Join 2018-2019 Stroum Center Graduate Fellows Vincent Calvetti-Wolf, Pablo Jairo Tutillo Maldonado and Hayim Katsman as they share their research.

A light lunch will be served. Please RSVP at the bottom of the page if you plan to attend.

Vincent Calvetti-Wolf, Mickey Sreebny Memorial Scholar

“Protocols and Protest: The Yemenite Babies Affair, the Mizrahi Struggle, and Struggles of Interpretation”

Vincent is a first-year student in the Near and Middle Eastern Studies Interdisciplinary PhD Program. He holds a BA in Liberal Arts from The Evergreen State College and obtained a Master of Arts in International Studies, with a focus in Comparative Religion, from the University of Washington in 2017. His research explores the histories and politics of social movements led by Mizrahi Jews in Israel. His current project focuses on the strategies used by grassroots movements in Israel to raise awareness about the Yemenite, Mizrahi and Balkan Children Affair that took place in the early 1950s. Vincent is graduate student co-coordinator of the Israel/Palestine Research Colloquium.

Read about Vincent’s research on the Yemenite Babies Affair and Mizrahi history:

• “Remembering the thousands of children who disappeared in the “Yemenite Babies Affair”” (2019)

Pablo Jairo Tutillo Maldonado, Richard M. Willner Memorial Scholar

“Politics and Society: The Role of Memory in the Moroccan Jewish Museum in Casablanca”

Pablo Jairo Tutillo Maldonado, who hails from Connecticut, is a second-year MA student in Middle East Studies at the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies. Pablo obtained his BA in International Relations and a minor in Arabic Studies from Connecticut College. Pablo has studied at Alexandria University in Egypt and at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel. At the University of Washington, Pablo has been researching the intersection of history and politics in countries in the Middle East, particularly the political and historical narratives of Jewish refugees, Syrian refugees and other forced migrants from the Arab world. He speaks conversational Arabic, Hebrew and Turkish.

Faculty respondent: Noam Pianko, Professor, Jackson School of International Studies

Read about Pablo’s research on Mizrahi identity and history:

• “How should we remember the forced migration of Jews from Egypt?” (2019)
• “How Iraqi Jews are reclaiming their cultural legacy in Israel” (2018)

Hayim Katsman, I. Mervin & Georgiana Gorasht Fellow

“Contemporary trends in religious-Zionist thought and practice”

As a PhD student in International Studies, Hayim researches the interrelations between religion and politics in Israel/Palestine. Focusing on the religious-Zionist movement and the settlement enterprise in the West Bank and Gaza, Hayim’s research shows how developments in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have affected religious Zionists’ theological interpretations of the Israeli state. Before coming to the University of Washington, Hayim lived in a Kibbutz on the Israel/Gaza/Egypt border, where he works/ed as a car mechanic. Hayim received his BA in philosophy from the Open University of Israel and completed his MA thesis on the theology of Rabbi Yitzchak Ginzburg at the Department of Politics and Government at Ben-Gurion University.

Faculty respondent: Noam Pianko, Professor, Jackson School of International Studies

Read about Hayim’s research on life in modern Israel:

• “Protecting academic freedom in Israeli higher education” (2019)