Do you want to speak with people in Hebrew? After this six-session crash course in Hebrew conversation, you’ll be able to make small talk, ask directions, order things in a restaurant, go shopping, and even talk a little about current events—all in Hebrew.  The course focuses on functional spoken Hebrew you can use right away in daily interactions. There will be a few short easy readings, role play, listening practice, and in-class conversations. If you want to practice and learn some spoken Hebrew, join us on six Monday evenings this spring. Lehitraot—see you soon!!

This spring, at UConn Stamford, Dr.  Liora Brosh will teach a "crash course" in conversational Modern Hebrew.  Professor Brosh, a native speaker, holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from the Hebrew University, Israel.  

This free, non-credit course is open to all faculty, staff, students, and members of the external community.  Please share this information with anyone you think might wish to join us. There is no need to register in advance and no texts are required for purchase.  No prior knowledge of the language is expected.

Besides the inherent value of learning foreign languages in our global world, Modern Hebrew is of interest beyond Judaica.  It is relevant for those studying the Middle East as well as individuals working in business and STEM, given Israeli prominence in those fields.  

All sessions will be held in Room 313, the Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary Jewish Life.  We will meet on Mondays from 6:30-8:00 p.m.: February 10, February 24, March 9, March 23, April 6, April 20. In the case of weather cancellations, we will reschedule any missed class(es).  

If you require an accommodation to participate, please contact Stamford Coordinator for Judaic Studies Prof. Fred Roden at frederick.roden@uconn.edu or 203-251-8559.

Join us!

Sondra Melzer: Reflections on the Work of Philip Roth

November 21
12:30 pm
MPR, UConn Stamford

Philip Roth, 1933-2018, was an American novelist and short story writer. In her talk, Dr. Sondra Melzer will discuss Roth's focus on Jewish life throughout his storied career, the writings of which made him one of the most celebrated writers of his generation.

Dr. Sondra Melzer completed her PhD at NYU. She is the author of The Rhetoric of Rage: Women In Dorothy Parker. She spent 39 years as a public high school teacher, was an instructor at the University of Connecticut, and ran the Sacred Heart University Education Program. In 2017, upon completing 60 years of teaching, she was named Professor Emerita at Sacred Heart University.

The event by the UConn Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary Jewish Life is free and open to the pubic. If you require an accommodation, please contact Stamford Coordinator for Judaic Studies Professor Fred Roden at frederick.roden@uconn.edu or 203-251-8559.

FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION

Join Dr. Joel Blatt and Dr. Fred Roden in conversation with filmmaker Roland Tec, son of Professor Emerita Nechama Tec, as he discusses her Holocaust memoir, Dry Tears, recounts his work on the film adaptation of her resistance classic Defiance, and reflects on legacies in families of survivors. Read more about her [book].

The event will take place November 5, 5.30-6.30 pm, at the UConn Stamford Campus, A1 Main Auditorium.

About the Speaker

Filmmaker and producer Roland Tec is an Assistant Professor in the MFA Program in Playwriting at Hollins University and is a Dramatists Guild Institute faculty member. His film producer credits include Mira Nair's Monsoon Wedding and Edward Zwick's Defiance. He wrote, directed, and produced feature films All the Rage and We Pedal Uphill. Professor Tec has taught at Harvard and Brandeis and was a fellow at the Byrdcliffe Artists Colony and at the MacDowell Colony.

This program is part of the UConn Judaic Studies Scholarship and the Arts Series. Attendance counts toward honors credit.

If you require an accommodation to participate, please contact Stamford coordinator for Judaic Studies Prof. Frederick Roden: frederick.roden@uconn.edu, or 203-251-8559.

On Tuesday, November 12, UConn Professor Emerita Nehama Aschkenasy will give a talk on "National Identity and Private Histories: The Fiction and Lives of Aharon Appelfeld and Amos Oz." The talk will be held at the UConn Stamford campus in the Multi-Purpose Room (MPR) from 7:00-8:00 pm. Attendance qualifies for honors credit.

The talk is free and open to the public. If you require an accommodation, please contact Stamford Coordinator for Judaic Studies Professor Fred Roden at frederick.roden@uconn.edu or 203-251-8559.

About the Talk

This lecture is a tribute to the two giants of Israeli literature, Aharon Appelfeld (1923-2018) and Amos Oz (1939-2018), demonstrating how their lives and fictions were shaped by and intertwined with the two momentous events in recent Jewish history: the Holocaust (in the case of Appelfeld) and the birth of the State of Israel (for Oz). Their stories reveal the cultural and socio-psychological spirit of contemporary Israel as it wrestles with its national, ethnic, and moral identity.

About the Speaker

Dr. Nehama Aschkenasy is Professor Emerita of Comparative Literary and Cultural Studies at UConn, where she taught courses in literature and religion. She is Founding Director Emerita of the former Center for Judaic and Middle Eastern Studies at UConn Stamford. Aschkenasy published four books, among them the award-winning Eve's Journey, and has contributed numerous chapters to books and journals. Her essay on the Bible's role in modern Israeli culture, "Recreating the Canon," is included in the Posen Library (Yale University Press). She has served as Associative Editor of several scholarly journals in the US and the UK.

On Tuesday, November 12, anthropologist and Senior Researcher of the Dangerous Speech Project (DSP) Cathy Buerger will present "Fear and Loathing in our Discourse: Dangerous Speech, Division, and What to Do about It." The talk will be held at the UConn Stamford campus in the Multi-Purpose Room (MPR) from 12:30-2:00 pm.  

The talk is free and open to the public. It is sponsored by the UConn Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary Jewish Life. If you require an accommodation, please contact Stamford Coordinator for Judaic Studies Professor Fred Roden at frederick.roden@uconn.edu or 203-251-8559. Attendance qualifies for honors credit.

About the Talk

No one is born hating or fearing other people. That has to be taught – and those harmful lessons seem to be similar, though they’re given in highly disparate cultures, languages, and places. Leaders around the world use particular kinds of rhetoric to turn groups of people violently against one another. But this rhetoric is, of course, nothing new. The vocabulary varies, but the same themes recur: members of other groups are depicted as threats so serious that violence against them comes to seem acceptable or even necessary. In this talk, drawing from both historical and contemporary examples, Dr. Cathy Buerger will outline a framework for identifying dangerous speech – any form of expression that can increase the risk that its audience will condone or commit violence against members of another group. The lecture will conclude with a discussion of productive responses to dangerous and otherwise harmful speech.

About the Speaker

Cathy Buerger is a Senior Researcher at the Dangerous Speech Project (DSP), a Washington, DC-based NGO that studies the relationship between speech and violence. She holds a PhD in Anthropology from the University of Connecticut, where her research examined how civil society activists work together to support positive norms and to uphold human rights. Her current research at the DSP focuses on civil society responses to dangerous and hateful speech online. She is a Research Affiliate of UConn's Economic and Social Rights Research Group, Managing Editor of the Journal of Human Rights, and an Editor for the Teaching Human Rights Database.

On Monday, September 9, UConn Stamford Professor Steven Wander will present "Flavius Josephus, Jewish Historian of the First Century, and his Influence on Imperial Roman and Early Medieval Art." The talk will be held at the UConn Stamford campus in the Multi-Purpose Room (MPR) from 5:00-6:00 pm.  

The talk is free and open to the public. It is sponsored by the UConn Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary Jewish Life. If you require an accommodation, please contact Stamford Coordinator for Judaic Studies Professor Fred Roden at frederick.roden@uconn.edu or 203-251-8559.

About the Talk

Art History Professor Dr. Wander will speak on the texts of Josephus concerning some of the most important artworks to survive: The Arch of Titus in Rome, the rear panel of the Franks (Auzon) Casket, and the Codex Amiatinus.

About the Speaker

Steven H. Wander, currently an adjunct professor of Art and Art History at the University of Connecticut, Stamford, holds a master's degree in medieval Art History from the University of California, Berkeley, and a PhD from Stanford University. Previously, he was a professor at the University of California, Irvine, where he taught advanced courses in medieval art, his specialty. Wander has published widely in the field with books, articles, and scholarly reviews. His recent work includes three papers on the influence of Josephus on artworks of the Middle Ages and a critical edition of the Joshua Roll. His paper in the Metropolitan Museum Journal is the basis for their display of seventh-century imperial silver plates and won the annual faculty award from the Medieval and Renaissance Center at UCLA. He has also received grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Fulbright program.

On Tuesday, September 17, UConn Stamford Professor Joel Blatt will present "Mussolini, Italian Fascism, and the Jewish Question." The talk will be held at the UConn Stamford campus in the Multi-Purpose Room (MPR) from 6:00-8:00 pm.  

The talk is free and open to the public.  It is sponsored by the UConn Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary Jewish Life and the Jewish Historical Society of Fairfield County. If you require an accommodation, please contact Stamford Coordinator for Judaic Studies Professor Fred Roden at frederick.roden@uconn.edu or 203-251-8559.

About the Talk

This lecture will discuss the fate of Jews in fascist Italy from 1922-1945,tracing Mussolini's accelerated anti-Semitism from 1934 to the 1938 laws which ended Jewish emancipation. From September 1943 until the end of April 1945, about 15% of the Jews in Italy were murdered. This lecture will analyze Mussolini's shifting policies. The talk will also discuss Carlo and Nello Rosselli (two different kinds of anti-fascist resisters) and their mother Amelia Pincherle Rosselli. 

About the Speaker

Professor Joel Blatt teaches European History at the UConn Stamford Campus. A historian of the 20th century, his courses include the Holocaust, Personality and Power, and Fascism/Anti-Fascism in Italy and Nazi Germany (among others). He is editor of The French Defeat of 1940: Reassessments and author of a number of articles. His current project is a book on the assassination of the anti-fascist Italian Jewish Rosselli brothers. He has received numerous awards for his outstanding teaching and service at UConn-Stamford. 

On Monday, April 22, Warren Klein, curator of the Herbert and Eileen Bernard Museum of Judaica, will present "Why is this Book Different than all Other Books? A Glimpse into the Changing Imagery of the Illustrated Haggadah." The talk will be held at the UConn Stamford campus in MPR 108 from 12:15-1:45 pm. Lunch will be served.

The talk is free and open to the public.  It is sponsored by the UConn Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary Jewish Life. If you require an accommodation, please contact Stamford Coordinator for Judaic Studies Professor Fred Roden at frederick.roden@uconn.edu or 203-251-8559.

About the Talk

Several image cycles and representations in the Passover Haggadah will be examined, beginning from medieval manuscript illumination through the 20th century. Special attention will be placed on the representation of the 4 sons, order of the seder, and ceremonial foods. 

About the Speaker

Warren Klein has been the curator of the Herbert and Eileen Bernard Museum of Judaica at Temple Emanu-El since 2013. His exhibitions have included graphic posters, contemporary Jewish wedding gowns, Golda Meir, and, most recently, Jews and Chocolate. Previously, he worked at the JTS Library, Skirball Museum in Los Angeles, Magnes Museum in Berkeley, and several private collections in New York. He holds an MA in Jewish Art from the Jewish Theological Seminary and a BA in the History of Art from the University of California, Santa Cruz.