UW Stroum Center for Jewish Studies

STUDENT-ONLY Event: Jewish Studies Student Advisory Council Meeting
2016-01-13 18:00 - 19:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | HUB 238, Husky Union Building, University of Washington, Seattle, 98195
The Jewish Studies Advisory Council (JSSAC) is a non-religious and non-political organization at UW that serves as a liaison between students and Stroum Center for Jewish Studies faculty and staff. The council provides a forum for student input and ideas, and offers students the opportunity to build leadership skills and gain mentorship in curriculum development and organizational management. JSSAC also builds community and friendships among students who are interested in Jewish Studies at the University of Washington. Undergraduate and graduate students from all backgrounds and majors with an interest in Jewish Studies are welcome to join.
Free dinner is provided! RSVPs appreciated so we can order the right amount of food. Please RSVP to Lauren Kurland at lkurland@uw.edu.

STUDENTS ONLY: Sephardic Hanukkah Party
2015-12-07 18:00 - 20:00 | Hillel UW, 4745 17th Ave NE, Seattle, WA, 98105, US
With winter approaching, it’s time for Hanukkah, a holiday of celebration and lights!
UW students and young professionals from all backgrounds and majors are invited to a Hanukkah party sponsored by the Stroum Center for Jewish Studies and Hillel UW.
This special Hanukkah party will incorporate traditions of Jewish Sephardic culture in honor of International Ladino Day. Sephardic Jews are Jews from Spain, Portugal, North Africa and the Middle East and their descendants. The adjective “Sephardic” and corresponding nouns “Sephardi” (singular) and “Sephardim” (plural) are derived from the Hebrew word “Sepharad,” which refers to Spain. Sephardic Jews have their own special traditions, language (Ladino), foods and songs, and we will explore some of them at our Hanukkah party.
We will light a hanukkiyah, also known as a Hanukkah “menorah,” a candelabra designated specifically for the eight Hanukkah candles, one of which is lit each night.
We will sing Hanukkah songs in Ladino (bonus if you wear a fedora to the party like this singer of the classic Ladino Hanukkah song, Ocho Kandelikas, “Eight Candles”).
And we will try tasty Sephardic fare including bimuelos (fried dough puffs). What could be bad??
All welcome! No previous experience with Hanukkah necessary!
No cost.

3rd Annual International Ladino Day
2015-12-06 16:00 - 18:00 | Kane Hall 130, 4069 Spokane Lane, Seattle, WA, 98195, United States
Biva la lingua de Ladino!
Join Professors Julia Phillips Cohen (Vanderbilt), Sarah Abrevaya Stein (UCLA), and Devin Naar (UW) as they shine a light on Sephardic language and culture at our third-annual celebration of International Ladino Day. The event will include:

Readings from the award-winning book, Sephardi Lives
Special performances by Los Ladineros and community members
Kosher reception featuring Sephardic delicacies

This event is hosted by the UW Stroum Center for Jewish Studies and the Sephardic Studies Program in cooperation with Congregation Ezra Bessaroth, Sephardic Bikur Holim Congregation, the Seattle Sephardic Brotherhood, and the Seattle Sephardic Network.

The recipient of the 2014 National Jewish Book Award for Sephardic Culture, Sephardi Lives: A Documentary History, 1700-1950, offers an unprecedented glimpse into the experiences of Sephardic Jews in the lands of the former Ottoman Empire by highlighting aspects of their religious, political, economic and cultural worlds over more than two centuries. Read our new interview with the editors!
Julia Phillips Cohen is Associate Professor of History and Jewish Studies at Vanderbilt University.
Sarah Abrevaya Stein is Professor of History and Maurice Amado Chair in Sephardic Studies at UCLA
Links for Further Exploration

Read Ty Alhadeff’s preview article, “Celebrate Ladino Day 2015 at the UW on Dec. 6th“
“Sephardi Lives in Living Color” by Hannah Pressman
Enjoy video highlights from both our 2013 and 2014 celebrations of International Ladino Day in Seattle
“Ladino Day Confirms Seattle as Vibrant Hub of Sephardic Culture” by Molly FitzMorris
“What is the History of Ladino and Its Alphabet?” Video Featuring Prof. Devin Naar and Prof. David Bunis

STUDENT-ONLY EVENT: Jewish Studies Student Advisory Council
2015-12-02 18:00 - 19:00 | Thomson 317, UW Campus, 2023 Skagit Lane, Seattle, WA, 98195, United States

Baladino in Concert at SJCC
2015-11-21 19:30 - 21:00 | WA
With its members hailing from Berlin and Tel Aviv, Baladino is a Mediterranean folk band that offers fresh, yet deeply authentic interpretations of Sephardic and Ladino melodies and brings this tradition back into full, fresh dialogue with its trans-Mediterranean past, using extended technique, subtle electronics and improvisation to dust off the predominant heavy-handed approach to Ladino music. With stunning vocals, unexpected instruments, and a pitch-perfect sense of arrangement, the Israeli group melds everything from Egyptian darbuka to Armenian duduk, from Ladino classics to rarely heard tunes, into a sonically vibrant, organic whole. During Baladino’s live performances, songs often form a jumping-off point for instrumental improvisations driven by Mediterranean-Gypsy grooves, yet embracing rock and electronic influences.

To purchase tickets and find out more, please visit the Stroum Jewish Community Center online!
STUDENTS: Get $5 off your tickets using this promo code: UW5OFF

Organized by the Stroum Jewish Community Center

Jewish Peoplehood: An American Innovation
2015-11-18 19:00 - 20:30 | University Book Store – Seattle, 4326 University Way Northeast, Seattle, WA, 98105
Although fewer American Jews today describe themselves as religious, they overwhelmingly report a strong sense of belonging to the Jewish people. Indeed, Jewish peoplehood has eclipsed religion—as well as ethnicity and nationality—as the essence of what binds Jews around the globe to one another. In this exciting book launch event, Prof. Noam Pianko will highlight the current significance and future relevance of “peoplehood” by tracing the rise, transformation, and return of this novel term.
Find out more about Prof. Pianko’s book Jewish Peoplehood: An American Innovation!
Light Kosher reception to follow book reading. Prof. Noam Pianko is the Samuel N. Stroum Chair of Jewish Studies and Associate Professor in the Jackson School of International Studies. Pianko also directs the Samuel and Althea Stroum Center for Jewish Studies and serves as the Herbert and Lucy Pruzan Professor of Jewish Studies. He received his Ph.D. in Religious Studies/Judaic Studies from Yale University in 2004 and joined the Jackson School faculty as an Assistant Professor in the fall of that year. Prof. Pianko’s research interests include modern Jewish history, Zionism, and American Judaism.

Zionism, the Novel, and Contemporary Debates
2015-11-17 18:00 - 19:30 | Kane Hall 220, 4069 Spokane Ln, Seattle, WA, 98195, US
Scholars for Peace in the Middle East presents: Zionism, the Novel, and Contemporary Debates
Scholars of literature can teach about the Middle East and contribute to debates about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict by analyzing novels by Israelis, Palestinians, and others. This lecture will show what novels by A.M. Klein, Sayed Kashua, and Howard Jacobson can teach us about the conflict, about novels, and about ourselves.
Dr. Russell Berman, Walter A. Haas Professor in the Humanities, Stanford University, is a distinguished professor of Comparative Literature and German Studies. He has served as President of the Modern Language Association (MLA) in 2011. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution.
Free and open to the public. Light reception to follow.
Please contact neareast@uw.edu with questions.

Co-sponsors: Jackson School of International Studies, Simpson Center for the Humanities, and the Stroum Center for Jewish Studies; the Departments of English, Near Eastern Languages and Civilization, Germanics, and Comparative Literature, Cinema, and Media; and Hillel UW.
Sponsorship of this event does not imply endorsement of the content of the lecture.

A Brief Stop on the Road from Auschwitz
2015-11-12 17:00 - 18:30 | HUB 340, University of Washington HUB, Seattle, WA, 98195, US
On August 2, 1947 a young man gets off a train in a small Swedish town to begin his life anew. Having endured the ghetto of Lodz, the death camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau, the slave camps and transports during the final months of Nazi Germany, his final challenge is to survive the survival.
Join Göran Rosenberg as he discusses his intelligent and deeply moving book, A Brief Stop on the Road from Auschwitz, in which he returns to his own childhood to tell the story of his father: walking at his side, holding his hand, trying to get close to him. It is also the story of the chasm between the world of the child, permeated by the optimism, progress, and collective oblivion of postwar Sweden, and the world of the father, darkened by the long shadows of the past.
Want to learn more about A Brief Stop on the Road from Auschwitz? Check out Roger Cohen’s New York Times review of this award-winning book, “Where the Road From Auschwitz Ends.”

Göran Rosenberg was born in Sweden in 1948 and is one of Sweden’s best known authors. In 1970 he left academia to work as a journalist for Swedish television, radio, and print. He is the author of several books, including the highly acclaimed The Lost Land: A Personal History of Zionism and Messianism and The State of Israel.

Tea and Discussion with Prof. Naomi Sokoloff
2015-11-10 13:00 - 14:00 | HUB 307, 4001 E Stevens Way NE, Seattle, US
Access students and community members are invited to join Naomi Sokoloff, Professor of Hebrew and Comparative Literature, to discuss two Hebrew poems in translation in an informal setting. The poems that will be discussed were covered in “Prayer and Poetry in the Jewish and Islamic Traditions,” an inspiring new course Prof. Sokoloff co-taught last winter with Prof. Samad Alavi, Assistant Professor of Persian Civilization.
Tea, coffee and cookies will be provided.
RSVPs appreciated.

Holocaust History and Survivor Testimony: The Case of the Starachowice Factory Slave Labor Camps
2015-11-05 15:30 - 17:00 | Communications 120, UW Campus, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, 98105, United States
The University of Washington Department of History and the Stroum Center for Jewish Studies are proud to present a lecture by Visiting Scholar, Prof. Christopher Browning.

Christopher R. Browning is the Giovanni Costigan Visiting Professor of History at the University of Washington and the Frank Porter Graham Professor History Emeritus at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Previously he taught at the Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma. He is the author of eight books, including Ordinary Men, The Origins of the Final Solution, and Remembering Survival, all three of which received the National Jewish Book Award – Holocaust Category. He has served as an expert witness in “war crimes” trials in Australia, Canada, and Great Britain as well as in two “Holocaust denial” cases: the second Zundel trail in Toronto in 1988 and in David Irving’s libel suit against Deborah Lipstadt in London in 2000.

STUDENT EVENT: Feasting with Faculty with Prof. Susan Glenn
2015-11-04 17:00 - 18:15 | Shalimar on the Ave, 4214 University Way NE, Seattle, 98115, US
Get to know History professor and Jewish Studies faculty member Susan Glenn over a delicious (and free!) dinner. Come join for what is sure to be a delightful evening! Open to undergraduate and graduate students only. No cost but reservations required.

UW Philosophers Talk about the Migration Crisis ft. Prof. Michael Rosenthal
2015-11-04 12:00 - 13:00 | Savery Hall (Large table outside of Savery Hall 361), 4069 Spokane Ln, Seattle, WA, 98195, United States
Is religion or culture relevant to our decisions about helping refugees or our immigration policy? Join Prof. Michael Rosenthal in conversation around this issue.
This event is part of the series “UW Philosophers Talk about the Migration Crisis.” Each session of this series will begin with a brief, 15-20 minute presentation and then will continue with discussion with the goal of stimulating conversation about this important topic. Everyone in the UW community – students, faculty, and staff – are invited to attend. The only prerequisite is that you come willing to listen and discuss with respect.
For more information about this series, check out UW Philosphy’s website (phil.washington.edu) or send an e-mail to philinfo@uw.edu.

The Complaint Desk: Locating American Jewish Literature's 'Russian' Authenticity in the History of Listening
2015-11-02 15:30 - 17:00 | Communications 120, UW Campus, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, 98105, United States
Prof. Gabriella Safran, Eva Chernov Lokey Chair of Jewish Studies, has written on Russian, Polish, Yiddish, and French literatures and cultures. Her most recent book,Wandering Soul: The Dybbuk’s Creator, S. An-sky (Harvard, 2010), is a biography of an early-twentieth-century Russian-Yiddish writer who was also an ethnographer, a revolutionary, and a wartime relief worker.
Safran teaches and writes on Russian literature, Yiddish literature, folklore, and folkloristics. She is now working on two monograph projects: one on the collection and curating of the Russian peasant voice, by writers, lexicographers, ethnographers, and musicologists, from the 1830s to the 1910s, and the other on the popularization of notions of Jewish voice, by writers, speakers, and performers, in the Russian space and in the United States, from the 1870s through the 1920s.

Organized by: Slavic Languages and Literatures
Co-sponsored by: Stroum Center for Jewish Studies, the Department of Comparative Literature, Cinema & Media, and the Department of English

STUDENT EVENT: Jewish Studies Student Advisory Council Meeting
2015-10-27 17:00 - 18:30 | Thomson 317, UW Campus, 2023 Skagit Lane, Seattle, WA, 98195, United States
The Jewish Studies Advisory Council (JSSAC) is a non-religious and non-political organization at UW that serves as a liaison between students and Stroum Center for Jewish Studies faculty and staff. The council provides a forum for student input and ideas, and offers students the opportunity to build leadership skills and gain mentorship in curriculum development and organizational management. JSSAC also builds community and friendships among students who are interested in Jewish Studies at the University of Washington. Undergraduate and graduate students from all backgrounds and majors with an interest in Jewish Studies are welcome to join.
Free dinner is provided! RSVPs appreciated so we can order the right amount of food. Please RSVP to Lauren Kurland at lkurland@uw.edu.
And please save the date for our second fall Advisory Council meeting: Wednesday, December 2, 6:00-7:00 pm

Exploring A Borrowed Identity with Sayed Kashua
2015-10-26 18:00 - 20:00 | Kane Hall 120, 4069 Spokane Ln, Seattle, WA, 98195, US
Join Sayed Kashua for an evening exploring the complexities of identity in contemporary Israel. This lecture is part of the Stroum Center’s 2015-16 series, Mixed Media: New Expressions of Identity.
Sayed Kashua is a leading Israeli author and journalist known for his books and humorous columns in Hebrew. Kashua is the author of three novels: Dancing Arabs, Let It Be Morning, and Second Person Singular. He is the writer and creator of the hit Israeli TV show “Arab Labor,” and is the focus of the documentary Forever Scared. His novel Dancing Arabs has been made into the feature film “A Borrowed Identity” directed by acclaimed filmmaker Eran Riklis. This widely praised coming-of-age drama premiered in 2014 at the Telluride Film Festival. Kashua is the winner of many awards, including the prestigious Bernstein Prize. Currently he is a visiting professor at the University of Illinois.
Please note, due to a great interest in this event, the location has been changed to Kane Hall 120. This event will NOT be held in the HUB.

STUDENTS: Catch a screening and discussion of Sayed Kashua’s latest film “A Borrowed Identity” with the creator! We’ll be hosting a special students-only screening at Hillel UW on Sunday, October 25th at 6pm.
We thank our partners for this event: the Middle East Center at the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilization, and Hillel UW.

Sponsorship of this event does not imply endorsement of the content.

STUDENT EVENT: A Borrowed Identity Film Screening
2015-10-25 18:00 - 21:00 | Hillel UW, 4745 17th Ave NE, Seattle, WA, 98105, US
Have you ever felt you didn’t fit in? Have you ever tried to reconcile two identities? Have you ever had a forbidden love?
Students! Join UW Jewish Studies and Hillel UW for a FREE screening of A Borrowed Identity, followed by a discussion with the writer and creator, Sayed Kashua! You won’t want to miss this coming-of-age film about a Palestinian teenager who attends a prestigious high school in Jerusalem on scholarship. The film and discussion will raise important questions about the role of society and culture on the formation of identity. The film is adapted from Sayed Kashua’s autobiographical writings.

Sayed Kashua is a leading Israeli author and journalist known for his books and humorous columns in Hebrew. Kashua is the author of three novels: Dancing Arabs, Let It Be Morning, and Second Person Singular. He is the writer and creator of the hit Israeli TV show Arab Labor, and is the focus of the documentary Forever Scared. His novel Dancing Arabs has been made into the feature film A Borrowed Identity directed by acclaimed filmmaker Eran Riklis. This widely praised coming-of-age drama premiered in 2014 at the Telluride Film Festival. Kashua is the winner of many awards, including the prestigious Bernstein Prize. Currently he is a visiting professor at the University of Illinois.

Please note: this event is open to UW undergraduates, graduates, recent alumni, and young professionals.

Sponsorship of this event does not imply endorsement of the content.

Tales from the Forgotten Kingdom: Ladino Songs Renewed with Guy Mendilow Ensemble
2015-10-07 18:00 - 20:30 | Ethnic Cultural Theater, 3940 Brooklyn Ave NE, Seattle, WA, 98105
Embark on a musical journey through the Balkans to the Middle East, beginning in the Sephardi community of Sarajevo and winding through Salonica and Jerusalem. Tales from the Forgotten Kingdom is a sonic adventure masterfully brought to life by the Guy Mendilow Ensemble, an award-winning quintet of world-class musicians with members hailing from Israel, Palestine, Argentina, Japan, and the USA. Epic tales of love lost to the seas and the intrigue of kings abound in arrangements of Ladino songs that crackle with vivid musical storytelling.
The evening will include a conversation with Guy Mendilow facilitated by Prof. Devin Naar, chair of the Sephardic Studies Program and Assistant Professor of History at the University of Washington.
STUDENTS: You can get a free ticket to this show by emailing jewishst@uw.edu with your name and UW NetID!

This event is part of the Stroum Center’s 2015-16 series, Mixed Media: New Expressions of Identity.

Lunch and Learn with Shalom Sabar
2015-10-01 11:30 - 13:30 | University of Washington, Thomson Hall 317, Seattle, WA, 98195, United States
The biblical story of the Binding or Sacrifice of Isaac plays a major role in the religious ideologies of the three monotheistic religions. Over the ages, artists in the service of Jewish, Christian and Muslim communities were called to depict the story time and again. Join Prof. Shalom Sabar as he examines how these visual works convey the messages and sentiments of traditional societies that produced them, as well as the curious, military-related twist the visual interpretation of the story took in modern times, especially in the State of Israel.
A light Kosher lunch will be provided. RSVP required.

A Legacy of Sephardic, Mediterranean, and American Recipes
2015-09-02 19:00 - 20:30 | University Book Store, 4326 University Way NE, Seattle, WA, 98105, United States
As a child, Rachel Almeleh learned to cook family recipes passed down through generations of her Sephardic ancestors. Today, she shares those recipes with others through her Seattle-area business, Rachel’s Sephardic Delicacies, and in her new cookbook A Legacy of Sephardic, Mediterranean, and American Recipes. Filled with how-to-photos, tips, and recipes for Jewish holidays, American holidays, and everyday meals and treats, the book brings Sephardic cooking—along with the legacies and traditions behind it—to life. Joining for a reading and signing, Almeleh will share her collection of nurturing and delicious recipes with us.
Presented by University Book Store in partnership with The Sephardic Studies Program of the UW Stroum Center for Jewish Studies.

Graduate Fellows Spring Research Symposium
2014-05-20 09:30 - 13:30 | Thomson 317, UW Campus, 2023 Skagit Lane, Seattle, WA, 98195, United States
The future of Jewish Studies scholarship will be on display at the Stroum Center’s second annual Spring Research Symposium, featuring the 2013-14 class of Jewish Studies Graduate Fellows. Join us for two fascinating panels followed by a reception.
Full schedule available here.
RSVP here to reserve your spot. Last year’s symposium was completely sold out!

Sell Tickets Online through Eventbrite

Click here to find out more about the fellows and their diverse research interests, which include Ottoman Turkish poetry, Bedouins and solar energy in Israel, Ladino newspapers, post-Holocaust films, and Russian-Jewish culture.
About our fellowship program: The goal of the Jewish Studies Graduate Fellowship at the University of Washington is to build an intellectual community around Jewish Studies. Fellows participate in a workshop series to foster professional development and advance their research agendas. Now in its second year, the Fellowship is coordinated by Dr. Hannah Pressman, an affiliate faculty member of the Stroum Center for Jewish Studies.
Thanks to the generosity of our community supporters, five outstanding graduate students received $3,000 grants to support research related to Jewish Studies during the 2013-14 academic year. Our five new graduate fellows represent several UW departments. Each brings a unique perspective to the field of Jewish Studies and has great potential to contribute to the future of Jewish scholarship.
The 2013-14 Jewish Studies Graduate Fellows:

Esra Bakkalbasioglu
I. Mervyn and Georgiana Gorasht Scholarship in Jewish Studies
Esra Bakkalbasioglu is a second year PhD student in the Interdisciplinary Program on Near and Middle Eastern Studies. She completed her BA and MA degrees from the Political Science and International Relations Department of the University of Bogazici, Turkey. She wrote her master thesis on the West Bank Wall and non-violent anti-wall movements. After completing her MA degree, she worked for two years as the Democratization Program project coordinator, in one of Turkey’s prominent think-tanks, Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation. Her main areas of research interest are infrastructure-politics relations, social movements and state-society relations in the Middle East. Currently, she is working on the political and social impacts of solar panel fields in Israel, Turkey and Jordan.

Oscar Aguirre-Mandujano
Mickey Sreebny Memorial Scholarship in Jewish Studies
Oscar Aguirre-Mandujano is a second-year PhD student in the Interdisciplinary Program in Near and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Washington. He was born in Mexico City in 1986 and attended the National University of Mexico (UNam). In 2008 he obtained a BA degree in History, and in 2009 he moved to the United Kingdom to read an MA degree at the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London. Oscar’s dissertation undertakes an interdisciplinary study of the impact of book production in the emergence of a new court literary culture during the reign of Bayezid II (r. 1452-1512) in the Ottoman Empire. As a Jewish Studies Graduate Fellow, Oscar focuses on an in-depth study of the original compositions of Yehuda (Leon) Behar in Ottoman Turkish, and examines the development of the main themes in the poetic and literary work of the Jewish community of the late Ottoman Empire.

Denise Grollmus
Philip Bernstein Memorial Scholarship in Jewish Studies
Denise Grollmus is an award-winning journalist and Fulbright Scholar. After receiving her MFA in Creative Writing from Penn State University, Denise lived in Warsaw, Poland as a Fulbright scholar researching the Revival of Jewish Life throughout the country. She is now a PhD candidate in English at the University of Washington. Her project is a comparative study of Philip Roth’s novel Operation Shylock: A Confession and Yael Bartana’s film series And Europe Will Be Stunned… that examines how the satirical representations of counter-Zionist movements in both works perform and extend Hannah Arendt’s critique of the nation-state by performing the problematics not only of Jewish nationalism, but also of nationalism (especially with regard to “The Jewish Question”) more generally.

Cyrus Rodgers
Richard M. Willner Memorial Scholarship in Jewish Studies
In 2011, Cyrus began his master’s degree in the Slavic Languages and Literature Department at the University of Washington. His main interests are Soviet literature, film, and visual art with special emphasis on Jewish themes in literature. Next year he will graduate with plans to complete a Master’s thesis, which will discuss the relationship between art and Bolshevik politics at critical stages in the evolution of the Judeo-Soviet paradigm from 1917 to 1953.

Sarah Zaides
Samuel and Althea Stroum Fellowship in Jewish Studies
Sarah’s work studies the cultural and social histories of Jews in the Soviet Union, particularly around the early years of Israeli Independence. Her current project examines the historical enigma of Arkady Raikin, a yeshiva-educated Jewish actor who became one of the most famous satirists of the Soviet state. Her work uses the case of Raikin to engage broadly with the historiography of Soviet Jews and also employs the transnational histories of emigre communities in the United States and Israel. After a successful year in the first class of Jewish Studies Graduate Fellows, Sarah returns to continue her research in Jewish Studies.

40th Anniversary Gala
2014-05-13 17:30 - 21:00 | Thomson 317, UW Campus, 2023 Skagit Lane, Seattle, WA, 98195, United States
Be there as UW Jewish Studies celebrates four decades of innovation and excellence at the University of Washington!
Click here to visit our official 40th anniversary page, where you can:
–buy your tickets for the May 13th Gala
-read interviews & articles highlighting the special history of UW Jewish Studies
-view archival photographs from the past 40 years
We’ll be Thinking Forward on May 13th. Join us!

Gates Public Service Law Speaker Series:“Becoming an International Judge via the Holocaust”
2014-05-05 16:30 - 17:30 | WA
Gates Public Service Law Speaker Series
“Becoming an International Judge via the Holocaust” with Professor Thomas Buergenthal
Thomas Buergenthal is the Lobingier Professor of Comparative Law and Jurisprudence at George Washington University. He came to the United States at the age of 17. He spent the first 11 years of his life in various German camps and is one of the youngest survivors of the Auschwitz and Sachsen-hausen concentration camps. Considered one of the world’s leading international human rights ex-perts, Professor Buergenthal was a Judge and President of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights as well as President of the Administrative Tribunal of the Inter-American Development. He was a member of the UN Human Rights Committee and UN Truth Commission for El Salvador. He is a member of the Ethics Commission of the International Olympic Committee and the honorary presi-dent of the Inter-American Institute of Human Rights in San José, Costa Rica.
Monday, May 5, 2014
4:30-5:30 pm, William Gates Hall, Room 138
Reception to follow at the Burke Museum
celebrating the 5 Year Anniversary of the
UW Center for Human Rights

RSVP via Symplicity or gatespsl@uw.edu

Co-Sponsors: The Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, the UW Center for Human Rights, Hillel, and the Stroum Center for Jewish Studies are our partners in this event.

Reception Sponsored by the Gates Public Service Law Program and the UW Center for Human Rights

Sponsorship of this event by the University of Washington School of Law and the W.H. Gates
Public Service Law Program does not imply endorsement

Yom HaShoah: Universal Perspectives on Holocaust Remembrance
2014-04-30 12:30 - 13:20 | WA
As the Holocaust (Shoah) is observed throughout the world this week and the UW community welcomes jurist, memoirist and concentration camp survivor Thomas Buergenthal, it is a fitting time to consider the contemporary commemoration of state-sponsored murder by the Nazi regime. Lawyer/Activist Reut Cohen writes: “We Israelis grow up in the shadows of the Holocaust. It’s always there and always very present. I don’t think this is necessarily bad, but I recognize two possible educational messages that derive from this: the first is that ‘We must never let this happen to us [Jews/Israel] again and have to do everything in order to prevent it’ and the second is ‘We must never let this happen again to any other nation or people.’” Join us for a discussion about the public remembrance of genocidal events.
*Light lunch provided*
Guest Speaker: Reut Cohen, New Israel Fund Civil Liberties Law Program Fellow
Respondents:
Rabbi Oren Hayon, Hillel UW Prof. Stephen Rosenbaum, UW Law

Yom Hashoah Commemoration with Lecture by Prof. Dan Chirot
2014-04-27 14:30 - 16:30 | WA
The Washington State Holocaust Education Resource Center will present a Holocaust Remembrance Day program at the University of Washington on Sunday, April 27th. “The Family: Ties, Separations, Rebuilding, and Remembering” includes three speakers:
Holocaust survivor Josh Gortler;
David Laskin, author of The Family: Three Journeys into the Heart of the Twentieth Century; and
Prof. Daniel Chirot, author of Confronting Memories of World War II: European and Asian Legacies.
Prof. Dan Chirot is the Herbert J. Ellison Professor of Russian and Eurasian Studies in the Department of Sociology at the University of Washington. His lecture is entitled “Who Apologizes, Who Means It, and Why.”
For more information on “Family & Memory,” please visit the Washington State Holocaust Education Resource Center at https://www.wsherc.org/ or view their events page at this link.
This event is co-sponsored by the UW Stroum Center for Jewish Studies.

Cántame una romansa: Memory, Family History, and Sephardic Ballads in Seattle
2014-04-24 19:30 - 21:30 | WA
Dr. Rina Benmayor, Professor of Oral History, Latina/o Studies, & Literature
In 1973, Rina Benmayor came to Seattle to record Judeo-Spanish ballads (romansas) in the Sephardic community for her doctoral dissertation. She was following in the footsteps of her mentors, Samuel Armistead and Joseph Silverman, to collect, preserve, and analyze these precious living remnants of centuries past. It was an experience vividly etched in her memory. Now, in a special lecture to mark forty years since her initial research project, Dr. Benmayor reflects on that experience, on how we remember, and why we capture the past. Her presentation on April 24th will include the voices and images of elderly members of the Sephardic community in the 1970s, as well as reflections from later explorations of her own family history.
Read a new blog profile of Rina Benmayor, including musical samples of Sephardic ballads, plus links to oral histories of Seattle’s Sephardic community!
Rina Benmayor is Professor of oral history, literature, and Latina/o studies at California State University Monterey Bay. She has a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley in Romance Languages and Literatures with an emphasis in Spanish literature. She has taught at Stanford, Hunter College (CUNY), and is founding faculty at CSU Monterey Bay. At CSUMB, she teaches oral history, digital life storytelling, and narrative literature, and directs an oral history archive. Her first book was a collection of Judeo-Spanish ballads collected in Los Angeles and Seattle, titled Romances judeo-españoles en la costa occidental de los Estados Unidos (Gredos, 1979). Later books include Migration and Identity (OUP 1994), Latino Cultural Citizenship (Beacon, 1997), Telling to Live: Latina Feminist Testimonios (Duke 2001). She has served as president of the Oral History Association (2010-11), and the International Oral History Association (2004-06). She is currently directing a multi-year oral history project on Salinas Chinatown, funded through the National Endowment for the Humanities and Cal Humanities, and is writing a family memoir based on genealogical research in the United States and ancestral Sephardic communities in northern Greece.
This event is free and open to the public. Tickets may be reserved here:

Event management for ‘Cántame una cantiga/Sing me a song’: Collecting Sephardic Ballads in Seattle, 1973 powered by Eventbrite
We thank our co-sponsors for this event: the Division of Spanish and Portuguese Studies and the Turkish and Ottoman Studies Program in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilization at the University of Washington.

Student Dinner and Discussion: School Photos in the Era of Assimilation
2014-04-03 17:00 - 18:30 | WA
Reserve your spot now, space is limited:

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Special student discussion and dinner with visiting scholars Marianne Hirsch and Leo Spitzer about what school photos taken in the 19th and 20th century can tell us about efforts to assimilate or “civilize” Jews, Indians, and Blacks. Join us for this interactive conversation/workshop with these world-renown scholars. The event is co-sponsored by the Jewish Studies Student Committee and the American Indian Student Commission. Free dinner provided.
Hirsch and Spitzer will also be giving two public lectures on March 31 and April 2 in Kane Hall 220 at 7:30pm on this topic (first lecture) and Framing Children: The Holocaust and After (second lecture). More info at jewishstudies.washington.edu/stroumlectures

2014 Stroum Lectures, Day 2: School Photos and Their Afterlives
2014-04-02 19:30 - 21:30 | WA
2014 Samuel and Althea Stroum Lectures in Jewish Studies
“School Photos and Their Afterlives: A Comparative Jewish Perspective”
Featuring Dr. Marianne Hirsch (Columbia University) and Dr. Leo Spitzer (Dartmouth College)

Lecture 1: School Photos in the Era of Assimilation: Jews, Indians, and Blacks (March 31)
Lecture 2: Framing Children: The Holocaust and After (April 2)
Photographs of school classes appear very early in the history of photography and are pervasive in individual and family albums throughout the world. This year’s Stroum Lectures examine the historical, memorial, and aesthetic dimensions of school photographs from a comparative Jewish perspective. The lectures explore photography’s ideological role from the 19th century through World War II, a span of decades wherein the political climate for Jews shifted from emancipation and integration to exclusion, persecution, and genocide. Reflecting on the afterlives of these images in memorial and artistic installations, the talks also suggest that school photographs can represent the possibility of resistance and subversion—even during the most challenging time in the Jewish people’s history.

The first lecture, focusing on class images from the 19th and early 20th century, examines practices of assimilation that are revealed in photographs from educational establishments intended for the “civilization” of indigenous and African American children in North America and from schools attended by Jewish children in Habsburg-ruled Central Europe. The second lecture looks at the process of exclusion of Jews in 20th-century Central Europe by way of school pictures taken in the 1920’s and ’30s, as well as in sanctioned and clandestine schools – some, in ghettos and camps – in the years of the Holocaust.
Dr. Marianne Hirsch and Dr. Leo Spitzer, the 2014 Stroum Lecturers.
This year’s Stroum Lecturers are Dr. Marianne Hirsch, Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, and Dr. Leo Spitzer, the Kathe Tappe Vernon Professor of History at Dartmouth College. Among numerous publications on the Holocaust and Jewish culture, they have co-authored Ghosts of Home: The Afterlife of Czernowitz in Jewish Memory (University of California Press, 2010).
Among the many achievements being celebrated by UW Jewish Studies during its 40th anniversary year, the Stroum Lectures are a source of special pride for UW Jewish Studies. Since 1976, the Samuel and Althea Stroum Lectureship in Jewish Studies has brought the best minds of the field to speak at the University of Washington. Several of the books published from these lectures have become watershed publications in Jewish thought, history, and culture. View our video archive of recent Stroum Lectures, and find out more about the Stroum Book Series at the University of Washington Press. And don’t miss this year’s Stroum Lectures, part of our ongoing 40th anniversary series of events.
Tickets may be reserved in advance here.

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We thank our cosponsors for this year’s Stroum Lectures: the Center for West European Studies, the Department of American Ethnic Studies, the Department of American Indian Studies, the Department of Germanics, the School of Art at the University of Washington, and Education Services at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle.

2014 Stroum Lectures: School Photos and Their Afterlives
2014-03-31 19:30 - 21:30 | WA
Lecture 1: School Photos in the Era of Assimilation: Jews, Indians, and Blacks (March 31)
Lecture 2: Framing Children: The Holocaust and After (April 2)
Photographs of school classes appear very early in the history of photography and are pervasive in individual and family albums throughout the world. This year’s Stroum Lectures examine the historical, memorial, and aesthetic dimensions of school photographs from a comparative Jewish perspective. The lectures explore photography’s ideological role from the 19th century through World War II, a span of decades wherein the political climate for Jews shifted from emancipation and integration to exclusion, persecution, and genocide. Reflecting on the afterlives of these images in memorial and artistic installations, the talks also suggest that school photographs can represent the possibility of resistance and subversion—even during the most challenging time in the Jewish people’s history.
The first lecture, focusing on class images from the 19th and early 20th century, examines practices of assimilation that are revealed in photographs from educational establishments intended for the “civilization” of indigenous and African American children in North America and from schools attended by Jewish children in Habsburg-ruled Central Europe. The second lecture looks at the process of exclusion of Jews in 20th-century Central Europe by way of school pictures taken in the 1920’s and ’30s, as well as in sanctioned and clandestine schools – some, in ghettos and camps – in the years of the Holocaust.
Dr. Marianne Hirsch and Dr. Leo Spitzer, the 2014 Stroum Lecturers.
This year’s Stroum Lecturers are Dr. Marianne Hirsch, Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, and Dr. Leo Spitzer, the Kathe Tappe Vernon Professor of History at Dartmouth College. Among numerous publications on the Holocaust and Jewish culture, they have co-authored Ghosts of Home: The Afterlife of Czernowitz in Jewish Memory (University of California Press, 2010).
Among the many achievements being celebrated by UW Jewish Studies during its 40th anniversary year, the Stroum Lectures are a source of special pride for UW Jewish Studies. Since 1976, the Samuel and Althea Stroum Lectureship in Jewish Studies has brought the best minds of the field to speak at the University of Washington. Several of the books published from these lectures have become watershed publications in Jewish thought, history, and culture. View our video archive of recent Stroum Lectures, and find out more about the Stroum Book Series at the University of Washington Press. And don’t miss this year’s Stroum Lectures, part of our ongoing 40th anniversary series of events.
Tickets may be reserved in advance here. Kosher reception to follow the lecture on March 31.

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We thank our cosponsors for this year’s Stroum Lectures: the Center for West European Studies, the Department of American Ethnic Studies, the Department of American Indian Studies, the Department of Germanics, the School of Art at the University of Washington, and Education Services at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle.

A Taste of Life in Israel Film Screening
2014-03-12 19:00 - 21:00 | WA
Spend an evening exploring Israeli culture through one of our most popular courses, “Life in Israel”! Taught by Prof. Naomi Sokoloff of the NELC Department and Jewish Studies Program, the “Life in Israel” class showcases contemporary Israeli life through diverse cinema and television screenings.
On March 12, you can attend a special screening being offered by the “Life in Israel” course. The screening will present two episodes of the television series “Arab Labor,” Season Four.
Tickets: $12 [**Free admission to UW students and JConnect members!]
For more information, click here.
To register in advance, click here.
This event is cosponsored by Seattle Jewish Film Festival and the Stroum Jewish Community Center. We thank them for providing this cultural opportunity for students and the community.

"The Life and Times of Dona Gracia Nasi"
2014-03-06 19:00 - 20:00 | WA
A new biography of Dona Gracia Nasi
“The Woman Who Defied Kings: The Life and Times of Dona Gracia Nasi,” lecture by journalist Andrée Aelion Brooks at the Sam, March 6, 2014, at 7 pm. Sponsored by the Division of Spanish and Portuguese Studies as part of the Miro exhibition at the Sam, and co-sponsored by the Stroum Center for Jewish Studies and its Sephardic Studies Program. This event is free and open to the public.
