Jewish Studies Program

Spring 2008 Events

All events are free and open to the public unless otherwise noted.

Email for further information.

Select Month:

January

February

The Life of the Skies: Judaism, Evolution and the Natural World

Jonathan Rosen

Thursday, February 7, 4:30 PM, Golkin Room (room 223), Houston Hall, 3417 Spruce Street

Author Jonathan Rosen will speak about his forthcoming book about birdwatching, The Life of the Skies, focusing on Judaism and the role of the natural world in religious life.

Jonathan Rosen is the author of the novels Eve's Apple and Joy Comes in the Morning, and of a work of non-fiction, The Talmud and the Internet: A Journey Between Worlds. Rosen, who has received the Edward Lewis Wallant Award, the Chaim Potok Prize, and the Reform Judaism Award for fiction, is editorial director of Nextbook where he edits the Jewish Encounters series, published by Nextbook\Schocken. He created the culture section of the Forward newspaper, which he oversaw for ten years. His essays have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The New York Times Book Review, The New Yorker and several anthologies. His book about birdwatching, The Life of the Skies, will be published later this month by Farrar, Straus & Giroux. About that book, Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson wrote: "Birding is so much more than just outdoor recreation. Its sources are woven into history and legend, and its pleasures are ultimately spiritual. Jonathan Rosen has captured all this to deliver a rare and beautiful piece of literature."

The 2007 Silvers Visiting Scholar Program, sponsored by the Jewish Studies Program, and co-sponsored by the Kelly Writers House. Event is free and open to the public. No RSVP necessary.

Spinoza in the Library of an Early Modern Dutch Sephardic Rabbi

Yosef Kaplan, Hebrew University

Wednesday, February 20, 5:00 PM, Logan Hall 402

Rabbi David Nunes Torres had been the rabbi of one of the Sephardic congregations in The Hague at the beginning of the eighteenth century. About three months after his death in 1728, his impressive library, which contained more than 2,000 volumes in eight languages, was put up for sale. Some of the large blocs that comprise this library reflect in the clearest fashion the intellectual ferment of Nunes Torres' generation and his purposeful and sophisticated collection of books made him, willy-nilly, a secret agent of the early enlightenment in the Sephardic Diaspora of Western Europe, and even in Dutch society at large

Yosef Kaplan is the Bernard Cherrick Professor of Jewish History at the Hebrew University. His books include: An Alternative Path to Modernity; Judios Nuevos en Amsterdam; The Western Sephardi Diaspora; From Christianity to Judaism: The Story of Isaac Orobio de Castro; and a translation (with introduction and notes) of Isaac Cardoso's, Las Excelencias de los Hebreos. He has edited and co-edited 14 books, among them: The Dutch Intersection: The Jews and the Netherlands in Modern History; Fins de Siecle -- End of Ages; Dutch Jews as Perceived by Themselves and by Others; Menasseh ben Israel and His World, and Jews and Conversos. Studies in Society and the Inquisition.

Kaplan is the former Director of the School of History at the Hebrew University and former editor of Tarbiz and Zion. He was awarded the A. Wiznitzer Prize and the Ben Zvi Prize, and in 2004 he was elected fellow of the Israel Academy for Sciences and Humanities. He is currently a fellow at Princeton University's Institute for Advanced Study.

Part of the Jewish Studies Kutchin Faculty Seminar Series, and co-sponsored by the Department of History.

Challenges in the Middle East: Democracy, Media, and Human Rights

Khaled Abu Toameh

Sunday, February 24, 5:00 PM, Huntsman Hall 255

Khaled Abu Toameh, an Israeli Arab, is a West Bank and Gaza correspondent for the Jerusalem Post and U.S. News and World Report.

Sponsored by Penn Hillel's Israel Coalition, and co-sponsored by the Jewish Studies Kutchin Faculty Seminar Series.

Cantillation and Meaning in the Bible

Miles B. Cohen

Wednesday, February 27, 6:15 PM - 7:45 PM, Steinhardt Hall

This is a three-part lecture series. Part one: "Ta'amei Hamikra: Understanding the punctuation of the Biblical verse."

Rabbi Cohen teaches Biblical Hebrew, cantillation and related subjects in the Department of Bible and Ancient Semitic Languages at the Jewish Theological Seminary. He is an expert on the subject of Biblical cantillation/accentuation and Masorah. He is the author of a monograph, The System of Accentuation in the Hebrew Bible (1969) and articles about Biblical accents and masoretic studies, including: "Masoretic Accents as a Biblical Commentary," in Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society 4,1 (1972) 2-11; "The Dual Accentuation of the Ten Commandments" (by Miles B. Cohen and David B. Freedman) in Masoretic Studies 1 (1974), pp. 7-20; and "The Masoretes as exegetes: selected examples" (by Miles B. Cohen and David B. Freedman), in Masoretic Studies 1 (1974), pp. 35-36.

Sponsored by the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, and co-sponsored by the Jewish Studies Kutchin Faculty Seminar Series.

March

Cantillation and Meaning in the Bible

Miles B. Cohen

Wednesday, March 5, 6:15 PM - 7:45 PM, Steinhardt Hall

This is a three-part lecture series. Part two: "The syntax of the Biblical verse as reflected by the te'amim."

Sponsored by the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, and co-sponsored by the Jewish Studies Kutchin Faculty Seminar Series.

An Afternoon of Selected Yiddish Short Stories

Isaiah Sheffer

Sunday, March 16, 3:00 PM, Adath Israel, 250 N. Highland Ave, Merion, PA 19066

Isaiah Sheffer, is Founder and Artistic Director of Symphony Space, and host of the award-winning radio program 'Selected Shorts; A Celebration of the Short Story.' He will bring to life three Yiddish stories, in English. Kool Klez, the Jewish Community Hebrew High School Klezmer Band will perform at the beginning and again during intermission along with a dessert reception (with Eastern European delights and, of course, glasses of tea!).

Tickets are available for purchase at www.jewishphilly.org/onebook or by calling 215-635-2877. Tickets are $10 for students, $20 for General Seating and $40 for Reserved Seating.

Sponsored by the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia in partnership with Jewish Outreach Partnership, and and co-sponsored by the Jewish Studies Kutchin Faculty Seminar Series, WHYY and the National Yiddish Book Center.

Saint Stephen's Bones: A Chapter in the History of Jewish-Christian Relations in Late Antiquity

Paula Fredriksen, Boston University and Oded Irshai, Hebrew University

Wednesday, March 19, 5:00 PM, 209 College Hall

CAJS' Eleventh Annual Joseph and Rebecca Meyerhoff Lecture. Please join us for this unique opportunity to engage in the study of a fascinating text with two of the world's most prominent scholars.

The story of Saint Stephen's bones begins with a vision near Jerusalem and ends with sea voyages throughout the late Roman world. The proto-martyr of the early church, Stephen, through his recovered relics, instigated bouts of internal brawling between local bishops and spasms of external political struggles between Jewish dignitaries and the ascendant church. Journeying further west, fragmentss of Stephen's body set off waves of anti-Jewish hostility. This lecture will explore some of the consequences of this hostility, from the forced conversion of Minorca's Jews to Augustine's insistence on Jewish freedom of practice in City of God.

Paula Fredriksen is Aurelio professor of Scripture at Boston University. She studies the origins and history of ancient Christianity, from late Second Temple Judaism to the fall of the western Roman Empire. She is the author of Augustine and the Jews (2008); From Jesus to Christ: The Origins of the New Testament Images of Jesus (1988); and Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews, which won the National Jewish Book award in 1999. Her special interest in ancient Jewish-Gentile relations moved her into our own historical period with her critique of Mel G?ibson's controversial film on the death of Jesus. This spring she holds the Selma Ruben Fellowship at the Center for Advanced Judaic Studies.

Oded Irshai heads the Jewish History department at Hebrew University. He is a leading authority on Judaism in Late Antiquity, specializing in the unique relationship between Jews and the Christian church in the Roman and Byzantine Near East. He has published numerous articles in his field and has co-authored, along with Paula Fredriksen, a landmark study on Christian anti-Judaism in the Cambridge History of Judaism IV. He holds the Golub Family Fellowship and the Zifkin Teaching fellowship at the Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, where he works with Paula Fredriksen on a study of Jews, Christians, and the End of Mediterranean Antiquity: A Comparison of East and West.

This lecture series was established by the Joseph Meyerhoff Memorial Trusts to honor the generosity and service of Eleanor Meyerhoff Katz and the late Herbert D. Katz to Penn's History Program and Center for Advanced Judaic Studies.

Sponsored by the Religious Studies deptartment; Jewish Studies Program Kutchin Faculty Seminar Series; History department; and the Center for Advanced Judaic Studies.

Cantillation and Meaning in the Bible

Miles B. Cohen

Wednesday, March 19, 6:15 PM - 7:45 PM, Steinhardt Hall

This is a three-part lecture series. Part three: "Beyond Ta'amei Hamikra: The Masorah, The Te'amim and Biblical Interpretation, and Choosing a Tanakh Edition and a Tikkun."

Sponsored by the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, and co-sponsored by the Jewish Studies Kutchin Faculty Seminar Series.

American Jewish Performers of the Stage and Screen

Beth S. Wenger

Thursday, March 27, 5:00 PM, Houston Hall Room 223 (Golkin Room)

Professor Beth Wenger, author of the new book The Jewish Americans, will discuss the history of the American Jewish performer. The discussion will include those who have been involved in both musical performance and acting. The talk will also feature excerpts from the PBS miniseries to which Professor Wenger's book served as a companion.

This event is run by the Jewish Studies Program Bassini Interns Program (organized by JSP Interns Benjamin Bernstein and Seong-Jin Moon).

Light refreshments will be served.

Becoming Modern: The German-Jewish Experience

A Conference

Sunday, March 30

In a recent book, Yuri Slezkine described the twentieth century as a "Jewish Age" -- to be modern would essentially mean to be a Jew. In German historical and cultural studies, this linkage has long been made --only in reference to the last years of the German monarchy and the time of the Weimar Republic. Indeed, what has become known as "modern" German culture--reflected in literature, music, and the visual arts and in a multitude of public media--has been more often than not assigned to Jewish authorship or Jewish subjects. But what do authorship and subject mean in this case? Do we locate the German-Jewish experience as the driving force of this new "modernity," or is our understanding of this experience the result of this new "modern" world?

A group of scholars, drawn from the United States and abroad, will explore the relationship of "modernity" and the German-Jewish experience in a day-long symposium that will be open to the general public. The symposium will be accompanied by a musical event, and an exhibition in Penn's rare book division, Van Pelt Library.

For a full schedule, please see: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/home/news/becoming_modern.html

April

The Rabbis Reconsidered: A Roundtable Discussion

Professor Beth Berkowitz, Jewish Theological Seminary
Professor Yaakov Elman, Yeshiva University
Professor Seth Schwartz, Jewish Theological Seminary
Moderator: Professor Natalie Dohrmann, University of Pennsylvania

Wednesday, April 2, 4:45 PM, Arch Crest, 3601 Locust Walk

The strong traditional story of Jewish recovery from the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70 CE has been radically altered by a recent generation of scholars. The old narrative tells us that the rabbis stepped up to lead and inspire a devastated Jewish population. They built a Torah-based Judaism to fill the void left by the loss of the Temple and priesthood. They created and ran new institutions that patrolled and defined the contours of a rabbinically-inflected Jewish identity.

New evidence of the relationship of rabbis with non-rabbinic Jews, and with imperial governments and cultures in both Babylonia and Palestine, coupled with the revelations gleaned from material remains tell us a different story. Rabbinic Judaism was at best a marginal voice in the Roman world; and most Jews likely paid them little or no mind. To the east of the Roman empire, rabbis living and working under the Sasanian empire reveal themselves to be profoundly influenced by the legal, religious, institutional, and cultural traditions of the Zorastrians among whom they lived.

This newer scholarship has prompted a reconsideration of the role of the rabbis in the ancient world:

* Who in fact were the rabbis and where did they come from?
* If the rabbis were not at the center of post 70 CE Jewish life, who or what was?
* When and how did the rabbis ultimately move from the periphery to the center of Jewish life?
* What should a historian do with the vast corpus of rabbinic literature?
* How do new historical narratives change how we read these canonical texts?

Sponsored by the Jewish Studies Kutchin Faculty Seminar Series, and co-sponsored by the Center for Ancient Studies and the Religious Studies Dept.

Democracy Today: Lessons from Dreyfus and Zola

Jean-Max Guieu (Georgetown University) and Jeffrey Mehlman (Boston University)

Thursday, April 3, 5:30 PM, Rosenwald Gallery, 6th floor, Van Pelt-Dietrich Library

Two distinguished scholars of the Dreyfus Affair and of the work of Emile Zola will discuss their scholarship and its connections with contemporary questions relating to tolerance, anti-semitism, the press, the military, and the role of intellectuals in public life. An exhibition of items from the Beitler Collection and reception will follow the discussion. Germaine Ingram of the Philadelphia Folklore Society will serve as moderator. This is the second annual event sponsored by the Lorraine Beitler Collection of the Dreyfus Affair at the Penn Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

Free and open to the public. More information: 215-898-7088; rbml@pobox.upenn.edu
http://www.library.upenn.edu/news/423

Film Screening: Swimming in Auschwitz

With comments by the filmmaker Jon Kean (C'89)

Wednesday, April 9, 7:00 PM, 240 Huntsman Hall, 3730 Walnut Street

One of the glaring omissions in the ongoing study of the events of the Holocaust is the experiences of women in the concentration camps. While subject to the same physical conditions as the men, and many of the same physical hardships, the ways in which women convey their memories is a stark contrast to most male testimonies. A strong focus on family and friendship, on faith and spirituality of all kinds emerge as key focal points as women recount their experiences. It is this experience that Swimming in Auschwitz captures. For more on the film, see: http://www.swimminginauschwitz.com/

About the Filmmaker: Jon Kean made his film debut in 1999 as the writer/director of the comedy, Kill the Man, starring Luke Wilson and Joshua Molina. He also founded the acclaimed theatre company Theatre-A-Go-Go!, creating over a dozen original works in Los Angeles and New York. Among them are the award winning Patty, Patty, Bang! Bang!: The Patty Hearst Musical and Valley of the Dolls. Swimming in Auschwitz is his first feature-length documentary film. Jon was raised in Philadelphia, where he graduated from the University of Pennsylvania (C'89). He now lives in Santa Monica, California with his wife and two children.

Sponsored by the Jewish Studies Kutchin Faculty Seminar Series, the Women's Studies Program and the Alice Paul Center, and the Hillel Holocaust Education Committee.

Food and Jewish Identity: Is keeping kosher about keeping separate?

David Freidenreich

Tuesday, April 15, 7:30 PM, Steinhardt Hall

Professor David Freidenreich, expert in religion, food and law will be speaking on the topic of the socio-cultural implications of Jewish dietary restrictions. Prof. Freidenreich is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Franklin and Marshall College and was a 2006-2007 CAJS Fellow.

Light refreshments will be served.

This event is run by the Jewish Studies Program Bassini Interns Program (organized by JSP Interns Yael Landman and Jonathan Moses).

May

The Manfred R. Lehmann Memorial Master Workshop in the History of the Jewish Book

A Workshop

Sunday-Monday, May 11-12, CAJS

The subject of this year's Workshop will be From Manuscript to Print: Reading Colophons, Title Pages, and Other Paratexts. The workshop will be led by Professor Menachem Schmelzer of the Jewish Theological Seminary. Professor Schmelzer, former Director of the JTS Library, is one of the foremost experts on the Jewish book in the world. The two-day program will focus upon close readings of selected colophons in medieval Hebrew manuscripts, and title pages, authors' prefaces, printers' introductions, and approbations in books printed before 1700. Attention will be paid to the language of these paratexts, and to extracting the bibliographical, biographical, historical and textual information contained in them. The workshop will also cover the available bibliographical tools that can help in understanding and interpreting these texts as well as in utilizing them for scholarly purposes.

For more information: click here

Spotlights

Silvers Visiting Scholar