Author: Pamela Weathers
Degrees Offered in Judaic Studies at UConn
Did you know you can earn the Bachelor of Arts, minor, Master of Arts, or PhD in Judaic studies at UConn? Courses in the Judaic studies program are taught by exceptional faculty and cover a broad range of periods, disciplinary approaches, and regions. Graduate students can apply for assistantships that provide full tuition funding and living stipends.
Why pursue Judaic studies? The interdisciplinary field of Judaic studies allows students to become informed on human rights, the humanities, literature, history, and the social sciences from the perspective of the Jewish experience.
Find our fall course offerings at: www.judaicstudies.uconn.edu/students/courses/
UConn Center for Judaic Studies Event Cancellations | Spring 2020
March 12, 2020
Tayere Chaverim (Dear Friends)!
As you likely already know, UConn has suspended all in-person classes from March 23-April 6 (and perhaps beyond). We will begin online classes when the students complete Spring Break on March 23. Likewise, the Mandell JCC in West Hartford has also decided to cancel upcoming public programs to minimize person-to-person transmission of the virus.
This means we will need to reschedule all of our upcoming public programs (listed below). While this may be disappointing, if these disruptions help slow the spread of the virus then it will certainly be worth it. We have postponed all Center programs between now and April 6. We will make a determination on programs scheduled for late April in the next few weeks.
As Moses said to Joshua (Deuteronomy 31:7) and as members of the Hashomer Hatzair youth movement would greet one another in Hebrew: Chazak ve-Ematz (be strong and courageous!)
Zay gezunt un shtark (Be healthy and strong!)
Avi
THE FOLLOWING CENTER FOR JUDAIC STUDIES PROGRAMS HAVE BEEN POSTPONED:
- March 12, 2020 at 7:30 PM | Holy Silence Film Screening and Post Film Discussion at the Mandell JCC with Director Avinoam Patt; Steven Pressman, Emmy-nominated writer, producer, and director; and Dr. Suzanne Brown-Fleming, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
- March 18, 2020 at 7 PM | Ilan Stavans and Josh Lambert, How Yiddish Changed America; co-sponsored with ALEPH, Jewish Hartford European Roots, and the Mandell JCC | Mandell JCC, West Hartford
- March 23, 2020 at 7 PM | REEL Israel - A Panel Discussion at the Mandell JCC with Director Avinoam Patt, Prof. Jeremy Pressman, and Tom Wainrich, Mandell JCC Israel Program Coordinator
- March 25, 2020 at 11:30AM | Yiddish Tish
- March 30, 2020 at 7 PM | Stand-up Comic MODI; co-sponsored with UConn Hillel and the UConn College of Liberal Arts and Sciences | UConn Hillel House, Storrs Campus
- April 1, 2020 at 7 PM | Ferne Pearlstein and Robert Edwards, The Last Laugh. Film screening and book launch with Avinoam Patt, ed, Laughter After: Humor and the Holocaust; co-sponsored with University of Hartford Greenberg Center and the Mandell JCC | Mandell JCC, West Hartford
- April 20, 2020 at 5 PM | Christopher Browning, "Holocaust History and Survivor Testimony 75 Years After Liberation"; Annual Academic Convocation on the Holocaust and UConn Judaic Studies 40th anniversary event; co-sponsored with UConn Hillel, the Human Rights Institute, the Humanities Institute, the Neag School of Education, and the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center | UConn Student Union Theater, Storrs Campus
- April 22, 2020 at 12 PM | German-Jewish author Olga Grjasnowa, Germany's Struggle with Cultural Diversity; with German Studies, Global Affairs, and the Human Rights Institute | Room 236, Oak Hall, Storrs Campus
- April 28, 2020 at 5:30 PM | Legacies of European Jewry: The Second Generation and Beyond | Panel discussion at UConn Stamford
- April 29, 2020 at 11:30AM | Yiddish Tish
Please visit our programming page to stay up-to-date on event information.
February 2020 E-News Released
Hypnotist Brian Eslick to Perform at UConn Hillel | March 4 at 7PM
Ever wanted to see a hypnotist? Well now is your chance and it is FREE FOR ALL UCONN STUDENTS AND FACULTY! Come to UConn Hillel on March 4th at 7PM and maybe you will be ~hypnotized~ by Brian Eslick! Hope to see you there!!! This event is hosted in collaboration with the UConn Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary Jewish Life and UConn Global Affairs. UConn Hillel is located at 54 N Eagleville Rd, Storrs.
“At Home in America? Part 2: A Three-Rabbi Panel” | January 15, 2020
At Home in America? Part 2: A Three-Rabbi Panel
Wednesday, January 15, 6:30 pm
Mandell JCC Innovation Center
Zachs Campus, 335 Bloomfield Ave. West Hartford, CT 06117
Join Rabbis Tuvia Brander, Andi Fliegel, and James Rosen for a lively discussion about the past, present and future of Jewish life in America. How have the different denominations engaged with America and changed as a result of the encounter with the Golden Land?
Join us for an evening of dialogue, personal reflections, and lively conversation. Moderated by Professor Avinoam Patt
FREE AND OPEN TO ALL
For more information contact Danielle Moghadam,
dmoghadam@mandelljcc.org, 860-231-6366 or visit the Mandell JCC website.
Sponsored by ALEPH: The Institute of Jewish Ideas, Mandell JCC, Jewish Community Foundation, UConn Center for Judaic Studies, Beth El Temple, Congregation Beth Israel, and Young Israel West Hartford
The Paradox of the Start-Up Nation
A leadership briefing with Suzanne Patt Benvenisti
Director General of the Taub Center for Social Policy Studies in Israel
Thursday, December 12 | 8 to 9 a.m.
BlumShapiro | 29 S. Main Street, West Hartford
What's the secret to the high-tech sector’s success... and what’s stopping the rest of the economy from joining in? Israel’s innovative high-tech sector is seen around the world as the crown jewel of the Israeli economy. Yet, productivity and wages in Israel are low, income inequality is high, and the poverty rate is among the highest in the western world.
Free by invitation | Light kosher breakfast | Validated parking available
RSVP by December 10 to Karen Nichols
knichols@jewishhartford.org | 860.727.6130
Photo: Matam high-tech park, Haifa. By Zvi Roger/Haifa Municipality, 2010.
October 2019 E-News Released
Yale University Conference “Rokhl Oyerbakh: The Bridge Between Wartime and Postwar Testimony” Nov. 3-4
Rokhl Oyerbakh: The Bridge Between Wartime and Postwar Testimony
Sunday, November 3rd, and Monday, November 4th, 2019
Yale University, New Haven, CT
Yale University, New Haven, CT
Center Director Avinoam Patt and affiliated faculty member Samuel Kassow will be participating in an upcoming conference at Yale University hosted by the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies at Yale University Library.
This November, the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies will host the first ever international symposium dedicated to the legacy of writer, historian, and documentarian Rokhl Oyerbakh (Rachel Auerbach).
Rokhl Oyerbakh was a writer, essayist and a member of the Oyneg Shabes underground documentation project in the Warsaw Ghetto. As one of the only survivors of Oyneg Shabes, she helped recover the buried documentation after the war before emigrating to Israel. As a survivor-historian, Oyerbakh’s work to document first-person accounts of victims’ experiences continued after the war as Director of Yad Vashem’s Department for the Collection of Witness Testimony. She was responsible for curating survivor testimony for the Eichmann trial, and she played a prominent role as a survivor-advocate in the controversy surrounding Jean-François Steiner’s book Treblinka. These are but a few facets of Oyerbakh’s important contributions to our understanding of the survivor experience, and the history of the Holocaust.
Hosted by the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies at Yale University Library, with keynote speaker Samuel Kassow, Charles H. Northam Professor of History, Trinity College
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC, no registration required
WEBSITE: https://fortunoff.library.yale.edu/events/rokhl/
With questions, please contact Stephen Naron at stephen.naron@yale.edu.
Presenters and Speakers:
- Leora Bilsky, Professor at the Tel Aviv University Faculty of Law, and Director of the Minerva Center for Human Rights, Tel Aviv University, Israel
- Dr. Boaz Cohen, Western Galilee College, Akko, Israel
- Havi Dreifuss, Professor in Jewish history, Tel Aviv University, Israel
- Glenn Dynner, Chair of Religion Department, Sarah Lawrence College
- Professor Dr. Efrat Gal-ed, Institut für Jüdische Studien, Heinrich-Heine-Universität, Düsseldorf, Germany
- Laura Jockusch, Albert Abramson Assistant Professor of Holocaust Studies, Brandeis University
- Dr. Lisa M. Leff, Director of the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
- Samuel Moyn, Henry R. Luce Professor of Jurisprudence at Yale Law School and Professor of History at Yale University
- Avinoam Patt, Director of the Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary Jewish Life, University of Connecticut
- Sharon Pucker Rivo, Executive Director, National Center for Jewish Film, Brandeis University
- Sven-Erik Rose, Professor of German and of Comparative Literature, University of California, Davis
- David Roskies, Sol and Evelyn Henkind Chair in Yiddish Literature and Culture, Professor of Jewish literature, Jewish Theological Seminary
- Karolina Szymaniak, Assistant Professor at the Department of Jewish Studies, University of Wrocław, Poland
About Fortunoff Archive at Yale University Library
In 1979, the Holocaust Survivors Film Project began collecting video-taped interviews of Holocaust survivors in the New Haven area. In 1981, the collection was donated to Yale University and The Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, part of the Yale University Library, opened its doors to the public the following year. The Fortunoff Archive has been working to record, collect and preserve Holocaust witness testimonies — and facilitate the work of researchers, educators and the general public — ever since.
The Fortunoff Archive currently holds more than 4,400 testimonies, which are comprised of over 12,000 recorded hours of videotape. Testimonies were produced in cooperation with thirty-six affiliated projects across North America, South America, Europe, and Israel, and each project maintains a duplicate collection of locally recorded videotapes. The Fortunoff Archive and its affiliates recorded the testimonies of willing individuals with first-hand experience of the Nazi persecutions, including those who were in hiding, survivors, bystanders, resistants, and liberators.
Testimonies were recorded in the language the witness preferred, and range in length from 30 minutes to over 40 hours (recorded over several sessions).
September 2019 E-News Released
