none other than the Hebrew Bible, reimagining the story of Genesis with God as a woman, Abraham as a resident of New York City, and Rebekah as a robot, among many other delightful twists. In Finck’s retelling, the millennia-old stories of Adam and Eve, Abraham and Isaac, and Jacob and Esau haunt the pages like familiar but partially forgotten nursery rhymes transmuted by time but still deeply resonant. With her trademark insightfulness, wry humor, and supple, moving visual style, Finck accentuates the latent sweetness and

Liana Finck is a graphic novelist and a regular contributor to The New Yorker. She is a recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship, a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, and a Six Points Fellowship for Emerging Jewish Artists. She has had artist residencies with MacDowell, Yaddo, and Headlands Center for the Arts.

Along with the Edward Lewis Wallant Award ceremony, the Greenberg Center unveiled its latest exhibit, Let There Be Light: The Story of Her Creation, which showcases original artwork by Liana Finck. The installation is generously sponsored by the Art on Campus Program at the University of Hartford. It will be on display in the Greenberg Center through December 17, 2023.

From left to right: Professor Avinoam Patt (UConn), Professor Amy Weiss, Marjorie Feldman, Liana Finck, Laurence Waltman, Professor Joshua Lambert (Wellesley)

Liana Finck

The Edward Lewis Wallant Award is one of the oldest and most prestigious Jewish literary awards in the United States.

STUDENT AWARDS

The Maurice Greenberg Center for Judaic Studies is pleased to recognize students who received awards for their research and academic distinction. The following list recognizes student award recipients from 2021–23.

Mark L. Abrams Family Endowed Scholarship

Jake Daly ’23

Millie and Irving Bercowetz Judaica Scholarship

Max Auerbach ’26

Hilary Bareiss ’25

Irene Santiago ’23

Jack and Tillie Bayer Judaic Scholarship

Manar Ayesh ’23

Nathaniel Rivera ’23

Simcha and Aaron Dubitzky Memorial Scholarship

Noah Kell ’24

Nell Sirotin ’25

Elaine Lampert Memorial Scholarship for Judaic Studies

Emily Hubeny ’24

Kimberly Martinez ’22

Jerome E. Caplan Memorial/Rogin & Nassau Endowed Scholarship

Max Auerbach ’26

Beth S. Kaplan Scholarship

Max Auerbach ’26

Tali Lichtenfeld ’26

George J. Sherman and Lottie K. Sherman Endowed Scholarship

Melanie Bachman ’23

Jack MacDonald ’23

Louis & Martha Silver Memorial Scholarship

Zak Kimiabakhsh ’26

Judith Wolfson Memorial Endowed Scholarship

Ross Fishman ’23

Diego Huaman ’25

From left to right: Melanie Bachman ’23, Professor Amy Weiss, Noah Kell ’24, Irene Santiago ’23, Hilary Bareiss ’25, Ross Fishman ’23, Jack MacDonald ’23, Professor Yifat Avner, Tali Lichtenfeld ’26, Professor Ayelet Brinn, Emily Hubeny ’24, Professor Hazza Abo-Rabia, and Nathaniel Rivera ’23

Professor Amy Weiss and Nathaniel Rivera ’23

Maurice Greenberg

DEPARTMENT OF JUDAIC STUDIES

CORE FACULTY

Ayelet Brinn

Amy Weiss

Department Chair

ADJUNCT FACULTY

Hazza Abo-Rabia

Yifat Avner

OFFICE COORDINATOR

Susan Gottlieb

FACULTY NEWS

2022–23 Academic Year

Ayelet Brinn, assistant professor of Judaic Studies and History and the Philip D. Feltman Professor in Modern Jewish History, presented conference papers at the World Congress of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem in August 2022 and at the Association for Jewish Studies Annual Conference in Boston in December 2022. In January 2023, Professor Brinn gave a talk co-sponsored by the Greenberg Center and UConn’s Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary Jewish Life on “Advice Columns and the Making of the American Yiddish Press.” She also received a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend to research the history of government censorship of the American Yiddish press. Professor Brinn published a chapter in the edited volume With Freedom in Our Ears: Histories of Jewish Anarchism (University of Illinois Press, 2023).

Hazza Abo-Rabia, adjunct instructor of Judaic Studies, presented the paper “The Holy Land in the Eyes of the Father of German Exploration in Palestine” at conferences in Egypt, Israel, and Jordan.

Amy Weiss, assistant professor of Judaic Studies and History and the Maurice Greenberg Chair of Judaic Studies, served as a Faculty Fellow in Ethnic Studies for UHart’s Center for the Humanities during the 2022–23 academic year. She delivered a public talk on “Passports for Palestine: Forged Travel Documents and American Volunteers in Israel’s War of Independence” for UConn’s Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary Jewish Life in November 2022 and that same month, participated in a panel discussion on “Antisemitism Past and Present” at Trinity College. She also presented a paper at the Association for Jewish Studies Annual Conference in Boston in December 2022. Weiss delivered a talk on “Realigning Faith: American Jews, Protestants, and Israel, 1966–2018” at Fordham University in April 2023. That same month, she also participated in the symposium “Zionism and American Jews: Bringing Us Together and Pulling Us Apart,” held at the Center for Jewish History in Manhattan. In support of her teaching, Weiss received a Faculty Fellowship from the Israel Institute, as well as pedagogy grants from the University of Hartford. She also received several research grants, including the 2022–23 Center for Jewish History-Fordham University Research Fellowship and a Cardin Grant from the University of Hartford to assist with the research for her current book project on American Jews, evangelicals, and Israel.

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