STUDENT EVENT: Jewish Studies Student Advisory Council Meeting
2016-02-22 18:00 - 19:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | HUB 214, UW Seattle Campus, 4001 E Stevens Way NE, 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.
At the February meeting, Prof Pianko, Director of the Stroum Center for Jewish Studies, will join to ask students for feedback regarding a new course he wishes to teach next fall.
Dinner is provided! RSVPs appreciated so we can order the right amount of food. Please RSVP to Lauren Kurland at lkurland@uw.edu.

STUDENT EVENT: Feasting with Faculty: Profs. Mika Ahuvia and Sarah Culpepper Stroup
2016-03-02 17:30 - 19:30 | Thomson 317, UW Campus, 2023 Skagit Lane, Seattle, WA, 98195, United States
Beyond the Gender Binary
Join Professor Mika Ahuvia (Assistant Professor of Classical Judaism, Jackson School of International Studies) and Professor Sarah Culpepper Stroup (Associate Professor of Classics) for an informal conversation about ancient texts that go “beyond the gender binary.”
Open to undergraduate and graduate students only.
Free vegetarian dinner provided.
No cost but reservations required. This event is limited to 30 students.
This event co-sponsored with the Religious Studies Club of UW.

"Dr. Loewenstein, I Presume?": Israeli Eye Aid to Africa, 1959-1973
2016-03-08 12:00 - 13:30 | HUB 332, Husky Union Building, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, 98195, United States
Israel was involved in multiple foreign aid projects to sub-Saharan Africa in the 1960s as part of its quest to gain political allies and determine its place in the decolonized world. Dr. Mooreville will address how and why ophthalmology became Israel’s largest medical aid program, and in so doing address Israel’s claims to be a bridgehead between East and West, and its short-lived affiliation with the Global South. She investigates the historic symbolic significance of trachoma in Palestine, Africa as an extra-territorial site of pioneering that provided new clinical and research experiences, and how one physician took advantage of diplomatic policies to create an aid project that fulfilled his professional vision.

Anat Mooreville is the Hazel D. Cole Postdoctoral Fellow in the Stroum Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Washington, Seattle. Her research concentrates on Jewish history in the Middle East and North Africa, the history of medicine and science, and Israel-Palestine studies. She received her Ph.D. in History at UCLA in 2015 with the dissertation, “Oculists in the Orient: A History of Trachoma, Zionism, and Global Health, 1882-1973.”

A light Kosher lunch will be provided.

The Stroum Center for Jewish Studies is proud to offer this lecture as part of our Winter 2016 series, Beyond the Binary: Israel Studies Today which welcomes several emerging scholars to share new directions in the field of Israel Studies.

CANCELLED - Rabbi Shai Held on Heschel and Maimonides
2016-04-01 10:00 - 11:15 | Savery 408, 408 Savery Hall, Seattle, WA, 98195, United States
Unfortunately, Rabbi Shai Held has had to cancel his upcoming visit to Seattle so this event will no longer be taking place. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.
What do we mean when we say “God”? Are we talking about an abstract, distant, unknowable being? A personal God who loves and cares about us? Something else entirely? In this session, we’ll explore the very different ways two of Judaism’s greatest thinkers – Maimonides and Abraham Joshua Heschel – thought about God, and ask what we might learn for our own spiritual and religious quests.

Rabbi Shai Held is Co-Founder, Dean and Chair in Jewish Thought at Mechon Hadar. Shai also directs Mechon Hadar’s Center for Jewish Leadership and Ideas, for which he has written over a year’s worth of weekly divrei Torah on the parashah. Previously, he served for six years as Scholar-in-Residence at Kehilat Hadar in New York City, and taught both theology and Halakha at the Jewish Theological Seminary. Shai holds a doctorate in religion from Harvard; his main academic interests are in modern Jewish and Christian thought and in the history of Zionism. His book, Abraham Joshua Heschel: The Call of Transcendence was published by Indiana University Press in 2013.

SJFF Sephardic Film Highlight: Bulgarian Rhapsody
2016-04-03 13:30 - 15:00 | AMC Pacific Place, 600 Pine Street, Seattle, WA, United States
A visually stunning tale of first love and friendship in a time of war. In the summer of 1943 in Sofia, Bulgaria, a shy 17-year-old Jewish boy, meets his cousin and is immediately smitten. Unfortunately, so is his more worldly friend Giogio. The boys navigate more than a love triangle; however, as the police begin rounding up the Jews in this Ladino-speaking community under pressure from their German allies, who are also devastating Shelli’s hometown of Kavala, Greece. To complicate matters, Giogio’s father is a brutish anti-Semite who works for the government department in charge of deporting Sofia’s Jews to forced labor and death camps.

Despite its grim setting, the film’s tender evocation of childhood exuberance, innocence, and budding romance recreates the sweet and sumptuous lost world of Bulgarian Sephardic Jewish culture.

Bulgaria’s submission to the 2014 Academy Awards® for Best Foreign Language Film, BULGARIAN RHAPSODY is part of director Ivan Nichev’s historic trilogy about Bulgarian Jews, which also includes AFTER THE END OF THE WAR (1999) and THE JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM (2003). Warning: some nudity.

Featuring commentary and echar lashon with Prof. Devin Naar and special performances by the Bulgarian Women’s Choir group Dunava.

Tickets for this film are available through the Seattle Jewish Film Festival.

STUDENT EVENT: Jewish Studies Student Advisory Committee Meeting
2016-04-05 18:00 - 19:00 | HUB 332, Husky Union Building, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, 98195, United States
The Jewish Studies Student 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.
Dinner is provided! RSVPs appreciated so we can order the right amount of food. Please RSVP to Lauren Kurland at lkurland@uw.edu.

Lunch and Learn with Dr. Gerhard Weinberg
2016-04-06 12:00 - 13:00 | Petersen Room, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, 98195, United States
Hitler and the U.S.: Views, Plans, Policies, and the Jewish Question in All Three
Dr. Gerhard Weinberg, Professor Emeritus of University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, will be joining us for a Lunch and Learn event on Thursday, April 6, 2016.
Prof. Devin Naar, chair of the UW Sephardic Studies Program, will be the faculty respondent to Dr. Weinberg’s paper.
This talk, entitled “Hitler and the U.S.:. Views, Plans, Policies and the Jewish Question in All Three,” will engage Hitler’s hopes and plans for world conquest which from an early date included war with the United States. He also expected to have Germans kill all Jews throughout the world as well as the handicapped. Once becoming chancellor of Germany, he began preparations for both the wars to be fought — including the one against the US — and persecution of Jews. It was wartime that in his eyes made systematic killing possible; first of the handicapped and then of the Jews. The talk then reviews the plans for dividing the world between Germany and Japan after victory in World War II and the implications of a division of the United States between the two with Washington going to Japan and the other 47 to Germany.
This event is co-sponsored by the UW Department of History.

Dr. Gerhard Weinberg is a leading world scholar on the topics of Nazi Germany, WWII, foreign policy, and the Holocaust. He was born in Nazi Germany into a family of German Jews, he and his family escaped to London. Later, Dr. Weinberg joined the U.S Military. He earned his Ph.D. in 1951 at the University of Chicago. He worked on Columbia University’s War Documentation Project, and established the program for microfilming the captured German documents. Professor Weinberg has, over the course of his long career, taught at Universities of Chicago, Kentucky, Michigan, and North Carolina-Chapel Hill. He has chaired several professional organizations and served on and chaired several U.S. government advisory committees. Now retired, he has authored or edited eleven books and over 100 chapters, articles, guides to archives and other publications.
A light kosher lunch will be served.

SJFF Short Film Highlight: In the Footsteps of Regina Jonas
2016-04-10 15:30 - 17:30 | Stroum Jewish Community Center, 3801 East Mercer Way, Mercer Island, WA, 98040, United States
Who was the first woman rabbi and why don’t we know about her? Most American Jews believe that women in the rabbinate is an American phenomenon that arose out of the feminist movement of the 1970s. So it is surprising to discover that the first woman rabbi, Regina Jonas, was ordained in Berlin in 1935 and served German Jewry as they faced the agonies of Hitler’s murderous regime in Germany and then in the Theresienstadt concentration camp. The film explores that question through a trip to Berlin and Terezin undertaken by America’s pioneering rabbis to recover their fore-mother and to discover both who she was and why she matters to us.
Tickets for this short film are available through the Seattle Jewish Film Festival. This short will be screened immediately before the showing of Raise the Roof.

Jewish Refugees and Their Lives in Shanghai
2016-04-11 09:00 - 11:00 | Hillel UW, 4745 17th Ave NE, Seattle, WA, 98105, US
Prof. Xu will speak about the arrival of Jewish refugees from Central Europe during the Holocaust to Shanghai, their lives during War time in Shanghai and what caused them to leave when the war ended.
Registration for this event is available through the Confucius Institute.
This event is offered as part of the The Jewish Refugees in Shanghai Exhibition (1933-1941), which brings together for the first time photos, personal stories, and artifacts from Shanghai Jewish Refugee Museum. The exhibition will run at Hillel at UW from April 6 through April 30, 2016. It is free and open to the public Monday to Friday, 9:00 AM – 4:00 PM.

XU XIN is a professor at Nanjing University and China’s leading Judaic scholar, as well as the founder and director of the Diane and Guilford Glazer Institute for Jewish and Israel Studies at Nanjing University, China. Prof. Xu is the President of the China Judaic Studies Association, Vice President of the China Mid-East Studies Association, and Editor-in-Chief and a major contributor of the Chinese edition Encyclopedia Judaica (Shanghai: The Shanghai People’s Publishing House, 1993).

Prof. Xu is the first Chinese scholar who introduced Modern Hebrew literature to Chinese readers and has introduced over 50 Israeli poets and writers to Chinese public readers. He was a guest speaker at Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1988 and at Tel Aviv University (1993 and 1998). In 1995, he served as a Fellow at Hebrew Union College—Jewish Institute of Religion. In 1996 and 1998, he served as a visiting scholar at the Center for Jewish Studies of Harvard University.

Prof. Xu has given over 600 public lectures in the world since 1995 and his activities have been widely reported by newspapers such as Chicago Tribune, Jerusalem Post, New York Times, Harvard University Gazette, The Jerusalem Report, The Jewish Week, Forward and etc.

Links for Further Exploration

Profile of Prof. Xu from Tablet Magazine

Lecture by Daniel Newman, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum--CANCELLED
2016-04-13 19:00 - 20:30 | Kane Hall 110, 4069 Spokane Lane, Seattle, WA, 98195, United States
EVENT UPDATE – Dr. Newman has had to cancel his visit to Seattle. The Ellison Center is working on rescheduling this lecture for another time.
An Overview of the Holocaust in the Soviet Union
This talk discusses the experiences of Holocaust victims who lived inside the borders of the Soviet Union at the beginning of the German invasion on June 22, 1941, through the Red Army’s victory, and to the divisiveness over the post-war memory of the events of the Holocaust in the former Soviet Union. The scope of this subject is expansive in terms of the physical territory covered, the destruction of human life wrought by a variety of perpetrators, and the political factors affecting the remembrance of the Holocaust. Though exact figures will likely never be determined, leading historians currently believe that between 1.5 and close to 3 million Soviet Jews lost their lives during the occupation. Regrettably, the memory of their destruction has proven a contentious issue throughout the Soviet period and to the present day, with various political considerations and (some would argue) anti-Semitic agendas relegating the story of the Jews during the Holocaust as a byline at best, and completely absent from the historical record at worst. Today’s talk will provide an overview of the Holocaust in the Soviet Union and explain why it is so important that we understand and continue to study this horrific tragedy both in the context of Holocaust history and in assessing the state of international politics and conflict in the contemporary space of the former Soviet Union.
For more information about this event, please check out the Ellison Center for Russian, East European and Central Asian Studies.

Daniel Newman is the Program Manager of the Initiative for the Study of the Holocaust in the Soviet Union at the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. He holds a PhD in modern European history from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he completed a dissertation entitled “Criminal Strategies and Institutional Concerns in the Soviet Legal System: An Analysis of Criminal Appeals in Moscow Province, 1921-1928.” His research interests include Russian and Soviet history, comparative legal history, and the history of the Holocaust in the Soviet Union. He has presented his work at international scholarly conferences hosted by the Department of State, the Kennan Institute, the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, the German Historical Institute, and the Franco-Russian Center for Research in Human and Social Sciences. His most recent work was published in The Soviet and Post-Soviet Review. He has received a Fulbright-Hays Fellowship and a Hans Rogger Fellowship in Russian history, has translated children’s stories from Russian to English for publication, and has taught at Loyola Marymount University.

Islam, Indonesia, Israel: Indonesian Perceptions of the Middle East and Middle Eastern Perceptions of Indonesia
2016-04-25 17:30 - 20:00 | UW Club – Yukon Pacific Room, 4020 E Stevens Way, Seattle, 98195, United States
The Southeast Asia Center, the Stroum Center for Jewish Studies, and the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies invite you to a dialogue between Professors Muhamad Ali and Giora Eliraz about Indonesian perceptions of the Middle East and Middle Eastern perceptions of Indonesia. Southeast Asia Center Director Laurie J. Sears will moderate.

Light dinner reception begins at 5:30pm. Main event begins at 6:30pm.

Muhamad Ali is an Indonesian scholar of Islam. He is currently an associate professor of Islamic Studies in the Religious Studies Department and is a faculty member of the Southeast Asia: Text, Ritual, and Performance Program at the University of California, Riverside. Dr. Ali has published books, essays, and chapters on topics related to Islam, including violence and peace, gender, interfaith dialog and global education, Indonesian Muslims’ perceptions of Judaism and Jews, Indonesian Islamic liberal movements, and a modern history of Southeast Asia. His recent book is Islam and Colonialism: Becoming Modern in Indonesia and Malaya (Edinburgh University Press, 2015). His two earlier books, Multicultural-Pluralist Theology (2003) and Bridging Islam and the West: An Indonesian View (2009), were published in Indonesia. His current projects are concerning religious freedom and pluralism in modern Indonesia; Indonesian Islam; and the expressions of adab in Indonesia and Malaysia.

Dr. Giora Eliraz is a Research Associate at the Harry S. Truman Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is the author of two publications about Islam in Indonesia: Islam in Indonesia: Modernism, Radicalism and the Middle East Dimension and Islam and Polity in Indonesia: An Intriguing Case Study. Dr. Eliraz holds several other research positions, including as Affiliated Fellow at the KITLV/Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies in Leiden, a Member of a research group at the Minerva Humanities Center at Tel Aviv University, a Research Fellow at the Institute for Counter-Terrorism at the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) in Herzliya, and as a Visiting Writer at the Forum for Regional Thought. In 2002, Dr. Eliraz ended about 30 years of service in the IDF and in the Office of the Prime Minister.

This event is sponsored by Southeast Asia Center, Stroum Center for Jewish Studies, and Jackson School of International Studies

STUDENT EVENT: Jewish Studies Student Advisory Committee
2016-05-03 18:00 - 19:00 | 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.
Dinner is provided! RSVPs appreciated so we can order the right amount of food. Please RSVP to Lauren Kurland at lkurland@uw.edu.

STUDENT EVENT: Feasting with Faculty - Prof. Richard Block
2016-05-05 18:00 - 20:00 | Shalimar Restaurant, 4214 University Way Northeast, Seattle, WA, 98105, United States
Join Professor Richard Block, Associate Professor of Germanics and Jewish Studies faculty member, for conversation over a free vegetarian dinner at Shalimar on the Ave. Next autumn, Professor Block will be teaching a course on Popular Film and the Holocaust.
At Feasting with Faculty events, students have an opportunity to meet with members of Jewish Studies faculty to get to know them informally. Often the featured faculty member is teaching a course during the upcoming quarter, so it also allows students to experience a faculty member’s style and learn more about the course. Feasting is also a great opportunity for faculty members to get to know students, and for students from diverse backgrounds and disciplines to get to know one another!
Each Feasting with Faculty event is fun and different, depending on the personality of the faculty member and the students who are involved. You are invited to any and all!
Open to undergraduate and graduate students only.
No cost but reservations required. This event is limited to 15 students.

Graduate Fellows Spring Research Symposium
2016-05-06 09:30 - 11:30 | Intellectual House, 4249 Whitman Court, Seattle, WA, 98195, United States
The UW Stroum Center for Jewish Studies will host its annual Spring Research Symposium on Friday, May 6. We are proud to highlight research by the seven members of the 2015-16 Jewish Studies Graduate Fellowship. Each fellow has received funding and mentorship from the Stroum Center to help further their masters- and doctoral-level projects related to Jewish Studies.
This year, we are debuting a new, interactive format for our symposium, modeled on the poster session at academic conferences. Fellows will be stationed around the room with materials related to their research projects. The audience is invited to circulate among these stations, hear about the fellows’ exciting projects, and ask the students questions directly. We look forward to an engaging and interactive forum for sharing and connecting!
Paid parking for this event is accessible at the North Gatehouse entrance at NE 45th Street and 17th Avenue NE. The closest parking lot to the Intellectual House are at the Padelford Parking Garage (N-18, N-20, and N-21). Gatehouse attendants will be able to provide you with directions and a campus map if you’re unsure of where to go.
A light kosher breakfast will be served.
Here is this year’s slate of topics:
Canan Bolel, Richard M. Willner Memorial Scholar:
Mapping Jewish Childhood in Seattle, 1900-1950
Rachel Graf, Philip Bernstein Memorial Scholar:
Comics and Narratological Perspective: (Witnessing) Bias in Direct Experience
Berkay Gulen, Samuel and Althea Stroum Fellow:
Turkey’s Israel Policy After 2002
Oded Oron, Deborah and Doug Rosen Fellow:
Let My People Stay: Seeking Asylum in the Jewish State
Sasha Prevost, I. Mervin and Georgiana Gorasht Fellow:
From Hebrew Atheist to Sufi Martyr: Sarmad Kashani, the “Jewish Saint of India”
Katja Schatte, Rabbi Arthur A. Jacobovitz Fellow:
“Don’t We All Have a Responsibility in This World?”: Jewish Women’s Lives and Identities in East Berlin, 1945-1990
Emily Thompson, Mickey Sreebny Memorial Scholar:
“Readily Known and Accessible”: First Steps Toward a Seattle Jewish Library Catalog
We thank our community supporters for their generosity in establishing these fellowships and contributing to the vibrant intellectual community at the Stroum Center!

Links for Further Exploration

Click here to find out more about this year’s class of Jewish Studies Graduate Fellows, including blog posts related to their projects.
Interested in applying for the 2016-17 Graduate Fellowship? Click here! Applications are due April 1st.

RSVP below to reserve your spot. Last year’s symposium was completely sold out!

Stroum Lecture Night 1: Dara Horn on "Living in Hebrew"
2016-05-23 19:00 - 21:00 | Kane Hall 220, 4069 Spokane Ln, Seattle, WA, 98195, US
Dara Horn, a scholar of Hebrew and Yiddish literatures, is the author of several well-received novels. Photo credit: MichaelPriest
Living in Hebrew
The American Jewish community is always worried about authenticity, and much of this anxiety comes from the lack of a Jewish language. But an American Jewish language does exist, even if beneath the surface. In this talk, novelist and literary scholar Dara Horn explores the role Hebrew can play in a living contemporary American Jewish culture, as she has experienced it as a reader and as an American writer.
Dr. Dara Horn received her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Harvard University, focusing on Hebrew and Yiddish. She held the Gerald Weinstock Visiting Professorship in Jewish Studies at Harvard and has lectured at over two hundred universities and cultural institutions throughout North America, Israel, and Australia.
Chosen by Granta magazine as one of the best young novelists in America, Dara Horn has won several literary prizes, including the National Jewish Book Award (for In the Image in 2003 and The World to Come in 2006) and New York Times Editors’ Choice (for The World to Come and All Other Nights). Her most recent novel, A Guide for the Perplexed, was published by W.W. Norton in September 2013, and was selected as one of Booklist‘s Best Books of 2013 and was longlisted for the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction. Horn is also the author of a best-selling non-fiction Amazon Kindle Single, “The Rescuer,” which follows the peculiar life and legacy of an American Oskar Schindler named Varian Fry.
This talk is free and open to the public. A kosher reception will follow in the Walker Ames Room.
Click here to find out about Stroum Lectures Night 2–Prof. Ilan Stavans on “Dying in Hebrew.”
Learn more about events at the Hebrew and the Humanities Symposium on the Symposium webpage.

Links for Further Exploration

Hebrew and the Humanities: Present Tense Symposium
Dara Horn’s website
Dara Horn’s ELI Talk: “The Eicha Problem: What Jews Really Believe about Anti-Semitism” (2013)
Stroum Lectures Archive

Hebrew and the Humanities Symposium
2016-05-24 09:00 - 17:00 | Petersen Room, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, 98195, United States
Visit the “Hebrew and the Humanities: Present Tense” homepage for the full symposium schedule, speaker bios, blog posts, and more.

You can reserve your free ticket here for an audience seat at the full day of symposium sessions; please note that conference meals will not be provided to symposium audience members.
The Stroum Center thanks the Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities and Dr. Elie Levy for generous grants supporting this event. We also thank the following cosponsors for their support: Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilization at UW and the Department of Comparative Literature, Cinema & Media at UW.

Links for Further Exploration

View the official “Hebrew and the Humanities: Present Tense” homepage.
Register for Stroum Lecture Night 1 (Dara Horn) and Stroum Lecture Night 2 (Ilan Stavans).
Visit Modern Hebrew at UW for information about UW coursework and travel abroad opportunities to explore Hebrew and Israeli culture.

Stroum Lecture Night 2: Ilan Stavans on "Dying in Hebrew"
2016-05-24 19:00 - 21:00 | Kane Hall 220, 4069 Spokane Ln, Seattle, WA, 98195, US
Hebrew is lashon ha’kodesh and lashon b’nei adam, a divine language, the way for man to communicate with G-d, and, as such, an eternal language defying the passing of time; and a human language, earthly, clumsy, vulgar, imperfect, and prone to decay. These opposing sides make Hebrew unique, that is, the Jewish language par excellence and the route through which Jews negotiate the passage from life to death.
An essayist, cultural critic, and translator, Professor Stavans is Lewis-Sebring Professor in Latin American and Latino Culture and Five College-Fortieth Anniversary Professor at Amherst College. A native of Mexico, he received his Doctorate in Latin American Literature from Columbia University.
Prof. Stavans’ books include The Hispanic Condition (1995), On Borrowed Words (2001), Spanglish (2003), Love and Language (2007), and Gabriel García Márquez: The Early Years (2010). His book Resurrecting Hebrew, published in Schocken’s Jewish Encounters series in 2008, is a personal memoir alongside a history of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda and the remarkable revival of Hebrew in the early 20th century. Recently, Stavans translated Pablo Neruda’s All the Odes (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2013), and authored Return to Centro Histórico: A Mexican Jew Looks for His Roots (Rutgers, 2012), the graphic novel El Iluminado (Basic, 2012, with Steve Sheinkin), and the children’s book Golemito (New South).
Click here to find out out Stroum Lectures Night 1–Dr. Dara Horn on “Living in Hebrew.”
Learn more about events at the Hebrew and the Humanities Symposium on the Symposium webpage.
Links for Further Exploration

Hebrew and the Humanities: Present Tense Symposium
Ilan Stavans’ webpage with media links
The Beauty of the Hebrew Language – video interview with Hadar Khazzam-Horovitz, 2014
Stroum Lectures Archive

Impressions of Israel with Prof. Joel Migdal
2016-07-26 17:30 - 19:00 | Washington State Jewish Historical Society Gallery, 100 W Harrison Street, Seattle, WA, 98109, United States
Join the Washington State Jewish Historical Society for the next History Happy Hour on July 26th in the WSJHS exhibit gallery. Jewish Studies faculty member, Professor Joel Migdal, will speak about his impressions from living in Israel over the past year. Refreshments will be provided.

$5 for members, $10 for non-members
RSVP required for admittance. Tickets can be purchased at WSJHS website: wsjhsorg.presencehost.net/historyhappyhour/page.html

About the speaker:
Joel S. Migdal is the Robert F. Philip Professor of International Studies in the Jackson School of International Studies. He was the founding chair of the School’s International Studies Program. Dr. Migdal was formerly associate professor of Government at Harvard University and senior lecturer at Tel-Aviv University. His books include Peasants, Politics, and Revolution; Palestinian Society and Politics; Strong Societies and Weak States; State in Society; Through the Lens of Israel; The Palestinian People: A History (with Baruch Kimmerling); and, most recently, Shifting Sands: The United States in the Middle East. He received the UW’s Distinguished Teaching Award and Graduate Mentor Award, as well as the Governor’s Writers Award. He is also a board member of the Washington State Jewish Historical Society

Women of the Book Exhibit
2016-09-22 - 2016-10-01 | Stroum Jewish Community Center, 3801 East Mercer Way, Mercer Island, WA, 98040, United States
A collection of 54 limited edition artworks, each representing one of the 54 weekly Torah portions and completed by a different female artist from around the world.
Women of the Book, founded by Social Practice artist, Shoshana Gugenheim, is an international collaboration of 54 Jewish women artists. The selected artworks, created on parchment – one for each Torah portion – acknowledge the emergence of Jewish women artists as visionaries and creative interpreters of text. The exhibition will be open to the public and on display at the Stroum Jewish Community Center from September 22, 2016 through September 30, 2016.
Join the JCC for a celebration and reception on the opening night of the exhibit, 6:30 pm on Thursday, Sept. 22! Associate curator Judith Margolis will lead a tour of the exhibit. Details and RSVP here.
On Thursday Sept. 29th, Prof. Mika Ahuvia will give a special lecture as part of this exhibit. Find out more here.
A partnership of the Stroum Jewish Community Center and UW Stroum Center for Jewish Studies.

Links for Further Exploration

Women of the Book Project
About the Founder, Shoshana Gugenheim
Stroum Jewish Community Center

STUDENTS: Talking International Studies -- Food, Music & Your Future
2016-09-27 12:00 - 13:30 | HUB 340, University of Washington HUB, Seattle, WA, 98195, US
Jewish Studies is one of SEVEN majors available at the Jackson School of International Studies.
A degree in International Studies can take you anywhere. Just ask Jackson School students!
They’ll be here – along with Jackson School advisers, Resource Centers, and Career Services staff.
Find out about classes, internships, study abroad, and connect with fabulous alumni who have taken their international studies degrees to all corners of the world.
Oh, and this too: We’ll have globally-minded refreshments, music, and salsa dancing! Join us for a fun and informative time.

Drawing on the Past: Biblical Women in History, Memory, and Ritual Life
2016-09-29 19:30 - 20:30 | Stroum Jewish Community Center, 3801 East Mercer Way, Mercer Island, WA, 98040, United States
As part of the Women of the Book art exhibition at the Stroum Jewish Community Center, Professor Mika Ahuvia will give a lecture about the women of the Bible and their impact on Jewish life.
To register for this event, please fill out this online form for the Stroum Jewish Community Center. To learn more about the lecture or the Women of the Book art exhibit, visit the Stroum Jewish Community Center Women of the Book webpage or contact the Stroum Jewish Community Center staff.

Prof. Mika Ahuvia is Marsha and Jay Glazer Endowed Chair in Jewish Studies and Assistant Professor, Jackson School of International Studies. She researches the formative history of Jewish and Christian communities in the ancient Mediterranean world. Specializing in Late Antique Jewish history, she works with Rabbinic sources, liturgical poetry, magical texts, early mystical literature, and archaeological evidence. Her dissertation was on angels in Jewish texts from the fourth to eighth century CE.

Links for Further Exploration

Register for the lecture
Women of the Book Project
Learn more about the Founder of Women of th Book, Shoshana Gugenheim
Stroum Jewish Community Center

LSJ Lox and Learn: Jewish Bioethics
2016-10-05 12:30 - 13:20 | Gates Hall (UW School of Law)
LSJ students are invited to speak with Hadar Khazzam-Horovitz about Jewish Bioethics.
This lecture will explore Jewish-religious perspectives on contemporary biomedical issues. It will focus on some of the key differences between secular and Jewish approaches in interpretation and application of medical ethics. The topics to be discussed include: doctor-patient relationship; euthanasia; and stem cell research. The goal is to promote important discussion of alternative perspectives to ethical evaluations and practices.

The Holocaust in the Soviet Union
2016-10-13 19:00 - 20:00 | Kane Hall 110, 4069 Spokane Lane, Seattle, WA, 98195, United States
Dr. Daniel Newman will discuss the experiences of Holocaust victims in the Soviet Union as well as the divisiveness of the memory of the Holocaust in the postwar USSR. Additionally, he will address the political factors affecting the remembrance of the Holocaust and argue that it is essential to study this horrific tragedy both in the context of Holocaust history and also in the context of politics and conflict in the former USSR. Remembrance of the millions of Jews murdered in the Holocaust proved to be a contentious issue throughout the Soviet period and regrettably remains so today, with certain political considerations and even possibly anti-Semitic agendas relegating the story of the Jews during the Holocaust to a historical byline at best that is completely absent from the historical record at worst.
This event is free and open to the public. No RSVP is necessary.

About the Speaker
Dr. Daniel Newman is the Program Manager of the Initiative for the Study of the Holocaust in the Soviet Union at the the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies. He holds a PhD in modern European history from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

Immigration, Religion & Human Rights Panel
2016-10-27 19:00 - 21:00 | HUB 332, Husky Union Building, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, 98195, United States
Should our country discriminate among potential immigrants on the basis of religion? Our policy has been not to do so. But there have been recent calls by prominent politicians to change that practice. Our panelists will discuss this and related questions from philosophical, sociological, and historical perspectives.
Moderator:
Michael Rosenthal, Professor of Philosophy and Samuel and Althea Stroum Chair in Jewish Studies, UW Seattle
Participants:
Michael Blake, Professor of Philosophy, Public Policy, and Governance, Department of Philosophy and Daniel J. Evans School of Public Policy and Governance, UW Seattle
Sarah Eltantawi, Assistant Professor of Comparative Religion and Islamic Studies, Evergreen State College
Kathie Friedman, Associate Professor, Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, UW Seattle
Thomas Schmidt, Professor of Philosophy of Religion, Department of Catholic Theology, Goethe University, Frankfurt, Germany
This panel is part of a conference, “Immigration, Toleration, and Human Rights,” which will take place on October 27-28th. Please see the Simpson Center website for more details: https://simpsoncenter.org/projects/immigration-toleration-and-human-rights.
Sponsors: The conference and related events are co-sponsored by the UW Tri-Campus Research Cluster on Human Interactions and Normative Innovation (HI-NORM), the Global Innovation Fund of the UW Office of Global Affairs, the Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities, the School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences at UW-Tacoma, the Department of Philosophy, the Program on Values in Society, the Stroum Center for Jewish Studies, the Friends of Philosophy, the UW Center for Human Rights, the MERCUR Research Project: Ethics of Immigration at the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities in Essen, and the Cluster of Excellence: The Formation of Normative Orders at the Goethe University, Frankfurt, Germany.

Jewish Salonica Book Launch with Prof. Devin Naar
2016-11-03 19:00 - 20:30 | UW Tower Auditorium, 4333 Brooklyn Ave NE, Seattle, WA, 98105, United States
Note: This event is sold out and no more tickets are available. A waitlist will be available at the event on a first-come, first-served basis. Thank you for your understanding.
A video of Prof. Naar’s lecture will be available by the end of Autumn Quarter. He will also be among the featured speakers at International Ladino Day on Nov. 30th. More info and registration are available here.

The city of Salonica (Thessaloniki) was once home to the largest Sephardic Jewish community in the world. In this lecture, Prof. Naar will explore the fate of Salonica’s Jews and offer behind-the-scenes insight into how he uncovered the previously lost sources necessary to tell the story. Join the Stroum Center and the Sephardic Studies Program for this exciting book launch event.
Light kosher reception to follow lecture.
This event is co-sponsored by the University of Washington’s Department of History, the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, and the Center for West European Studies.
Devin Naar at Ladino Day 2015
Devin E. Naar is the Isaac Alhadeff Professor of Sephardic Studies and Associate Professor of History and Jewish Studies at the University of Washington.
Parking & Transportation to the UW Tower
The W-46 parking garage is attached to the UW Tower via a skybridge located on the 3rd floor of the garage. Vehicles may enter on 12th Ave NE and NE 43rd Street. The garage and skybridge entrance normally close at 6pm, but the Stroum Center has arranged to hire a guard for the entrance so that our guests may enter until 7:30pm. This should give everyone plenty of time to park and get to the book launch.
Visitors should be sure to park only in numbered spaces and use machines on the 1st or 3rd floor to prepay. The cost is $3 per hour.
For more information including details on ADA accessibility and public transit, see the UW Tower’s “Getting Here” page: https://www.washington.edu/facilities/uwtower/getting-here.

Links for Further Exploration

Learn more about Prof. Naar’s book Jewish Salonica: Between the Ottoman Empire and Modern Greece
Explore the UW Sephardic Studies program
Visit the Sephardic Studies Collection at the UW Libraries Digital Collections

Screening of "Ha'Ivrim" ("The Writers") and Discussion with Professor Sokoloff
2016-11-09 11:45 - 13:15 | HUB 145, UW Campus, 4001 E Stevens Way NE, Seattle, WA, 98195, United States
Access Students and community members are invited to join Professor Naomi Sokoloff for a screening of an episode from the Israeli television series Ha’Ivrim (“The Writers”) about Israel’s national poet, Hayim Nahman Bialik. Professor Sokoloff will lead a discussion after the screening.
Please bring your own lunch; the Stroum Center will provide tea, coffee and cookies.
The film is in Hebrew with English subtitles.
No cost.
Registration is limited to 40.

Tomasz Łysak: Classic Documentary Films About Auschwitz-Birkenau
2016-11-15 19:00 - 20:00 | Kane Hall 110, 4069 Spokane Lane, Seattle, WA, 98195, United States
After WWII there was a significant shift in the visual principles of rendering the operations of Auschwitz-Birkenau, its history, and its moral significance. Soviet and Polish filmmakers established the cinematographic conventions of Holocaust documentaries, which contributed to the conceptualization of concentration camps and industrial genocide as modernist events. The films in question span the period between the liberation of Auschwitz and the 1960s, and include liberation footage recorded by the Red Army and the Polish Film Chronicle, Alain Resnais’s Night and Fog (1955), Andrzej Brzozowski’s Archeology (1967), and Tadeusz Jaworski’s I was a Kapo (1963). This selection sheds light on the aesthetic choices of film genres like newsreel, post-traumatic film, scientific film, and first person testimony.

Join former Polish Fulbright Scholar Tomasz Łysak as he discusses his new book Od kroniki do filmu posttraumatycznego – filmy dokumentalne o Zagładzie. The book explores a comparative perspective on Holocaust cinema, placing Polish productions in the context of the larger international phenomenon of this genre.

This event is free and open to the public. No registration is required.

Organized by UW Polish Studies, co-sponsored by the Stroum Center for Jewish Studies.

About the Speaker:
Tomasz Łysak, University of Warsaw, received his PhD in Philosophy from the Polish Academy of Sciences. His work focuses on representations of the Holocaust in relation to trauma studies and psychoanalysis. He has held fellowships at the University of Washington, Seattle, the University of Edinburgh, and the University of Chicago.

About the Book:
Documentary materials shot during the war by Nazi cameramen came to define the audiovisual memory of Polish Jews in the ghettoes and Auschwitz-Birkenau liberation footage became a powerful symbol of the Holocaust. Polish documentary filmmakers had relied on these materials in order to present various aspects of the genocide, Nazi atrocities, and the fate of Jews under the occupation. Subsequently, quoting of archival footage lost its appeal and other modes of documentary film-making prevail: cinematic memory work (in response to Alain Resnais’s Night and Fog), audiovisual testimony, documentaries of return etc. The book traces these developments and adopts a comparative perspective showing Polish productions in the context of a larger international phenomenon of Holocaust cinema. The argument combines insights from psychoanalytical trauma theory, generic criticism, memory studies, and political aesthetics.

STUDENTS: Funny Jews--From Seinfeld to Broad City, An Evening of Comedy with Prof. Pianko
2016-11-16 17:30 - 19:00 | Hillel UW, 4745 17th Ave NE, Seattle, WA, 98105, US
Broad City Girls. Seinfeld. Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Watch clips from some of these classic shows and chat afterward with Prof Noam Pianko about what makes these shows so darned funny.
Light refreshments will be served.
Co-sponsored by Hillel UW.
Open to all UW undergraduate and graduate students.
RSVP is required.

"Oriental Neighbors" Discussion with Prof. Moshe Naor
2016-11-29 12:30 - 13:30 | Thomson 317, UW Campus, 2023 Skagit Lane, Seattle, WA, 98195, United States
Oriental Neighbors: Middle Eastern Jews and Arabs in Mandatory Palestine
Focusing on Oriental Jews and their relations with their Arab neighbors in Mandatory Palestine, this book analyzes the meaning of the hybrid Arab-Jewish identity that existed among Oriental Jews, and discusses their unique role as political, social, and cultural mediators between Jews and Arabs. Integrating Mandatory Palestine and its inhabitants into the contemporary Semitic-Levantine surroundings, Oriental Neighbors illuminates broad areas of cooperation and coexistence, which coincided with conflict and friction, between Oriental and Sephardi Jews and their Arab neighbors. The book brings the Oriental Jewish community to the fore, examines its role in the Zionist nation-building process, and studies its diverse and complex links with the Arab community in Palestine.
Co-sponsored by the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilization, UW Middle East Center*, and Stroum Center for Jewish Studies.
Kosher lunch will be provided. Note that registration is required to attend this event.

*The Middle East Center’s sponsorship of this of this event does not imply that the Center endorses the content of the event.

4th Annual International Ladino Day
2016-11-30 19:30 - 21:00 | Kane Hall 120, 4069 Spokane Ln, Seattle, WA, 98195, US
The Stroum Center for Jewish Studies and the Sephardic Studies Program present
International Ladino Day
Support made possible by the Lucie Benveniste Kavesh Endowed Fund for Sephardic Studies
Additional support provided by Sephardic Bikur Holim, Congregation Ezra Bessaroth, the Seattle Sephardic Network, the Seattle Sephardic Brotherhood, and the Sephardic Studies Program Founders Circle
In 1978, the acclaimed film Song of the Sephardi by David Raphael premiered in Seattle. The director decided to set the film—and premiere it—in Seattle because he wanted to capture the dynamic Sephardic culture, religion, and the Ladino language in all of its richness, and recognized Seattle as one of the best places to do so. Nearly forty years later, in honor of the Fourth International Ladino Day, we will revisit the film, reflect on the snapshot of Sephardic culture it captured, and follow the protagonists and the families featured in the film: Where are they now? And what is the present status of Sephardic culture and community in Seattle? Are there more verses to the Song of the Sephardi yet to be composed?
After a brief screening of excerpts from Song of the Sephardi, Prof. Devin E. Naar will moderate a panel of Seattle community members to discuss the past, present, and future of Ladino. The panel participants include: Judith Amiel, Hazzan Isaac (Ike) Azose, David Behar, and Makena Owens.

Enjoy video highlights from our previous 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
