Month: March 2015

Holocaust Convocation on April 16, 2015 in Class of ’47 Room at 3:30pm

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Berel

Holocaust Convocation and Fierberg Lecture

Professor of Jewish Studies, Berel Lang, Presenting “Raphael Lemkin: Unsung Hero of the Holocaust”

The Center for Judaic Studies & Contemporary Jewish Life and the Doris and Simon Konover Chair of Judaic Studies at the University of Connecticut will be sponsoring the 28th Academic Convocation on the Holocaust and the Fierberg Lecture Series, free and open to the public, on Thursday, April 16, 2015 at 3:30 PM, in the Class of ’47 Room, Library Building.

The speaker will be Berel Lang, who has held appointments at Wesleyan University and Hebrew University, among numerous other appointments. He is the author or editor of 21 books, including Act and Idea in the Nazi Genocide, Writing and the Holocaust, The Death of Art, Philosophy and the Art of Writing, and Philosophical Witnessing: The Presence of the Holocaust.

Berel Lang’s lecture topic will be “Raphael Lemkin: Unsung Hero of the Holocaust.” The lecture will be preceded by student awards; a reception will immediately follow.

The lecture is supported by the Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary Jewish Life, the Human Rights Institute, the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, UConn Hillel, and the Doris and Simon Konover Chair of Judaic Studies at the University of Connecticut.

Please RSVP to judaicstudies@uconn.edu. For more information, please contact the Center for Judaic Studies by calling 860-486-2271.

 

Maimonidean Controversies in Egypt – Faculty Colloquium featuring Elisha Russ-Fishbane on March 30, 2015 at 1:15pm

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Moses Maimonides monument, CordobaElisha-pic-smallMARCH 30, 2015, 1:15pm Class of ’47 Room – Library

Faculty Colloquium

“Maimonidean Controversies in Egypt”

Elisha Russ-Fishbane is a historian of Jewish life and culture in the Islamic world, specializing in the religious and intellectual intersections of medieval Judaism and Islam. Elisha’s book on the Jewish-Sufi movement of thirteenth-century Egypt, entitled Judaism, Sufism, and the Pietists of Medieval Egypt: A Study of Abraham Maimonides and His Circle, will be published by Oxford University Press in July, 2015. His current work explores the image of non-Muslims in Sufi thought and literature and on the legacy of Maimonidean philosophy in the Jewish communities of the Near East and Western Europe.

Event is open to all faculty, staff, and students interested in learning more about Elisha’s research.  Please RSVP if you wish to attend.  Beverages and snacks will be served.

“Connected Histories: Sephardic and Ashkenazi Responses to Blood Libels in Pre-modern Europe” – Magda Teter, 4/15/15 at 12:30pm

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MAGDA TETER

Professor of History, Jeremy Zwelling Professor of Jewish Studies

Wesleyan University

Please join us on Wednesday, April 15, 2015 at 12:30pm in Dodd 162 for our next Faculty Colloquium.  Magda Teter, Professor of History and the Jeremy Zwelling Professor of Jewish Studies from Wesleyan University will be presenting “Connected Histories: Sephardic and Ashkenazi Responses to Blood Libels in Pre-modern Europe.”.

Magda Teter is scholar of Jewish history, eastern European history, and of early modern religious and cultural history, with a specialty in Jewish-Christian relations.

 

What is Zionism’s Role in North American Jewish Life Today – A Public Dialogue – April 23, 2015 at 7pm

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Did you miss this great event?  Watch the recording of it here.

“What is Zionism’s Role in North American Jewish Life Today?”
A Public Dialogue

Featuring
Rabbi Deborah Waxman, President of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College
and
Susan Herbst, President of the University of Connecticut

April 23, 2015
7:00-8:30 pm
Dodd Center Konover Auditorium

On April 23, 2015, the State of Israel will be marking the 67th anniversary of its establishment. The anniversary comes at a particularly complex and challenging moment in the history of Israel and in the evolving history of the relationship between Jews living in Israel and in the Diaspora. At this pivotal time, and in the immediate aftermath of an especially fraught Israeli national election that has placed news strains on US-Israel relations, we invite you to join us in a conversation between UConn President Susan Herbst and the President of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, Rabbi Deborah Waxman. Rabbi Waxman and President Herbst will discuss some of the most pressing challenges facing the contemporary American Jewish community: post-Zionism and anti-Zionism within the Jewish community; the importance for American Jewish communities to articulate visions for themselves that may affirm Zionism but also imagine a vital Jewish life in North America; the meaning of—and possible responses to—the recent resurgence of anti-Semitism; the nature of responsible political, religious, and civil discourse, especially concerning deeply held difference.

About Our Speaker

Rabbi Deborah Waxman is the first woman rabbi to head a Jewish congregational union and lead a Jewish seminary. She graduated cum laude from Columbia College, Columbia University, where she was elected to the Phi Beta Kappa Society. She received rabbinical ordination and a Master of Arts in Hebrew Letters from RRC in 1999. She studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem as both an undergraduate and graduate student, and received a Horace W. Goldsmith Fellowship to support her graduate work. She earned a Ph.D. in American Jewish History from Temple University in May 2010; her dissertation was titled “Faith and Ethnicity in American Judaism: Reconstructionism as Ideology and Institution, 1935–1959.”

The Eternal and Unending Debate: Latkes vs. Hamenta

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The “Latkes vs. Hamentashen” debate, a decade old pseudo-intellectual competition, came to the University of Connecticut for the first time and proved to be a major success, with debaters drawing laughs from both attendees and the colleagues they were debating. The event, organized at UConn by SuBog and UConn Hillel, was first held at the University of Chicago in 1946, and was intended to not only unify Jewish members of the student body and faculty, but also to poke fun at academia by having extremely overqualified participants argue the merits of two popular Jewish foods.

“Israel’s 2015 elections: The country spoke, but what in the world did it say?” – Herb Keinon, 4/13/15 12pm at Hillel

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“Israel’s 2015 elections: The country spoke,
but what in the world did it say?”

With Guest Speaker
Diplomatic Correspondent for the Jerusalem Post
Herb Keinon

Monday, April 13th, 2015| 12-2 p.m.
University of Connecticut
Hillel MPR – 54 N Eagleville Rd Storrs, CT 06268

Herb Keinon, diplomatic correspondent for the Jerusalem Post, has been at the paper
for the last 25 years. He took over the diplomatic beat in August 2000, just after the
failed Camp David summit and just before the outbreak of violence in September of that
year. Keinon is responsible for covering the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister,
often traveling with the Prime Minister on his trips abroad.
This event is free and open to the public.

Lunch included, please RSVP by Wednesday, April 9th.
Please call 860.429.9007 or email: algom@uconnhillel.org or you can register direct here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1-bd4r-0kVMOsd9CLpoo1Art3RN4dCrIlPo0iRrJLwPs/viewform?c=0&w=1

Co-sponsored by the Jewish Federation Association of Connecticut (JFACT). The Jewish Community Relations
Council of the Jewish Federation of Greater Hartford, Primer and the following University of Connecticut
Departments: Hillel, Huskies for Israel, Judaic Studies, Middle East Studies, and the Office of Global Affairs.

 

Alexander von Humboldt Foundation – Anneliese Maier Research Award

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Nominations for the research award can be made for researchers from abroad from the fields of the humanities and social sciences whose scientific achievements have been internationally recognized in their research area and from whose research collaboration with specialist colleagues in Germany a sustainable contribution is expected towards the further internationalization of the humanities and social sciences in Germany.

The nomination deadline expires on April 30, 2015.

 

The Early Evolution of Christian Philanthropy

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The use of religious gifts by the state to promote social order in the Byzantine Era laid the foundation for many modern charitable practices, according to Daniel Caner, associate professor of history and literatures, cultures, and languages. Caner delves into the details of philanthropy in this early Christian society in his latest book project, The Rich and the Pure: Christian Gifts and Religious Society in Early Byzantium. The project recently earned the support of a yearlong fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities – one of only 89 awarded in 2014 – which recognizes individuals pursuing advanced research that is of value to both humanities scholars and general audiences. To read the complete article, click here.

UConn professor brings insight to contemporary Jewish life

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Professor Jeffrey Shoulson, Director of the Center for Judaic Studies at UConn, talked over lunch Wednesday afternoon with an attentive handful of honors students about several aspects of contemporary Jewish life, both in general and at UConn. Shoulson, a professor in the department of Literatures, Cultures and Languages as well as the department of English, came to UConn two-and-a-half years ago from the University of Miami, and saw an “opportunity to do something new and build on some new momentum” with the Judaic Studies program.

With an endowment from developer Simon Konover and an investment from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the Judaic Studies program began to grow as new faculty were hired. The program currently offers a minor in Judaic Studies and is in the process of having a major approved, as faculty members with different specialties continue to devise courses.

Shoulson praised the strength among his colleagues’ expertise with different time periods, pointing out his own specialty in the influence of Judaism and rabbinic literature on 17th-century English culture. He emphasized the fascination that different religions have long had with each other, stating that it is impossible to consider any religion in isolation.

“Judaism is what it is because…it developed within a large array of religious and cultural traditions,” Shoulson said. “They don’t exist in vacuums.” In response to students’ questions, Shoulson spent several minutes connecting contemporary issues faced by the American Jewish community to issues facing the State of Israel. “Nothing is simple when it comes to Israel,” Shoulson said.

Stanley L. Nash, Professor Emeritus, Honors Libraries with Gift of Books on Hebrew and Israeli Literature – Fall 2014

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Professor Nash retired from teaching at Hebrew Union College in 2012, but he will continue to shape the insights of students and researchers, only now here at UConn through the donation of more than 1,000 books from his own collection to Homer Babbidge Library

“It is my hope that more students will specialize in modern Hebrew and reach a level where they can delve into the riches of the modern Hebrew  Renaissance (1880-1920), the Second Aliyah (1904-1913), The Third Aliyah (1919-1930s), The Palmach Generation (1940s and 1950s), and the modern period,” Nash said in commenting on his gift. “There is an intellectual dynamism peculiar to the academic and literary language in the original Hebrew that  simply cannot be translated.”

Read the full article here.