Author: Pamela Weathers

Registration for Sam Kassow | June 30, 2020, 7:00 PM

For last-minute login details, please email pamela.weathers@uconn.edu

Register for additional programs in this series!

June 16 at 4 pm (EST) | Eddy Portnoy, Academic Advisor and Director of Exhibitions at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research | Bad Rabbi: And Other Strange but True Stories from the Yiddish Press [Register]

July 13 at 7 pm  (EST) | Nick Underwood, Assistant Professor of History and Berger-Neilsen Chair of Judaic Studies, The College of Idaho | "The World of Yiddish Theatre in History and Digital" [Register]

July 27 at 7 pm (EST) I Mark Slobin, Winslow-Kaplan Professor of Music Emeritus, Wesleyan University | “The Yiddish Song Today.” Cosponsored by the University of Hartford Greenberg Center [Register]

Questions? Please contact Avinoam Patt at avinoam.patt@uconn.edu

 

Registration for Nick Underwood | July 13, 2020, 7:00 PM

Register for additional programs in this series!

June 16 at 4 pm (EST) | Eddy Portnoy, Academic Advisor and Director of Exhibitions at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research | Bad Rabbi: And Other Strange but True Stories from the Yiddish Press [Register]

June 30 at 7 pm (EST) | Sam Kassow, Charles H. Northam Professor of History at Trinity College | “Yiddish Culture in Wartime 1939-1945.” Cosponsored by Voices of Hope [Register]

July 27 at 7 pm (EST) I Mark Slobin, Winslow-Kaplan Professor of Music Emeritus, Wesleyan University | “The Yiddish Song Today.” Cosponsored by the University of Hartford Greenberg Center [Register]

Questions? Please contact Avinoam Patt at avinoam.patt@uconn.edu

 

Registration for Mark Slobin | July 27, 2020, 7:00 PM

Register for additional programs in this series!

June 16 at 4 pm (EST) | Eddy Portnoy, Academic Advisor and Director of Exhibitions at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research | Bad Rabbi: And Other Strange but True Stories from the Yiddish Press [Register]

June 30 at 7 pm (EST) | Sam Kassow, Charles H. Northam Professor of History at Trinity College | “Yiddish Culture in Wartime 1939-1945.” Cosponsored by Voices of Hope [Register]

July 13 at 7 pm  (EST) | Nick Underwood, Assistant Professor of History and Berger-Neilsen Chair of Judaic Studies, The College of Idaho | "The World of Yiddish Theatre in History and Digital" [Register]

Questions? Please contact Avinoam Patt at avinoam.patt@uconn.edu

 

Statement from Centers, Institutes, and Programs on Racial Injustice and Ending White Supremacy

We, the faculty and staff of the interdisciplinary Centers, Institutes, and Programs, stand together to express our shock, our heartbreak, and our outrage at the horrific and senseless killing of George Floyd and the ongoing violence against Black people.

 

George Floyd, David McAtee, Tony McDade, Ahmaud Arbery, Eric Garner, Breonna Taylor, Kathryn Johnston, Ayiana Stanley-Jones, Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Alton Sterling, Freddie Gray, Philando Castile, Sandra Bland. Too many to list and too many to forget.

 

Each of these names represents a human being, dehumanized, rendered invisible, a Black life cut short by brutality and wanton violence.

 

We cannot look away. We cannot remain indifferent. We cannot be silent.

 

We must expose and confront the deep, pervasive, systemic issues that continue to fuel one tragedy after another. We must work together to bring real change. As academic units and programs of the university founded on principles of social justice and human rights we reaffirm our commitment to educating the next generation of healers and freedom fighters. The vision of change, which this crisis on top of a catastrophic pandemic calls for, is a broad, systemic, and intergenerational strategy. We recognize that broad societal change cannot be legislated alone, but must be cultivated community by community, day by day.  To that end, we reaffirm our commitment to creating communities of accountability; implementing actions that dismantle the status quo of white supremacy; and amplifying the voices and experiences of people of color.

 

As a first step, we encourage you to join us in programs that will bring communities into conversation including tonight’s AACC Town Hall Meeting, presented by The H. Fred Simons African American Cultural Center:

The COVID-19 Pandemic and Racism in the African-American Community

Thursday, June 4, at 6 PM

https://preview.mailerlite.com/k8h6u0/1435486084640281891/n9g0/

 

We also encourage you to read the public statement on anti-black violence from the Africana Studies Institute: https://africana.uconn.edu/public-statement-on-anti-black-violence/

 

We stand together with communities of color across the country as they yet again are subject to pain and suffering at the hands of a racist and unjust system. We support our students, from the African American, Asian American, Puerto Rican and Latin American, Women’s and Rainbow Centers, and Native American Cultural Programs, and all who are struggling to demand recognition of their rights and transformation of the conditions in which they live.  We are not silent. We are not indifferent. We are implicated and, therefore, responsible. We will not stand idly by while the blood of our community members cries from the ground.

 

“Justice is not a natural part of the lifecycle of the United States, nor is it a product of evolution; it is always the outcome of struggle.”

 

― Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, From #BlackLivesMatter To Black Liberation

 

You are not alone. We are with you.

 

In solidarity,

 

African American Cultural Center

Africana Studies Institute

American Studies Program

Asian American Cultural Center

Asian and Asian American Studies Institute

Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary Jewish Life

El Instituto (Institute of Latina/o, Caribbean, and Latin American Studies)

Human Rights Institute

Puerto Rican/Latin American Cultural Center

Rainbow Center

Thomas J. Dodd Research Center

Women’s Center

Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies Program

 

Available for Viewing: “Yom Ha-Shoah Veha-Gevurah: On Jewish Heroism, Martyrdom, and Sacrifice” | April 22, 2020

On April 22, 2020, Professor Avinoam Patt presented "Yom Ha-Shoah Veha-Gevurah: On Jewish Heroism, Martyrdom, and Sacrifice" for the Virtual Adult Education Academy. Dr. Patt is the Doris and Simon Konover Chair of Judaic Studies and Director of the Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary Jewish Life at UConn.

The Virtual Adult Education Academy is presented by Beth David Synagogue, Beth El Temple, Temple Beth Hillel, Congregation Beth Israel, Temple Beth Torah, Congregation B'nai Tikvoh Sholom, The Emanuel Synagogue, Congregation Kol Haverim, Temple Sinai and Young Israel of West Hartford.

The program is now available for viewing at https://youtu.be/zkwQeK_deBI

Available for Viewing: “National Identity and Private Histories: The Fiction and Lives of Aharon Appelfeld and Amos Oz” | Nov. 12, 2019

Professor Emerita of Comparative Literary and Cultural Studies at UConn, Nehama Aschkenasy, delivered a fascinating lecture about the real lives and epic works of fiction produced by two Israeli literary giants, Amos Oz and Aharon Appelfeld, both of whom died in 2018. The program took place on November 12, 2019, at UConn Stamford and was recorded by JBS (Jewish Broadcasting Service). It is now available for viewing.

 

Available for Viewing: “Online Discussion of Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America” | May 13, 2020

Our online discussion held on May 13 of The Plot Against America is now available for viewing! 

Director of the Center for Judaic Studies at UConn, Avinoam Patt, was joined by a panel of four scholars:

Victoria Aarons, Trinity University (Philip Roth scholar)

Susan Herbst, UConn (Political Science and President Emeritus)

Stuart Miller, UConn (Judaic Studies, Newark native)

Aimee Pozorski, CCSU (Editor, Philip Roth Studies)

The program was co-sponsored by ALEPH: The Institute of Jewish Ideas, the Mandell JCC, the Jewish Community Foundation, UConn Center for Judaic Studies, Voices of Hope, and the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Hartford.

Dr. Sarah Willen Receives Award for Best Book in Israel Studies

Sarah S Willen

Congratulations to Associate Professor Sarah Willen whose book Fighting For Dignity: Migrant Lives at Israel’s Margins is the winner of the Association for Israel Studies Yonathan Shapiro Award for Best Book in Israel Studies published in 2019.

From the Association of Israel Studies:

The Association for Israel Studies annually awards the Shapiro Prize for the best book in Israel Studies published during the last calendar year. This award honors the memory of Yonathan Shapiro (1929-1997), one of Israel's most distinguished and influential sociologists. The award pays tribute to outstanding scholarship in the history, politics, society, law, economics, state, and culture of Israel and also the pre-1948 Jewish community in Palestine.

Willen's book provides a first-rate ethnographic account of migrant lives in Israel and the consequences of the Israeli state’s deportation policy that devastated Tel Aviv’s migrant communities and, in the process, violated the migrants’ human rights and human dignity. The book draws on more than twenty years of direct observation and engagement with migrants as well as Israeli activists. It makes a major contribution to the field of Israel Studies by combining scholarship of the highest standard with an argument that is both urgent and essential, reminding us of the importance of tolerance and understanding as fundamental values of the Jewish state and Israeli society.

 

Faculty Book Release | Americans Abroad: A Comparative Study of Emigrants from the United States by Arnold Dashefsky

Arnold DashefskyFounding Center Director Professor Emeritus Arnold Dashefsky has recently published a new edition of Americans Abroad: A Comparative Study of Emigrants from the United States (Springer 2020). The book is co-authored by Karen A. Woodrow-Lafield and includes a new introduction as well as four new chapters with a Foreword by Steven J. Gold and Postscripts provided by David J. Graham and Chaim I. Waxman. Originally published in 1992 by Plenum Press, the first edition of Americans Abroad was co-authored by Arnold Dashefsky, Jan DeAmicis, the late Bernard Lazerwitz (z”l), and Ephraim Tabory. 

About the Book

Dashefsky Americans Abroad 2020Since the publication of Americans Abroad in 1992, the study of emigration has advanced considerably. Since the United States in particular receives such a high volume of immigrants, its emigrant population is less-frequently studied. International migration continues to increase, with now over 200 million people worldwide living as emigrants from their birth country for the purposes of work, family integration, improved living situations, or human rights.

Utilizing the same social psychological approach that made the first edition so successful, the authors examine the motivation, adjustment issues and return migration of American emigrants. The analysis of these comparative experiences reveal core elements of American culture.

Learn more on the publisher's website.