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DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260428T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260428T173000
DTSTAMP:20260304T165821Z
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LAST-MODIFIED:20260304T165821Z
UID:8731-1777392000-1777397400@levecenter.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:All Consuming: Germans\, Jews\, and the Meaning of Meat
DESCRIPTION:Meat is one of the most visible markers of Jewish distinctness and social separation. In his most recent book\, John Efron argues that meat has played an especially important role in the formation of Jewish and Christian identities in Germany from the Middle Ages until today. To an extent not seen elsewhere in Europe\, the importance of meat is reflected in many realms including the visual arts\, literature\, religion\, politics\, commerce\, and home life. Studying the history of meat and its multiple meanings in Germany tells us much about the changing nature of German and German-Jewish identity\, the links between religion\, nationality\, politics\, and food. Above all\, focusing on meat provides us with a singular window into the rich\, fraught\, and ultimately tragic history of German Jewry. \nJohn Efron is the Koret Professor of Jewish History at the University of California at Berkeley\, where specializes in the cultural and social history of German Jewry. A native of Melbourne\, Australia\, he has a B.A. from Monash University\, an M.A. from New York University\, and a Ph.D. at Columbia University. In his work\, Efron has focused on the way German Jewry attempted to reinterpret and reinvent Jewish culture in the wake of its complex encounter with modernity. Among his publications are Defenders of the Race: Jewish Doctors and Race Science in Fin-de-Siècle Europe (Yale UP\, 1994); Medicine and the German Jews: A History (Yale UP\, 2001); German Jewry and the Allure of the Sephardic (Princeton UP\, 2016); The Jews: A Modern History (Routledge\, forthcoming 2025); and All Consuming: Germans\, Jews\, and the Meaning of Meat (Stanford UP\, 2025). \nTuesday\, April 28\, 2026 • 306 Royce Hall • 4 PM \nAll Consuming: Germans\, Jews\, and the Meaning of Meat\nJohn Efron (UC Berkeley)\nModerator: David N. Myers (UCLA) \nNaftulin Family Program on Studies in Jewish Identity \nRSVP
URL:https://levecenter.ucla.edu/event/all-consuming-germans-jews-and-the-meaning-of-meat/
CATEGORIES:Naftulin Family Program on Studies in Jewish Identity
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260421T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260421T153000
DTSTAMP:20260304T161724Z
CREATED:20260304T161724Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260304T161724Z
UID:8727-1776780000-1776785400@levecenter.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:In the Shadow of the Holocaust: Short Fiction by Jewish Writers from the Soviet Union
DESCRIPTION:The short fiction collected in In the Shadow of the Holocaust recovers a range of compelling voices that had been scarcely known or translated. Jewish authors from Ukraine\, Lithuania\, Russia\, and Belarus\, some writing in Yiddish and others in Russian\, tell the stories of ordinary people living on after the massive devastation of the Holocaust on Soviet territory\, depicting memories\, conflicts\, love\, and loss. These are not stories only about how people died\, but how they continued to live: an entire family legacy is reduced to a single tea cup\, the now raspy voice of a telephone that once never stopped ringing\, and a train timetable that lists key places of Jewish life largely destroyed but still vital. Translated by Sasha Senderovich and Harriet Murav\, these stories provide new perspectives on questions fundamental to literature of the Holocaust and legacies of other genocides and mass violence. \nSasha Senderovich is Associate Professor of Slavic Languages & Literatures and of International Studies at the University of Washington. With Harriet Murav\, he translated David Bergelson’s Judgment: A Novel (2017). He is the author of How the Soviet Jew Was Made (2022). Harriet Murav is Center for Advanced Study Professor Emerita at the University of Illinois\, Urbana-Champaign. Her most recent books are David Bergelson’s Strange New World: Untimeliness and Futurity (2019) and As the Dust of the Earth: The Literature of Abandonment in Revolutionary Russia and Ukraine (2024). \nTuesday\, April 21\, 2026 • 314 Royce Hall • 2 PM\nIn the Shadow of the Holocaust: Short Fiction by Jewish Writers from the Soviet Union \nSasha Senderovich (University of Washington\, Seattle) and\nHarriet Murav (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign)\nModerators: Michael Rothberg (UCLA) & Lilya Kaganovsky (UCLA) \nThe 1939 Society Program in Holocaust Studies \nLecture made possible by The 1939 Society\, a division of Holocaust Museum Los Angeles \nRSVP
URL:https://levecenter.ucla.edu/event/in-the-shadow-of-the-holocaust/
CATEGORIES:1939 Society Program in Holocaust Studies
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260322T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260322T160000
DTSTAMP:20260120T230841Z
CREATED:20260120T230841Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260120T230841Z
UID:8676-1774188000-1774195200@levecenter.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Disposable Humanity - Film Screening
DESCRIPTION:Through decades of research and powerful interviews\, the Mitchell family—a team of disability studies scholars and filmmakers—investigates the Nazi Aktion T4 program\, the first Nazi mass killing initiative and precursor to the Holocaust. Featuring conversations with memorial directors\, disabled people\, and descendants of victims\, Disposable Humanity brings to light the forgotten truth that disabled people were the first to be targeted by the Third Reich. This revelatory documentary exposes how this chapter has been neglected in public memory and calls for its rightful place in Holocaust history. \nSunday\, March 22\, 2026 • James Bridges Theater\, UCLA • 2 PM \nComplimentary Film Screening \nDisposable Humanity \nThe Barbara Roisman Cooper and Martin Cooper Jewish Film Series \nconversation with\nCameron S. Mitchell (Director)\, David Mitchell (Writer)\, \nJared McBride (UCLA)\, and Michael Rothberg (UCLA) after the screening \nRSVP
URL:https://levecenter.ucla.edu/event/disposable-humanity-film-screening/
CATEGORIES:The Barbara Roisman Cooper and Martin Cooper Jewish Film Series
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260316T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260316T153000
DTSTAMP:20260205T222903Z
CREATED:20260205T222903Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260205T222903Z
UID:8683-1773669600-1773675000@levecenter.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Black Lives Under Nazism: Making History Visible in Literature and Art - Sarah Phillips Casteel
DESCRIPTION:In a little-known chapter of World War II\, Black people living in Nazi Germany and occupied Europe were subjected to ostracization\, forced sterilization\, and incarceration in internment and concentration camps. In the absence of public commemoration\, Black writers and visual artists have preserved the stories of these forgotten victims of the Third Reich. Their works of memoir\, poetry\, fiction\, painting and photomontage illuminate both the relationship between creativity and wartime survival and the role of art in the formation of collective memory. Probing the boundaries of Holocaust memory and representation\, this talk draws attention to a largely unrecognized artistic corpus that challenges the erasure of Black wartime history. \nSarah Phillips Casteel is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and Professor of English at Carleton University. She has written and co-edited five books\, the most recent of which is Black Lives Under Nazism: Making History Visible in Literature and Art (Columbia University Press\, 2024). She has held visiting professorships at the Universities of Vienna and Potsdam and visiting fellowships at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and the Zentrum Jüdische Studien Berlin-Brandenburg. The recipient of a Canadian Jewish Literary Award and a Polanyi Prize\, she is a member of the Academic Council of the Holocaust Educational Foundation of Northwestern University. \nRSVP
URL:https://levecenter.ucla.edu/event/sarah-phillips-casteel-2/
CATEGORIES:Sady and Ludwig Kahn Program in German Jewish Studies
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260312T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260312T153000
DTSTAMP:20260205T223945Z
CREATED:20260205T223945Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260205T223945Z
UID:8691-1773324000-1773329400@levecenter.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Warsaw Testament - Samuel Kassow
DESCRIPTION:Until recently\, very few people knew about Rokhl Auerbach\, a remarkable woman who survived the Holocaust and then dedicated her life to preserving the memories of its victims. Professor Samuel D. Kassow will discuss Auerbach’s memoir Warsaw Testament\, which paints a vivid portrait of that city’s prewar Yiddish literary and artistic community atruction at the hands of the Nazis. This book received a National Jewish Book Award in the cat­e­go­ry of Holo­caust Mem­oir. \nSamuel Kassow\, Charles H. Northam Professor of History at Trinity College\, holds a Ph.D. from Princeton University. He has been been a visiting professor at many institutions and was on the team of scholars that planned the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw. Among his books is Who will Write our History: Emanuel Ringelblum and the Secret Ghetto Archive (Indiana\, 2007)\, which received the Orbis Prize of the AAASS and which was a finalist for a National Jewish Book Award. It has been translated into eight languages. His translation of Rachel Auerbach’s Warsaw Testament\, published by the White Goat Press\, received a National Jewish Book Award in March 2025. A child of Holocaust survivors\, Professor Kassow spent his earliest years in a Displaced Persons camp in Germany. \nRSVP
URL:https://levecenter.ucla.edu/event/warsaw-testament-samuel-kassow/
CATEGORIES:Michael and Irene Ross Program in Yiddish Studies
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260305T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260305T153000
DTSTAMP:20260205T223608Z
CREATED:20260205T223608Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260205T223608Z
UID:8688-1772719200-1772724600@levecenter.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:New Israeli Horror: Local Cinema\, Global Genre - Olga Gershenson
DESCRIPTION:Before 2010\, there were no Israeli horror films. The next decade saw a blossoming of the genre by young Israeli filmmakers. New Israeli Horror is the first book to tell their story and analyze their films\, from inception to reception. What triggered this sudden development? Why did Israeli filmmakers turn to horror? How do their films portray Israel? What kind of horror scenarios do they depict and how? This presentation will grapple with these questions\, which are particularly poignant now\, in light of the attack on October 7 and the ensuing wars\, which pitted the real-life horrors against the fictional ones. \nOlga Gershenson is Professor of Judaic and Near Eastern Studies and of Film Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. A multi-disciplinary scholar\, her interests lie at the intersection of culture\, history\, and film. She is the author of New Israeli Horror: Local Cinema\, Global Genre (2024)\, The Phantom Holocaust: Soviet Cinema and Jewish Catastrophe (2013)\, Gesher: Russian Theater in Israel (2005)\, as well as editor of Ladies and Gents: Public Toilets and Gender (2009). She is currently working on a volume titled The Oxford Handbook of Judaism and Film. \n \nBook Website \nRSVP
URL:https://levecenter.ucla.edu/event/new-israeli-horror-local-cinema-global-genre-olga-gershenson/
CATEGORIES:Alan D. Leve Center Book Talk Series
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260224T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260224T153000
DTSTAMP:20260114T005710Z
CREATED:20260114T005710Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260114T005710Z
UID:8670-1771941600-1771947000@levecenter.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Seeing Like a Merchant: Jews and Greeks from Ottoman to Greek Rule - Paris Papamichos Chronakis
DESCRIPTION:How did the cosmopolitan bourgeoisie of the Eastern Mediterranean navigate the transition from empire to nation-state in the early twentieth century? In this talk\, Paris Papamichos Chronakis shows how the Jewish and Greek merchants of Salonica (present-day Thessaloniki) skillfully managed the tumultuous shift from Ottoman to Greek rule amidst rising ethnic tensions and heightened class conflict. Bringing their once powerful voices back into the historical narrative\, he traces their entangled trajectories as businessmen\, community members\, and civic leaders to illustrate how the self-reinvention of a Jewish-led bourgeoisie made a city Greek. Salonica’s merchants were present in their own—and their city’s—remaking. \nParis Papamichos Chronakis is Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Modern Greek History at Royal Holloway University of London. His work explores the entangled histories and divided memories of Jews and Christians in the Eastern Mediterranean from the late Ottoman Empire to the Holocaust. In recent years\, his research and publications have expanded to Salonica in World War One\, Greek interwar Zionism and anti-Zionism\, the Holocaust of Sephardi Jewry\, and digital Holocaust Studies. His first book\, The Business of Transition: Jewish and Greek Merchants of Salonica from Ottoman to Greek Rule\, was published by Stanford University Press in 2024 winning that year’s National Jewish Book Awards – JDC-Herbert Katzki Award (Writing Based on Archival Material). \nTuesday\, February 24\, 2026 • 314 Royce Hall • 2 PM\nSeeing Like a Merchant: Jews and Greeks from Ottoman to Greek Rule \nParis Papamichos Chronakis (Royal Holloway\, University of London)\nModerated by Aomar Boum (UCLA) \nMaurice Amado Program in Sephardic Studies \nCosponsored by the UCLA Stavros Niarchos Foundation Center for the Study of Hellenic Culture \nRSVP
URL:https://levecenter.ucla.edu/event/seeing-like-a-merchant-jews-and-greeks-from-ottoman-to-greek-rule-paris-papamichos-chronakis/
CATEGORIES:Maurice Amado Program in Sephardic Studies
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260219T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260219T153000
DTSTAMP:20260114T004439Z
CREATED:20260114T004439Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260114T004439Z
UID:8664-1771509600-1771515000@levecenter.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Vanishing Vienna: Modernism\, Philosemitism\, and Jews in a Postwar City - Frances Tanzer
DESCRIPTION:Frances Tanzer will discuss her new book\, Vanishing Vienna: Modernism\, Philosemitism\, and Jews in a Postwar City (University of Pennsylvania Press)\, which traces the reconstruction of Viennese culture from the 1938 German Anschluss through the early 1960s. The book reveals continuity in Vienna’s cultural history across this period: a framework for interpreting Viennese culture that has relied on antisemitism\, philosemitism\, and a related discourse of Jewish presence and absence. As she shows\, antisemitism and philosemitism were not contradictory forces in post-Nazi Austrian culture. They were deeply interconnected aspirations in a city where nostalgia for the past dominated cultural reconstruction efforts and supported seemingly contradictory impulses. Philosemitism was much more than a simple inversion of antisemitism—instead\, Tanzer argues\, philosemitism defined Vienna in the era of postwar reconstruction. Vanishing Vienna uncovers a rarely discussed phenomenon of the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust—a society that consumes\, redefines\, and bestows symbolic meaning on the victims in their absence. \nFrances Tanzer is the Rose Professor of Holocaust Studies and Jewish Culture at Clark University in Massachusetts and associate professor of history. Her book Vanishing Vienna: Philosemitism\, Modernism\, and Jews in a Postwar City was published with University of Pennsylvania Press in 2024. She has received support for her research from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum\, the Remarque Institute at NYU\, and others. Her new project is entitled: Klezmer Dynasty: An Intimate History of Modern Jewish Culture\, 1880-2019. \nThursday\, February 19\, 2026 • 314 Royce Hall • 2 PM  \nVanishing Vienna: Modernism\, Philosemitism\, and Jews in a Postwar City \nFrances Tanzer (Clark University)\nModerator: Michael Rothberg (UCLA) \nThe 1939 Society Program in Holocaust Studies\nProgram made possible by The 1939 Society\, a division of Holocaust Museum Los Angeles \nRSVP
URL:https://levecenter.ucla.edu/event/francestanzer/
CATEGORIES:1939 Society Program in Holocaust Studies
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260210T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260210T170000
DTSTAMP:20260108T233337Z
CREATED:20260108T233337Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260108T233337Z
UID:8656-1770739200-1770742800@levecenter.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Multilingualism and Translation in Ancient Judaism: Before and After Babel - Steven D. Fraade
DESCRIPTION:In this book\, Steven Fraade explores the practice and conception of multilingualism and translation in ancient Judaism. Interrogating the deep and dialectical relationship between them\, he situates representative scriptural and other texts within their broader synchronic – Greco-Roman context\, as well as diachronic context – the history of Judaism and beyond. Neither systematic nor comprehensive\, his selection of Hebrew\, Aramaic\, and Greek primary sources\, here fluently translated into clear English\, best illustrate the fundamental issues and the performative aspects relating to translation and multilingualism. Fraade scrutinizes and analyzes the texts to reveal the inner dynamics and the pedagogical-social implications that are implicit when multilingualism and translation are paired. His book demonstrates the need for a more thorough and integrated treatment of these topics\, and their relevance to the study of ancient Judaism\, than has been heretofore recognized. \nTuesday\, February 10\, 2026 • 314 Royce Hall • 4 PM\nMultilingualism and Translation in Ancient Judaism: Before and After Babel\nSteven D. Fraade (Yale University)\nModerator: William Schniedewind (UCLA) \nBible and the Ancient World series \nCosponsored by the UCLA Center for the Study of Religion \nRSVP
URL:https://levecenter.ucla.edu/event/multilingualism-and-translation-in-ancient-judaism-before-and-after-babel-steven-d-fraade/
CATEGORIES:Bible and the Ancient World Seminar Series
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260205T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260205T173000
DTSTAMP:20251201T190628Z
CREATED:20251201T190628Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251201T190628Z
UID:8640-1770307200-1770312600@levecenter.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Antisemitism\, an American Tradition - Pamela Nadell
DESCRIPTION:In Antisemitism\, an American Tradition Pamela S. Nadell\, the Patrick Clendenen Chair in Women’s and Gender history at American University\, recounts the powerful story of antisemitism in America and how it has shaped the lives of Jews for almost four centuries. \nIndeed\, Jews have met antisemitism since first landing in New Amsterdam in 1654 when Peter Stuyvesant tried to expel them. The founding of the US changed little\, as negative European stereotypes rooted into American soil. They faced restrictions on holding office\, admission to schools\, and employment in industry\, while their synagogues and cemeteries were vandalized. Recently\, white nationalists chanted “Jews will not replace us” in Charlottesville\, Virgina\, and a gunman killed eleven members at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue building. Antisemitic incidents have increased each year. \nProfessor Pamela Nadell holds the Patrick Clendenen Chair in Women’s and Gender History at American University. Her book America’s Jewish Women: A History from Colonial Times to Today won the 2019 National Jewish Book Award’s Everett Family Foundation “Book of the Year” and was translated into Hebrew. Her new book Antisemitism\, an American Tradition\, was published by W.W. Norton in October. A past president of the Association for Jewish Studies\, she consults to the museum planned for the rebuild of Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life and has testified before Congress three times. \nModerated by Dov Waxman (UCLA) \nRSVP
URL:https://levecenter.ucla.edu/event/antisemitism-an-american-tradition-pamela-nadell/
CATEGORIES:American Jewish Studies
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260129T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260129T170000
DTSTAMP:20251201T185323Z
CREATED:20251201T185323Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251201T185323Z
UID:8637-1769702400-1769706000@levecenter.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:After the Catastrophe: Ezra-Nehemiah and the Rebuilding of Community and Identity - Tamara Cohn Eskenazi
DESCRIPTION:The deaths and deportations that accompanied the destruction of the Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 587 BCE mark the turning point in the arc of biblical narrative. The book of Ezra-Nehemiah describes the reconstruction of life in Judah in the aftermath that catastrophe. It is the only book in the Hebrew Bible to depict this period. For over a century\, scholars neglected Ezra-Nehemiah and the period it describes. But the pendulum swung at last\, and in recent decades the book became a focal point for several reasons; among them is the growing consensus that the Pentateuch received its decisive shape during this period. Additionally\, as a story about a return from exile to an ancient homeland\, Ezra-Nehemiah has been embroiled in current political discourse linked with the return to Israel in the 20th century. Detractors and admirers alike concur that its messages had an enduring significance in the past and important messages for the present. This session will explore the book’s contribution to its own time as well as its relevance to today’s challenges. \nTamara Cohn Eskenazi\, Ph.D. is the Effie Wise Ochs Professor Emerita of Biblical Literature and History at Hebrew Union College. She is an award-winning scholar who specializes in writings from the Persian Period (538-333 BCE)\, with special focus on Ezra-Nehemiah. Her book\, In an age of Prose: A Literary Approach to Ezra-Nehemiah (1988) set the study of Ezra-Nehemiah on a new foundation. See also her recent Ezra: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. Anchor Yale Bible Series (2023). Prof. Eskenazi is the first woman professor appointed to the Rabbinical School at Hebrew Union College and a major contributor to Women’s Studies. Her publications include\, The Torah: A Women’s Commentary\, a 1400 page volume (2007) which won “The Book of the Year Award” granted by The Jewish Book Council\, and her JPS Bible Commentary: Ruth (2012\, authored with the late Tikva Frymer-Kensky) which won the award for Women’s Studies. \nModerator: Catherine Bonesho (UCLA) \nRSVP
URL:https://levecenter.ucla.edu/event/after-the-catastrophe-ezra-nehemiah-and-the-rebuilding-of-community-and-identity-tamara-cohn-eskenazi/
CATEGORIES:Bible and the Ancient World Seminar Series
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260127T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260127T153000
DTSTAMP:20251209T182430Z
CREATED:20251209T182430Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251209T182430Z
UID:8644-1769522400-1769527800@levecenter.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Prelude to the Holocaust: The Anti-Jewish Pogroms of Summer 1941 - Jeffrey Kopstein
DESCRIPTION:This lecture examines a particularly brutal wave a violence that occurred across hundreds of predominantly Polish and Ukrainian communities in the aftermath of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. The dominant explanations for pogrom violence center around three most frequently cited causes: endemic antisemitism in Eastern European societies\, a desire for revenge for alleged Jewish involvement in Soviet crimes during the occupation of 1939–1941\, and opportunistic appropriation of Jewish property. But a difficult question needs to be posed: why did pogroms occur in some places and not in others? Situating pogroms within the long history of local intercommunal relations sheds light on the sources of mass ethnic violence and the ways in which such gruesome acts might be avoided. \nJeffrey Kopstein is Dean’s Professor of Political Science at the University of California\, Irvine. In his research\, Professor Kopstein focuses on interethnic violence\, voting patterns of minority groups\, antisemitism\, and anti-liberal tendencies in civil society. These interests are central topics in his latest books\, Intimate Violence: Anti-Jewish Pogroms on the Eve of the Holocaust (Cornell University Press\, 2018)\, Politics\, Memory\, Violence: The New Social Science of the Holocaust (Cornell University Press\, 2023)\, and The Assault on the State: How the Global Attack on Modern Government Endangers our Future (Polity\, 2024). Professor Kopstein’s writings also appear in outlets like The Atlantic\, The New York Times\, The Globe and Mail\, and The Washington Post. \n  \nTuesday\, January 27\, 2026 • 314 Royce Hall • 2 PM\nPrelude to the Holocaust: The Anti-Jewish Pogroms of Summer 1941 \nJeffrey Kopstein (UCI)\nModerator: Jared McBride (UCLA) \nThe 1939 Society Program in Holocaust Studies \nRSVP
URL:https://levecenter.ucla.edu/event/prelude-to-the-holocaust-the-anti-jewish-pogroms-of-summer-1941-jeffrey-kopstein/
CATEGORIES:1939 Society Program in Holocaust Studies
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260115T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260115T173000
DTSTAMP:20251016T210540Z
CREATED:20251016T210540Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251016T210540Z
UID:8594-1768492800-1768498200@levecenter.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:EVENT CANCELLED - And God Laughed: Humor in the Bible - Joel Kaminsky
DESCRIPTION:Due to unforeseen circumstances\, this event has been cancelled. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.
URL:https://levecenter.ucla.edu/event/joel-kaminsky2026/
CATEGORIES:Bible and the Ancient World Seminar Series
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20251209T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20251209T153000
DTSTAMP:20251016T205602Z
CREATED:20251016T205602Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251016T205602Z
UID:8592-1765288800-1765294200@levecenter.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Unpacking my Father’s Book Store - Laurence Roth
DESCRIPTION:During its nearly thirty years in business\, J. Roth / Bookseller of Fine & Scholarly Judaica was a microcosm of the Los Angeles Jewish community and one of the premier Jewish bookstores in the United States. It thrived in the glow of the Jewish ethnic pride movements of the sixties and seventies but was unable to market its uniquely broad definition and collection of Jewish literature after the resurgence of Orthodox Judaism and the assimilation of Jewish writing into the corporate book superstores during the late eighties and early nineties. Through a combination of memoir and critical analysis\, and by connecting both to larger forces that helped shape Jewish and American book retailing in the twentieth-century\, Laurence Roth not only illustrates the importance of one American Jewish bookstore to its customers and to the family that helped run it. He explores\, too\, the role of Jewish bookstores in the assembly and transformation of Jewish cultures and how independent bookstores like J. Roth Bookseller\, which mostly disappear from history\, often had outsized effects on their communities. Breaking with conventional modes of scholarship\, Roth tells a unique and troubled story that rarely gets told\, one that is both personal and analytical\, theoretical but rooted in the everyday. \nLaurence Roth is the Charles B. Degenstein Professor of English and director of the Jewish & Israel Studies Program and The Build Collaborative (a project-based center for liberal arts\, business\, and creativity) at Susquehanna University\, Pennsylvania. He is the author of Inspecting Jews: American Jewish Detective Stories; coeditor\, with Nadia Valman\, of The Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Jewish Cultures; and editor of Modern Language Studies\, the scholarly journal of the Northeast Modern Language Association. \n \nTuesday\, December 9\, 2025 • 314 Royce Hall • 2 PM\nUnpacking my Father’s Book Store: The Life and Times of J. Roth Bookseller in Los Angeles\, 1966-1994 \nLaurence Roth (Susquehanna University)\nModerator: David N. Myers (UCLA) \nArnold Band Distinguished Lecture in Jewish Studies \nRSVP
URL:https://levecenter.ucla.edu/event/laurence-roth/
CATEGORIES:Arnold Band Distinguished Lecture in Jewish Studies
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UID:8588-1764856800-1764862200@levecenter.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Embracing Exile: The Case for Jewish Diaspora - David Kraemer
DESCRIPTION:Jewish people have always wandered. From the time of the Babylonian Exile in the early 6th century BCE\, diaspora became the Jews’ normal condition\, and though they may have hoped for a return to their “Promised Land” at the “End of Days\,” they made sense of their many homes\, defending diaspora as the realm where Jewish life could grow\, and they could fulfil their obligations to God. \nEmbracing Exile analyzes biblical and rabbinic texts\, philosophical treatises\, works of Kabbalah\, Hasidism\, and a multiplicity of modern expressions\, to show that diaspora Jews through the ages insisted that God joined them in their exiles\, that “Zion” was found in Babylon\, Ottoman Turkey\, and Eastern Europe\, and that\, as citizens of the world\, Jews could only live throughout the world. The result is an assertion that lament has not been the most common Jewish response to “exile” and that Zionism is not the natural outcome of either Jewish ideology or history. \nDavid Kraemer is Joseph J. and Dora Abbell Librarian at The Jewish Theological Seminary\, where he has also served as Professor of Talmud and Rabbinics for many years. As Librarian\, Prof. Kraemer is at the helm of the most extensive collection of Judaica—rare and contemporary—in the Western hemisphere. On account of the size and importance of the collection\, Prof. Kraemer is instrumental in setting policy and establishing vision for projects of international importance.\nProf. Kraemer is a prolific author and commentator. His books include The Mind of the Talmud (1990)\, Responses to Suffering in Classical Rabbinic Literature (1995)\, The Meanings of Death in Rabbinic Judaism (2000)\, Jewish Eating and Identity Through the Ages (Routledge\, 2007\, 2009)\, and A History of the Talmud (Cambridge U. Press\, 2019)\, among others. His most recent book is Embracing Exile: The Case for Jewish Diaspora\, (Oxford U. Press\, 2025). \n \nThursday\, December 4 2025 • 314 Royce Hall • 2 PM\nEmbracing Exile: The Case for Jewish Diaspora \nDavid Kraemer (Jewish Theological Seminary)\nModerator: David N. Myers (UCLA) \nAlan D. Leve Center Book Talk Series \nRSVP
URL:https://levecenter.ucla.edu/event/embracing-exile-the-case-for-jewish-diaspora-david-kraemer/
CATEGORIES:Alan D. Leve Center Book Talk Series
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UID:8585-1764684000-1764689400@levecenter.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:EVENT POSTPONED: Black Lives Under Nazism: Making History Visible in  Literature and Art - Sarah Phillips Casteel
DESCRIPTION:The event\, Black Lives under Nazism: Making History Visible in Literature and Art with Sarah Phillips Casteel (Carleton University)\, has been postponed. A new date will be announced once it is finalized. \nWe apologize for any inconvenience and appreciate your understanding. Please stay tuned for further updates. \n  \nIn a little-known chapter of World War II\, Black people living in Nazi Germany and occupied Europe were subjected to ostracization\, forced sterilization\, and incarceration in internment and concentration camps. In the absence of public commemoration\, Black writers and visual artists have preserved the stories of these forgotten victims of the Third Reich. Their works of memoir\, poetry\, fiction\, painting and photomontage illuminate both the relationship between creativity and wartime survival and the role of art in the formation of collective memory. Probing the boundaries of Holocaust memory and representation\, this talk draws attention to a largely unrecognized artistic corpus that challenges the erasure of Black wartime history. \nSarah Phillips Casteel is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and Professor of English at Carleton University. She has written and co-edited five books\, the most recent of which is Black Lives Under Nazism: Making History Visible in Literature and Art (Columbia University Press\, 2024). She has held visiting professorships at the Universities of Vienna and Potsdam and visiting fellowships at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and the Zentrum Jüdische Studien Berlin-Brandenburg. The recipient of a Canadian Jewish Literary Award and a Polanyi Prize\, she is a member of the Academic Council of the Holocaust Educational Foundation of Northwestern University. \n \nBlack Lives Under Nazism: Making History Visible in Literature and Art \nSarah Phillips Casteel (Carleton University) \nIn conversation with Ben Ratskoff (Occidental College) \nIntroduction by/Moderated by Todd Presner (UCLA) \nMichael and Irene Ross Program in Yiddish Studies \n 
URL:https://levecenter.ucla.edu/event/black-lives-under-nazism-making-history-visible-in-literature-and-art-sarah-phillips-casteel/
CATEGORIES:Michael and Irene Ross Program in Yiddish Studies
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UID:8581-1763474400-1763479800@levecenter.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Saving our Survivors: How American Jews Learned about the Holocaust - Rachel Deblinger
DESCRIPTION:Drawing on previously unexamined archives and postwar cultural materials\, Saving Our Survivors explores how American Jews constructed meaning out of devastation—and how humanitarian aid became intertwined with public memory. The book uncovers how American Jewish communities first came to learn about and respond to the Holocaust through communal campaigns\, radio broadcasts\, speeches\, short films\, and urgent calls to action. Rachel Deblinger highlights the messy\, diffuse\, and contested nature of memory construction in the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust and raises larger questions about how historical tragedies are narrated in moments of crisis. \nRachel Deblinger is the author of Saving Our Survivors: How American Jews learned about the Holocaust (2025\, Indiana University Press). Her research focuses on Holocaust memory in America\, media technology\, and the intersection of philanthropy and representation. Deblinger is also the Director of the Modern Endangered Archives Program (MEAP) at the UCLA Library\, a granting program that funds the digitization and preservation of at-risk cultural heritage materials from around the world. MEAP grants facilitate archival documentation and open access to diverse global collections. \n \nTuesday\, November 18\, 2025 • 314 Royce Hall • 2 PM  \nSaving our Survivors: How American Jews Learned about the Holocaust \nRachel Deblinger (UCLA) \nThe 1939 Society Program in Holocaust Studies\nThe Alan D. Leve Program for Public History \nRSVP
URL:https://levecenter.ucla.edu/event/rachel-deblinger/
CATEGORIES:1939 Society Program in Holocaust Studies,Alan D. Leve Program for Public History
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UID:8576-1761660000-1761665400@levecenter.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Webs of Life: Domestic Jewish Worlds in Early Modern Venice - Federica Francesconi
DESCRIPTION:This lecture explores domestic life in the Venetian ghetto as both a site of physical segregation\, housing scarcity\, and oppression\, and a space of cultural negotiation and transformation. Drawing on unpublished archival sources\, surviving material culture\, and the built environment\, it traces how Venetian Jews actively shaped their living spaces through engagement with objects\, furnishings\, and architectural features. From the central portego (the central space in Venetian houses) to repurposed Islamic carpets and gilt leather panels\, the home emerged as a site of transculturation where Jewish\, Islamic\, and Renaissance aesthetics intersected. These material choices reveal not only practical adaptation but also enduring ties to memory\, mobility\, and diasporic identity. By examining the interplay of people\, objects\, and spaces\, the lecture foregrounds the Jewish home in the ghetto as a dynamic meshwork—extending both vertically and horizontally\, and connecting domestic life to the broader urban fabric\, natural surroundings\, and the wider Mediterranean world. \nFederica Francesconi is Associate Professor of History and Director of the Judaic Studies Program at the University at Albany\, SUNY. Her research and publications focus on the social\, religious\, and cultural dimensions of early modern Jewish life in Italy\, with particular attention to the politics and dynamics of the ghetto. She has held fellowships in Europe\, Israel\, and the United States. Her recent book\, Invisible Enlighteners: The Jewish Merchants of Modena\, from the Renaissance to the Emancipation (University of Pennsylvania Press\, 2021)\, won the 2022 Helen and Howard R. Marraro Prize from the American Historical Association and was the finalist for the 2021 National Jewish Book Awards’ JDC-Herbert Katzki Award for Writing Based on Archival Material. She is currently working on a new monograph\, The Jewish Home in Early Modern Venice: Cosmopolitan Intimacy\, Global Networks\, and Diasporic Material Culture\, which examines the Jewish home in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Venice as a multi-religious and multi-ethnic nexus of individuals\, communities\, and objects in motion. This project has been supported by the Gladys Krieble Delmas\, the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture\, and I Tatti\, The Harvard University Center for Renaissance Studies in Florence. \nTuesday\, October 28\, 2025 • 314 Royce Hall • 2 PM\nWebs of Life: Domestic Jewish Worlds in Early Modern Venice \nFederica Francesconi (University at Albany)\nModerator: Stefania Tutino (UCLA)\nViterbi Program in Mediterranean Jewish Studies \nRSVP
URL:https://levecenter.ucla.edu/event/federica-francesconi2025/
CATEGORIES:Viterbi Program in Mediterranean Jewish Studies
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UID:8571-1761062400-1761067800@levecenter.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:The Yiddish Supernatural on Screen: Dybbuks\, Demons and Haunted Jewish Pasts - Rebecca Margolis
DESCRIPTION:The Yiddish language is often treated as humorous or nostalgic in television and in movies. As an ancestral language associated with trauma and dispossession\, Yiddish on screen additionally reconstructs haunted and mystical elements of the Jewish experience. The Yiddish Supernatural on Screen examines how Yiddish is used to reimagine Jewish lore and tells new stories of migration and dislocation where the supernatural looms over the narrative. The book talk considers the transformation of the figure of the dybbuk—a soul of the dead possessing the living—from folklore to 1930s Polish Yiddish cinema and on to global contemporary media; spoken Yiddish as a mystical cypher within the horror genre; and how immigrant or pre-immigrant pasts informs the present in prologues to comedy film and television such as A Serious Man. \nProfessor Rebecca (Rivke) Margolis is the Pratt Foundation Chair of Jewish Civilisation at Monash University\, Melbourne. Her research explores Yiddish cultural production across the past century\, including literature\, theatre\, film\, and television. She is the author of The Yiddish Supernatural on Screen: Dybbuks\, Demons and a Haunted Jewish Past; Yiddish Lives On: Strategies of Language Transmission; Jewish Roots\, Canadian Soil: Yiddish Culture in Montreal\, 1905-1945; and Basic Yiddish: A Grammar and Workbook. \n \nTuesday\, October 21\, 2025 • 314 Royce Hall • 4 PM\nThe Yiddish Supernatural on Screen: Dybbuks\, Demons and Haunted Jewish Pasts \nRebecca Margolis (Monash University)\nModerator: Todd Presner (UCLA) \nMichael and Irene Ross Program in Yiddish Studies \nRSVP
URL:https://levecenter.ucla.edu/event/rebecca-margolis-2025/
CATEGORIES:Michael and Irene Ross Program in Yiddish Studies
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