Past Events

Adam Kirsch shows how the concept of settler colonialism emerged in the context of North American and Australian history and how it is being applied to Israel today.

Eugene Orenstein explores the development of a modern Yiddish prose style as seen in stories by Sholem Asch, Dovid Bergelson, Yosef Opatoshu, and Moyshe Nadir.

Abraham Lichtenbaum delves into the history of the Jewish population, Yiddish language and culture, and YIVO in Argentina.

J. Hoberman examines the relationship between Jews and Hollywood, as producers, artists, and symbolic figures.

Jonathan Brent explores the ultimate source of evil as it has been visualized and understood in the twentieth century by Thomas Mann and Arnošt Lustig whose works evolved out of their immediate experiences with Nazi totalitarianism.

Vera Szabó studies Yiddish folktales for a glimpse into the spoken language, as well as thoughts, desires, fears, and fantasies of those who told and listened to them.

Alex Wellerstein tracks the key figures, ethical debates, and geopolitical influences of Jewish scientists on the creation, proliferation, and plans for the use of nuclear weapons, beginning with the rise of Jewish prominence in theoretical physics in the early 1900s.

Mikhl Yashinsky examines a series of powerful theatrical scenes to explore the motivating forces and inspiration behind their creation.

Ilan Stavans tackles questions such as what constitutes a Jewish language, why have some developed more than others, when and where Jewish languages emerge from, and how Jewish languages die, if and when they do.

Sander Gilman discusses the ever-shifting meaning of being a Jew in our contemporary debates about antisemitism, looking at the continuities and discontinuities both among those who define themselves as Jewish and those who seek to define Jews, both from within and without.

Jan Grabowski sheds light on the origins of Holocaust distortion as well as its impact on Holocaust memory and Holocaust education in Poland, in Europe, and beyond.

Anita Norich explores a range of familiar and unfamiliar Yiddish stories and poems to consider how Yiddish writers responded to the social and political issues of their day: emigration/immigration, various forms of nationalism, socialism, religious belief, and rejection of religious observance.

Hasia Diner examines landmark moments in the half decade between the passage of the National Origins Act and the 1929 onset of the Great Depression that shaped Jewish life in America.

Michael Lukin explores the various genres of Yiddish folk songs and old Hasidic wordless nigunim, including ballads, folk paraphrases, cumulative songs, lullabies, lyric songs, and “cleaving nigunim,” as well as dance, march, and joy-nigunim.

Eve Jochnowitz examines how Ashkenazic foodways, along with the Yiddish language and the rhythms of Jewish practice, formed the medium in which Jewish life was and is lived in the Yiddish world.

Josh Price prepares students to start learning Yiddish with an introduction to the Yiddish alphabet, basic reading, writing, and pronunciation.

Mikhl Yashinsky examines a series of powerful theatrical scenes to explore the motivating forces and inspiration behind their creation.