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SUMMARY:14th Annual ucLADINO conference: The Ladino Diaspora and Community Resilience: Memory and Adaptation
DESCRIPTION:In its fourteenth consecutive year\, the ucLADINO conference supports and celebrates the growing preservation of Ladino language and culture in the Judeo-Spanish diaspora. The theme for this year’s ucLADINO conference centers around Ladino and community resilience\, exploring the ways that Ladino language preserves cultural memory yet continually adapts and reacts to change. What is the role of language transmission amidst migration and cultural ruptures? How has Ladino practice adapted to a range of spaces\, from the domestic sphere and local community centers to towns\, cities\, nations\, archives\, and digital networks? \nCLICK HERE TO REGISTER FOR UCLADINO CONFERENCE \n14th Annual ucLADINO Conference \nThe Ladino Diaspora and Community Resilience:  \nMemory and Adaptation \nMay 19\, 2026\, The University of California\, Los Angeles \nSchedule\nIntroductions  9:00 – 9:10 AM PST \nPanel 1 | Ladino and Jewish Texts 9:10 – 10:10 AM PST \nPanel 2 | Ladino Theater\, Literature\, and the Press 10:20 – 11:20 AM PST \nKeynote | Edwin Seroussi 11:30 – 12:20 PM PST \nLadino Song Scandals: The 2026 Edition \nBreak  12:20 – 1:20 PM PST \nPanel 3 | Creation: Heritage and Cultural Dialogue 1:20 – 1:50 PM PST \nFeatured Roundtable | Notebooks of Sonic Memory 2:00 – 3:00 PM PST \nPanel 4 | Intergenerational Language Transmission 3:10 – 4:10 PM PST \nClosing Remarks 4:15 – 4:30 PM PST \nPanel 1 | Ladino and Jewish Texts\nModerated by Dr. Bryan Kirschen\, Binghamton University \n  \nDate/Time: Tuesday\, May 19th\, 2026\, 9:10 – 10:10 AM PST \n  \nJavier Leibiusky | CERMOM (INALCO) \nCustoms and Traditions in the Commentary on Pirkei Avot from the Meam Loez (Isaac Magriso\, Constantinople\, 1753) \n  \nJavier Leibiusky (b. 1975\, Buenos Aires) grew up in Israel and has lived in Paris since 2007. He is a researcher at INALCO\, holding a PhD in Languages\, Literatures\, and Societies of the World. His work focuses on Judeo-Spanish language and culture\, and he teaches Modern and Biblical Hebrew. Alongside academia\, he writes fiction\, publishing short story collections in Argentina and France\, including Llueven Uñas\, La Conspiration des Riobambas\, and Acoustic Stories. He recently released his first novel\, Howmme. \n  \nMarcel Israel | Independent Scholar \nSephardic Jews of the Balkans during the Ottoman Empire\, in some documents in Ladino\, found in the Cairo Genizah \nDr. Marcel Israel\, Ph.D.\, trained in Industrial Controls and Telecommunications. A Sephardic Jew\, born in Plovdiv\, Bulgaria\, living alternately in Madrid/ Spain\, and Sofia/ Bulgaria. Speaks Ladino as a native language. Former President of the Central Religious Council of the Jewish Communities in Bulgaria and currently a Board member of Religions for Peace Europe based in Berlin. For about 40 years\, an independent scholar in Jewish History and (Ladino) Linguistics\, presenting multiple scientific contributions at conferences\, seminars\, or webinars in different countries in Europe\, the USA\, and South America.  \n  \nEsther Rute | Ben-Gurion University of the Negev \nLadino in Responsa: An Inheritance Dispute between Amsterdam and the Ottoman Sephardic Diaspora \n  \nEsther Rute is a PhD candidate at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. She holds two M.A. degrees from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem\, in Jewish History and Spanish Studies\, and a B.A. in Arabic and Hebrew Philology from the Complutense University of Madrid. Her research focuses on Sephardic rabbinic literature in Judeo-Spanish in the Ottoman world\, with particular attention to legal culture\, converso identity\, and transcultural dynamics between Western European and Ottoman Jewish communities in the early modern period. She works with rabbinic sources in Ladino and Hebrew. \n  \nDavid M. Bunis | The Hebrew University of Jerusalem \nPierre Baudin d’Allauch (b. c1838): A Little-known French Friend of the Ottoman Jews and his Writings in Judezmo \n  \nDavid M. Bunis is professor emeritus at the Center for Jewish Languages and the Department of Hebrew Language\, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is the author of A Lexicon of Judezmo Language (in Hebrew\, Jerusalem\, 1999)\, Voices from Jewish Salonika (Jerusalem-Salonika\, 1999)\, and numerous articles on the Judezmo (Ladino\, Judeo-Spanish) language and its literature and on Jewish languages as a field of scholarly inquiry; editor of Languages and Literatures of Sephardic and Oriental Jews (2009); co-editor of Rabbinical Literature in Yiddish and Ladino (2025); Massorot\, devoted to Jewish language traditions\, and Caminos de leche y miel: Jubilee Volume in Honor of Michael Studemund-Halévy (2018). In 2006 he received the Yitzhak Ben-Zvi Prize\, and in 2013\, the EMET Prize. \n  \nPanel 2 | Ladino Theater\, Literature\, and the Press\nNegotiating Identity  \nModerated by Madeline Hudalla\, PhD Candidate\, UCLA \n  \nDate/Time: Tuesday\, May 19th\, 2026\, 10:20 – 11:20 AM PST \n  \nLilian L. Cano | University of Texas at San Antonio \nLadino\, Cultural Memory\, and Diasporic Resilience in Vida propia \n  \nLilian L. Cano is Professor of Practice in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at the University of Texas at San Antonio and a Ph.D. candidate in English. Her research centers on Ladino (Judeo-Spanish)\, Sephardic Jewish studies\, and the relationship between language and identity in literature. Her work examines how code-switching\, narrative voice\, and cultural memory shape identity in Sephardic and Spanish-language novels. She has presented at national and international conferences and is committed to the study and preservation of Ladino as a language of diaspora and cultural expression. \n  \nSarit Cofman-Simhon | Emunah College of Fine Arts and Design \nLate Ottoman Judezmo Theatre: A National Biography \n  \nDr. Sarit Cofman-Simhon is a theatre researcher interested in performative practices in diverse Jewish languages and historical periods\, on which she has published extensively. Sarit is based at Emunah Academic College of Fine Arts and Design\, Jerusalem\, where she is Head of Theatre Department. Her book From Language to Performance: Jewish Tongues on the Israeli Stage was published in 2023 in Hebrew. Her next book explores diverse performative phenomena in Jewish culture. \n  \nSanja Trifunović | University of Vienna \nJudeo-Spanish Aspects of Karagöz Shadow Theatre: Memory and Adaptation in the Post-Ottoman Era \n  \nSanja Trifunović is a linguist and orientalist\, currently a PhD candidate at the University of Vienna. She also attends online classes on endangered Jewish languages at the Oxford School of Rare Jewish Languages. She holds an MA in Philological Sciences from the Faculty of Philology\, University of Belgrade\, where she also obtained an MA/BA in Modern and Ottoman Turkish Language and Literature\, Arabic and English. Her research interests include anthropological linguistics\, language typology\, endangered Jewish languages\, Sephardic studies\, folklore\, music\, theatre and film. She has participated in several international conferences on Jewish Sephardic studies\, including the last two ucLADINO conferences. \n  \nLydia Vlasidou | York University \nNegotiating Belonging in the Judeo-Spanish Press of Early 20th Century New York \n  \nLydia Vlasidou is a PhD student in History at York University\, Toronto and she holds an MA in Arab and Hebrew Cultures from the University of Granada. Her research focuses on Sephardic identity formation in the late Ottoman and early modern Greek periods\, as well as the Sephardic diasporic experience\, questions of integration and relationships between diaspora communities and the homeland at a personal as well as institutional level. She has worked as a historical researcher with institutions including the Spanish National Research Council\, the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and the Holocaust Museum of Greece. \n  \nKeynote\n  \nDate/Time: Tuesday\, May 19th\, 2026\, 11:30 AM – 12:20 PM PST \n  \nEdwin Seroussi | The Hebrew University of Jerusalem  \nLadino Song Scandals: The 2026 Edition \n  \nEdwin Seroussi is the Emanuel Alexandre Professor Emeritus of Musicology at Hebrew University of Jerusalem\, Chair of the Academic Committee of the Jewish Music Research Centre\, Visiting Scholar at Dartmouth College\, and Jewish Sound Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania. His research focuses on Jewish musical cultures of the Mediterranean and Middle East and their interactions with Islamic cultures\, Judeo-Spanish song and music in Israel. Besides his academic activities he is active in the music scene of Israel and abroad in diverse capacities as producer\, advisor\, member of the board of musical institutions and representative to the International Music Council (UNESCO). He has been awarded several prestigious prizes\, among them the Israel Prize in the field of musicology for 2018. \n  \nPanel 3 | Creation: Heritage and Cultural Dialogue\nVirtual Gallery and Artist Talk \n  \nModerated by Courtney Blue\, PhD Candidate\, UCLA \n  \nDate/Time: Tuesday\, May 19\, 2026\, 1:20 – 1:50 PM PST \n  \nBecky Behar | Brandeis University \nTu Ke Bivas: An Illustrated Talk \n  \nBecky Behar is a Colombian-born\, Boston-area photo-based artist. Her staged photographs explore motherhood\, domesticity\, and generational ties\, with recent work focused on Sephardic identity and rituals. Blending autobiography and fiction\, she draws on Dutch painting\, using light\, shadow\, and symbolic still lifes to examine memory\, faith\, and inherited gesture. Behar has exhibited nationally and internationally\, including at the Museum of Fine Arts\, Boston\, and the Griffin Museum of Photography. Her work has appeared in The Boston Globe\, Lilith\, and Jewish Boston. She received the 2025 Isaac Anolic Jewish Book Arts Award and is a Visiting Scholar at Brandeis University’s Women’s Studies Research Center. \n  \nOfer Ronen | Musician \nMorenika Nos Llaman: A musician’s perspective on Ladino and Jewish musical culture in Spain today \n  \nOfer Ronen is a guitarist\, composer\, and music researcher based in Barcelona. Trained in classical and flamenco guitar\, he studied musicology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and worked for six years at the Jewish Music Research Centre under Prof. Edwin Seroussi. He later specialised in flamenco in Seville\, completing a musical performance master’s degree in Barcelona. His work explores the intersection of flamenco\, Middle Eastern\, Jewish\, and Mediterranean musical traditions\, including Ladino repertoire\, integrating performance and research. Ronen has performed internationally across Europe\, Israel\, and North America\, focusing on cultural dialogue and hybrid musical identities. \n  \nFeatured Roundtable | Notebooks of Sonic Memory\n  \nModerated by Dr. Vanessa Paloma Elbaz\, University of Cambridge \n  \nDate/Time: Tuesday\, May 19\, 2026\, 2:00 – 3:00 PM PST \n  \nVanessa Paloma Elbaz | University of Cambridge \nThe Judeo-Spanish Cancionero as Embodied Transmission of Becoming-Memory \nVanessa Paloma Elbaz is a Senior Research Associate at Peterhouse and the University of Cambridge’s music faculty. A previous Senior Fulbright scholar\, Marie Sklodowska Curie fellow and Posen fellow among others\, she is the chair of the International Council for Music and Dance’s Mediterranean Music Study Group. She was the general editor for a special issue on Judeo-Spanish Songbooks forthcoming by Presses de l’INALCO\, an edited volume by the British Academy on Sound and Memory in the Western Mediterranean and her monograph on Judeo-Spanish women’s songs from Northern Morocco is forthcoming from Brill. Her work is often featured in the international media such as BBC\, New York Times\, Al Jazeera\, France 24 and others. She founded KHOYA: Jewish Morocco Sound Archive in 2012 and launched a multilingual online exhibit with one interview from its collection http://yalalla.org.uk. \n  \nJudith Cohen | York University \nMy ethnomusicologist self examines the Ladino songs in my performer self’s song notebook \nJudith Cohen is a Canadian ethnomusicologist\, medievalist and singer\, working with Sephardic music\, music among Portuguese and Brazilian Crypto-Jews\, and related diaspora traditions in the Balkans\, French Canada\, Spain\, Portugal l\, BraIl and others. She also works as a storyteller\, embedding her research and travels into her stories to reach and interact with non-academic audiences. \n  \nPam Sezgin | University of North Georgia \nThe Besso Songbook: A Late Ottoman Sephardic Musical Legacy \nDr. Pam Sezgin is Professor of Anthropology at the University of North Georgia (USA).  Her research is in political anthropology and ethnomusicology regarding Sephardic Jews in the Ottoman Empire (19th and 20th centuries). \n  \nRenato Kamhi | Violinist\, PhD Sorbonne Université \nThe Flory Jagoda Songbook: Memories of Sarajevo\, elements of a collective memory \nOriginally from Sarajevo\, Bosnia and Herzegovina\, Renato Kamhi has been immersed in Judeo-Spanish music since childhood. He holds a doctorate from Sorbonne University on the role of the diaspora in the revitalization of the Judeo-Spanish musical repertoire in the former Yugoslavia. Violinist\, Renato Kamhi holds two master’s degrees (violin and teaching) and teaches at a music conservatory in the Paris region. A founding member of the piano trio ARK\, he performs with the ensemble in France and across Europe.  \nPanel 4 | Intergenerational Language Transmission and Sustainability\nModerated by Dr. Rachel Baron-Bloch\, UC Irvine \n  \nDate/Time: Tuesday\, May 19th\, 2026\, 3:10 – 4:10 PM PST \n  \nDerya Agis | Ankara University \nJudeo‑Spanish Culinary Diplomacy Through an Ecolinguistic Lens \n  \nDerya Agis is an academic researcher and anthropologist specializing in the intersections of language\, culture\, and the environment. Her work frequently explores Cognitive Metaphor Theory\, Ecolinguistics\, and Critical Discourse Analysis\, with a particular focus on how these frameworks apply to both historical and contemporary political narratives. She has a deep research interest in Italian-American and Sephardic studies\, specifically examining linguistic heritage and the role of culinary diplomacy in literature. Her scholarly contributions include investigating botanical and sensory history\, notably the 19th-century scientific and literary perspectives on environmental health. Agis is also an active member of the academic community\, contributing to international networks such as H-Envirohealth\, where she explores the intersecting histories of health and medicine. Her recent publications include work on environmental justice and eco-cognizance. Beyond her core research\, she is dedicated to curriculum development and is currently expanding her expertise in Renaissance culture and the Italian language. She holds a B.A. and Ph.D. from Ankara University on Italian Language and Culture\, an M.A. in Linguistics from Hacettepe University\, and an M.S. in Anthropology from METU.  \nFabiola Varela-García | University of Wisconsin Eau Claire \nThe Diaspora of the Spanish Language in Eurasia: Memory and Maintenance of Sephardic Spanish in Istanbul \n  \nFabiola Varela-García is a Full Professor at UW-Eau Claire with a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania. Specializing in Sociolinguistics and Spanish Phonetics\, she has conducted research on Andalusian\, Guatemalan indigenous languages\, and 18th-century Isleño Spanish of Louisiana. Today\, she is presenting on behalf of herself and her mentees: Bricyn Barziza\, who graduates this May with a degree in Education and Spanish\, and Léa Guilmineau\, now a Master’s student in Germany. Their UWEC ORSP-funded study analyzes Judeo-Spanish dating back to the 16th century\, which is still spoken today in Istanbul\, utilizing digital archives to establish a foundation for fresh research and the preservation of this historical linguistic heritage. \n  \nJacob Ceki Hazan | Lund University \nWho Still Carries Ladino in İzmir? \n  \nJacob Ceki Hazan was born and raised in İzmir\, Turkey\, within the city’s Sephardic Jewish community. Like many in his generation\, he did not grow up speaking Ladino but absorbed it through earlier generations of his family. He is currently completing an MA in Jewish Studies at Lund University in Sweden\, where his research explores the İzmir Jewish community and how its heritage is preserved and presented. He runs avierto.net\, a Turkish-language Jewish Studies platform\, and izmirjcc.org\, the İzmir Jewish Community’s website. He is now based in Baltimore\, Maryland. \nCarlos Yebra López | California State University\, Fullerton \nA Star Is Born: Estreyika and the Radical Possibilities of a Ladino Chatbot \n  \nCarlos Yebra Lopez is a scholar of Hispanic linguistics whose work focuses on Ladino (Judeo-Spanish) language\, culture\, and its contemporary revitalization. He is an Assistant Professor of Spanish Linguistics at California State University\, Fullerton\, and the author of Ladino on the Internet: Sepharad 4 (Routledge\, 2024)\, the first critical and systematic account in English of the online revitalization of Ladino. He is the Principal Investigator behind Estreyika\, the first Ladino chatbot.
URL:https://levecenter.ucla.edu/event/14th-annual-ucladino-conference-the-ladino-diaspora-and-community-resilience-memory-and-adaptation/
CATEGORIES:ucLADINO
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SUMMARY:The Past\, Present\, and Future of Jews and the Labor Movement in Los Angeles
DESCRIPTION:What drew Jewish immigrants to the labor movement? How did unions become distinctly “Jewish” spaces – and what happened when they changed? Join historians\, organizers\, and community leaders for a panel on Jewish labor activism in Los Angeles: from the open-shop battles of the early 20th century to today. \nThursday\, May 28\, 2026 • UCLA Labor Center • 5:30 PM\n675 S Park View Street\, Los Angeles\, CA 90057 \nThe Past\, Present\, and Future of Jews and the Labor Movement in Los Angeles \nRabbi Aryeh Cohen (Professor\, American Jewish University)\nMaya Barron-Jones (UFCW Local 770)\nJackie Goldberg (retired educator and elected official)\nLeora Swerdlow (Associate\, Schwartz\, Steinsapir\, Dohrmann & Sommers LLP) \nModerated by Brian Dolber (Associate Professor of Communication and Media Studies\, California State University\, San Marcos) \nSponsored by\nThe UCLA Labor Center\nThe UCLA Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies\nJewish Partnership for Los Angeles\nThe Jewish Labor Committee\nLA Voice\nUFCW Local 770\nUNITE HERE Local 11 \nRSVP
URL:https://levecenter.ucla.edu/event/the-past-present-and-future-of-jews-and-the-labor-movement-in-los-angeles/
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260602T160000
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SUMMARY:Happy Jews in the Roman Diaspora? The Case of Asia Minor (Anatolia) - Seth Schwartz
DESCRIPTION:A dominant trend in scholarship about Jews in the Roman Imperial diaspora emphasizes the Jews’ achievement of a successful balance between integration and separation\, and regards this happy equilibrium as essentially stable for centuries. I will argue that this view rests on a fundamental misreading of the sources. Asia Minor (modern Turkey) provided the richest evidence for the dominant view but when disentangled tells a story of conflict\, instability and\, above all\, poverty. This rather gloomy picture changed for the better only in the fourth century CE\, before a steady decline starting in the fifth. \nSeth Schwartz is the Lucius N. Littauer Professor of Classical Jewish Civilization in the Departments of History and Classics at Columbia University\, where he also chairs the Graduate Program in Classical Studies. He received his PhD in History at Columbia in 1985. Before returning to Columbia in 2009\, Schwartz taught at Cornell\, the University of Rhode Island and the Jewish Theological Seminary\, had research fellowships at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem\, the Harvard Society of Fellows and King’s College Cambridge. He wrote Consuls of the Later Roman Empire (Atlanta: Scholars Press\, 1987)(with Roger Bagnall\, Alan Cameron and Klaas Worp)\, Josephus and Judaean Politics (Leiden: Brill\, 1990)\, Imperialism and Jewish Society\, 200 BCE to 640 CE (Princeton: Princeton University Press\, 2001)\, Were the Jews a Mediterranean Society? Reciprocity and Solidarity in Ancient Judaism (Princeton: Princeton University Press\, 2010)\, and The Ancient Jews From Alexander to Muhammad (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press\, 2014). The Jews of Asia Minor\, 215 BCE to 500 CE: Text and Materiality\, will be published by University of Chicago Press in November. \nTuesday\, June 2\, 2026 • 314 Royce Hall • 4 PM\nHappy Jews in the Roman Diaspora? The Case of Asia Minor (Anatolia)\nSeth Schwartz (Columbia University)\nModerator: Catherine Bonesho (UCLA) \nEtta and Milton Leve Scholar in Residence Lecture \nRSVP to Happy Jews in the Roman Diaspora
URL:https://levecenter.ucla.edu/event/happy-jews-in-the-roman-diaspora-the-case-of-asia-minor-anatolia/
CATEGORIES:Etta and Milton Leve Scholar-in-Residence
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UID:8807-1780495200-1780500600@levecenter.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Jews and Godfearers: Sardis and Aphrodisias\, 400 CE - Seth Schwartz
DESCRIPTION:The phenomenon of “Godfearing”—adoption by gentiles\, usually supposed to have been pagan—of Jewish practices including support for local Jewish communities and attendance in synagogues—has loomed larger in scholarship than it does in the sources. But the phenomenon surely existed. Some ancient writers suggest that in the first century most diaspora jewish communities had a “fringe” of gentile sympathizers who functioned for Jewish communities as protectors and mediators with local governments. Godfearing comes to the fore again in major texts of the early fifth century CE. How much of the traditional picture can be salvaged? (Spoiler: some) How continuous was fifth-century Godfearing with first-century Godfearing? (Second spoiler: not very). \nSeth Schwartz is the Lucius N. Littauer Professor of Classical Jewish Civilization in the Departments of History and Classics at Columbia University\, where he also chairs the Graduate Program in Classical Studies. He received his PhD in History at Columbia in 1985. Before returning to Columbia in 2009\, Schwartz taught at Cornell\, the University of Rhode Island and the Jewish Theological Seminary\, had research fellowships at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem\, the Harvard Society of Fellows and King’s College Cambridge. He wrote Consuls of the Later Roman Empire (Atlanta: Scholars Press\, 1987)(with Roger Bagnall\, Alan Cameron and Klaas Worp)\, Josephus and Judaean Politics (Leiden: Brill\, 1990)\, Imperialism and Jewish Society\, 200 BCE to 640 CE (Princeton: Princeton University Press\, 2001)\, Were the Jews a Mediterranean Society? Reciprocity and Solidarity in Ancient Judaism (Princeton: Princeton University Press\, 2010)\, and The Ancient Jews From Alexander to Muhammad (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press\, 2014). The Jews of Asia Minor\, 215 BCE to 500 CE: Text and Materiality\, will be published by University of Chicago Press in November. \n  \nWednesday\, June 3\, 2026 • 306 Royce Hall • 2 PM\nJews and Godfearers: Sardis and Aphrodisias\, 400 CE \nSeth Schwartz (Columbia University)\nModerator: Carol Bakhos (UCLA) \nEtta and Milton Leve Scholar in Residence Seminar \nRSVP to Jews and Godfearers
URL:https://levecenter.ucla.edu/event/jews-and-godfearers-sardis-and-aphrodisias-400-ce/
CATEGORIES:Etta and Milton Leve Scholar-in-Residence
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SUMMARY:UCLA Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies Open House Celebration (2026-2027)
DESCRIPTION:Tuesday\, September 29\, 2026 • 314 Royce Hall • 4 PM\nUCLA Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies Open House Celebration \nShare a bite with the Leve Center faculty\, staff\, students\, and community friends. Learn about our diverse projects\, programs\, and courses. \nRSVP
URL:https://levecenter.ucla.edu/event/ucla-alan-d-leve-center-for-jewish-studies-open-house-celebration-2026-2027/
LOCATION:UCLA Royce Hall\, Room 314\, 10745 Dickson Court\, Los Angeles\, CA\, 90095\, United States
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ORGANIZER;CN="UCLA Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies":MAILTO:levecenter@humnet.ucla.edu
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20261001T140000
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DTSTAMP:20260928T190656Z
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SUMMARY:Zionism in Translation: Encounters in the German-Hebrew Archive
DESCRIPTION:Zionism in Translation concerns exchanges—primarily of letters but also drafts\, reviews\, and other ephemera—sent to or from Jerusalem in the decades around 1948. All were written in German and Hebrew by a fascinating range of literary figures\, including Hannah Arendt\, Gershom Scholem\, Yehuda Amichai\, Ludwig Strauss\, Erich Auerbach\, Walter Benjamin\, Leah Goldberg\, Peter Szondi\, Paul Celan\, and Tuvia Ruebner. The writers discussed in the book contend with the genocidal violence that brought the rich historical relation between German and Hebrew to a seeming end. They also grapple\, in different ways\, with the new reality in Israel/Palestine in the wake of the founding of the State of Israel and the Palestinian Nakba. The bilingual conversation that crosses over between German and Hebrew in these letters thus centers around the question of Jewish fate in the twentieth century and is immersed in negotiations about Jewish nationalism\, the Zionist movement\, and the possibilities of Jewish poetry. In the space between German and Hebrew\, Rokem argues\, the protagonists of her story voice ambivalences and hesitancies not found elsewhere. \nNa’ama Rokem is Associate Professor of Hebrew and Comparative Literature at the University of Chicago\, where she has directed the Joyce Z. and Jacob Greenberg Center for Jewish Studies and chaired the department of Comparative Literature. Her first book\, Prosaic Conditions: Heinrich Heine and the Spaces of Zionist Literature was published by Northwestern University Press in 2013. \nThursday\, October 1\, 2025 • 306 Royce Hall • 2 PM\nNa’ama Rokem (University of Chicago)\nModerator: William Schniedewind (UCLA)\nZionism in Translation: Encounters in the German-Hebrew Archive\nSady & Ludwig Kahn Book Talk in German Jewish Studies
URL:https://levecenter.ucla.edu/event/zionism-in-translation-encounters-in-the-german-hebrew-archive/
LOCATION:UCLA Royce Hall\, Room 306\, 10745 Dickson Court\, Los Angeles\, CA\, 90095\, United States
CATEGORIES:Sady and Ludwig Kahn Program in German Jewish Studies
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UID:11026-1792072800-1792078200@levecenter.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Sacred Betrayal: How the French Catholic Church Broke Its Pledge to Protect Jews During the Holocaust - Aliza Luft
DESCRIPTION:It is well known that the French Catholic Church\, which opposed Hitler before 1940\, silenced itself during the German occupation. But Aliza Luft shows that the Church was more than silent: it was complicit. Behind closed doors\, bishops repeatedly assured Jewish leaders of the Church’s support—only to betray their trust amidst the Nazi threat. \nAliza Luft is Associate Professor of Sociology at UCLA\, where her research examines how classifications of self and other shift in contexts of war and genocide and drive decisions to participate in\, resist\, or abstain from violence. Her book\, Sacred Betrayal: How the French Catholic Church Broke Its Pledge to Protect Jews during the Holocaust\, will be published by Harvard University Press in September 2026\, and her research has appeared in leading sociological journals as well as The New York Times\, LA Times\, Washington Post\, and other outlets. She currently serves as Interim Director of the UCLA Bedari Kindness Institute\, which houses the Initiative to Study Hate and Dialogue Across Difference\, and on the Steering Committee of the UC Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation. Prior to UCLA\, Dr. Luft worked with USAID\, the UN Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate\, and Facing History & Ourselves. \nTuesday\, October 15\, 2026 • 314 Royce Hall • 2 PM\nSacred Betrayal: How the French Catholic Church Broke Its Pledge to Protect Jews During the Holocaust \nAliza Luft (UCLA)\nModerator: Michael Rothberg (UCLA) \nCosponsored by\nThe UCLA Bedari Kindness Institute\nThe UCLA Department of Sociology \nRSVP
URL:https://levecenter.ucla.edu/event/sacred-betrayal-how-the-french-catholic-church-broke-its-pledge-to-protect-jews-during-the-holocaust-aliza-luft/
LOCATION:UCLA Royce Hall\, Room 314\, 10745 Dickson Court\, Los Angeles\, CA\, 90095\, United States
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ORGANIZER;CN="UCLA Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies":MAILTO:levecenter@humnet.ucla.edu
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20261104T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20261104T153000
DTSTAMP:20260909T185615Z
CREATED:20260909T185615Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260909T185615Z
UID:11173-1793800800-1793806200@levecenter.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:From Debdou’s Little Seville to America’s Guess: Rural Artisans and Global Designers - Aomar Boum
DESCRIPTION:In this talk\, Prof. Boum will develop the concept of aesthetic funds of knowledge to name the embodied\, socially transmitted\, and commercially usable repertoires through which Sephardic Moroccan Jews built aesthetic and sartorial competence across Debdou\, France\, and the Americas. Drawing on ten years of ethnographic and archival research in the Moroccan Jewish community in Los Angeles and building on Luis Moll’s account of the relation among household\, community\, and education\, he examines how the Marcianos and other LA- and Montreal-based Moroccan Jews\, whose family history links rural Moroccan Jewish life to transnational fashion commerce\, negotiated Sephardic cultural identity and economic participation through work with dress\, shoes\, and bags. Family networks\, business partnerships\, and community organizations enabled Marciano scribes\, weavers\, cobblers\, artisans\, and entrepreneurs to convert clothing knowledge and aesthetic judgment into reputational capital\, niche positioning\, and durable commercial ties. Their careers show how Sephardic distinction in the garment and fashion sectors grew from inherited craft knowledge\, kin-based trust\, and the practical calibration of taste across Mediterranean and Atlantic commercial worlds. \nWednesday\, November 4\, 2026 • 314 Royce Hall • 2 PM\nFrom Debdou’s Little Seville to America’s Guess: Rural Artisans and Global Designers\nAomar Boum (UCLA)\nMaurice Amado Program in Sephardic Studies \nRSVP
URL:https://levecenter.ucla.edu/event/from-debdous-little-seville-to-americas-guess-rural-artisans-and-global-designers-aomar-boum/
LOCATION:UCLA Royce Hall\, Room 314\, 10745 Dickson Court\, Los Angeles\, CA\, 90095\, United States
CATEGORIES:Maurice Amado Program in Sephardic Studies
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://levecenter.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Boum_Aomar_2026_Tile2.jpg
ORGANIZER;CN="UCLA Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies":MAILTO:levecenter@humnet.ucla.edu
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20261110T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20261110T173000
DTSTAMP:20260928T190759Z
CREATED:20260903T204749Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260928T190759Z
UID:11036-1794326400-1794331800@levecenter.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Yiddish in the Land of Sunshine: Race\, Labor\, and Jewish Radicalism in Los Angeles - Caroline Luce
DESCRIPTION:Yiddish in the Land of Sunshine examines how a cohort of young Jewish radicals from Eastern Europe helped reshape multiracial left-wing activism in Southern California. It traces their migration from the Russian Empire to Los Angeles and their involvement in labor and left-wing movements. Focusing especially on Boyle Heights\, the book explores how the neighborhood’s diverse communities shaped Yiddish public culture and Jewish political organizing. It highlights the relationships\, collaborations\, and tensions that emerged as Jewish radicals built multiracial coalitions with Mexican\, Asian\, and African American neighbors. Drawing on previously untranslated Yiddish sources\, the book challenges traditional Jewish immigration narratives centered on the Northeast and places Jewish workers in the American West at the center of Jewish and American history. Ultimately\, it demonstrates how Eastern European Jewish radicals and trade unionists contributed to Los Angeles through innovative organizing and helped shape the city’s evolving racial and political landscape. \nCaroline Luce is Project Director with the UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and Employment and formerly Chief Curator of Mapping Jewish Los Angeles\, a project of the UCLA Leve Center for Jewish Studies. \nTuesday\, November 10\, 2026 • 306 Royce Hall • 4 PM\nYiddish in the Land of Sunshine: Jewish Radicalism\, Labor\, and Culture in Los Angeles \nCaroline Luce (UCLA)\nModerator: Todd Presner (UCLA) \nCosponsored by the UCLA Institute for Research on Labor & Employment \nMichael and Irene Ross Program in Yiddish Studies \nCosponsored by The\nUCLA Institute for Research on Labor & Employment\nUCLA Department of History \nRSVP
URL:https://levecenter.ucla.edu/event/yiddish-in-the-land-of-sunshine-race-labor-and-jewish-radicalism-in-los-angeles-caroline-luce/
LOCATION:UCLA Royce Hall\, Room 306\, 10745 Dickson Court\, Los Angeles\, CA\, 90095\, United States
CATEGORIES:Michael and Irene Ross Program in Yiddish Studies
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://levecenter.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Luce_Caroline_Tile2c.jpg
ORGANIZER;CN="UCLA Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies":MAILTO:levecenter@humnet.ucla.edu
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20261119T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20261119T153000
DTSTAMP:20260915T155222Z
CREATED:20260915T155222Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260915T155222Z
UID:11245-1795096800-1795102200@levecenter.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Uncertain Empire: Jews\, Nationalism\, and the Fate of British Imperialism - Elizabeth E. Imber
DESCRIPTION:Following the British conquest of Ottoman Palestine\, Jews across the British Empire—from Jerusalem to Johannesburg\, and London to Calcutta—found themselves at the heart of global Jewish political discourse. As these intellectuals\, politicians\, activists\, and communal elites navigated shifting political landscapes\, some envisioned Palestine as a British dominion\, leveraging imperial power for Jewish state-building\, while others fostered ties with anticolonial movements\, contemplating independent futures. This talk\, based on Imber’s new book Uncertain Empire: Jews\, Nationalism\, and the Fate of British Imperialism (Stanford University Press\, 2025)\, will explore this intricate interplay between British imperialism\, Zionism\, and anticolonial movements from the 1917 British conquest of Palestine to the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. In doing so\, it will show how the British Empire’s fate became central to Zionist and broader Jewish political thought during a time marked by profound urgency and exigency. \nElizabeth Imber is Associate Professor of History and the Michael and Lisa Leffell Chair in Modern Jewish History at Clark University. Her work examines the cultural and political dimensions and intersections of Jewish history and European imperial history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Her first book\, Uncertain Empire: Jews\, Nationalism\, and the Fate of British Imperialism (Stanford University Press\, 2025)\, received the 2025 National Jewish Book Award for Writing Based on Archival Material and the 2025 Salo Baron Book Prize from the American Academy for Jewish Research\, and was co-winner of the 2026 Shapiro Award from the Association for Israel Studies. \nThursday\, November 19\, 2025 • 306 Royce Hall • 2 PM  \nUncertain Empire: Jews\, Nationalism\, and the Fate of British Imperialism\nElizabeth E. Imber (Clark University)\nModerator: Sarah Abrevaya Stein (UCLA)\nViterbi Program in Mediterranean Jewish Studies \nRSVP
URL:https://levecenter.ucla.edu/event/uncertain-empire-jews-nationalism-and-the-fate-of-british-imperialism-elizabeth-e-imber/
LOCATION:UCLA Royce Hall\, Room 306\, 10745 Dickson Court\, Los Angeles\, CA\, 90095\, United States
CATEGORIES:Viterbi Program in Mediterranean Jewish Studies
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://levecenter.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Imber_Elizabeth_Tile2.jpg
ORGANIZER;CN="UCLA Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies":MAILTO:levecenter@humnet.ucla.edu
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20270114T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20270114T153000
DTSTAMP:20261005T222136Z
CREATED:20261005T222136Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20261005T222136Z
UID:11449-1799935200-1799940600@levecenter.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:The Question of Antisemitism: A Guide for a World Divided by Israel-Palestine - Dov Waxman
DESCRIPTION:Since the October 7\, 2023\, attack by Hamas on Israel and Israel’s ensuing war in Gaza\, difficult questions about when criticism of Israel or support for Palestine becomes antisemitic have moved to the center of public life and political debate. Amid growing antisemitism and fierce disagreement over what is or isn’t antisemitic\, what is needed now more than ever is a clearer and more sophisticated understanding of antisemitism and how it relates to Israel-Palestine. In The Question of Antisemitism\, Dov Waxman provides precisely that\, presenting an authoritative guide to today’s contentious debates about antisemitism\, anti-Zionism\, and Israel-Palestine. \nDov Waxman is the Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation Chair of Israel Studies and former director of the UCLA Y&S Nazarian Center for Israel Studies at the University of California\, Los Angeles. Before joining UCLA\, he was the Stotsky Professor of Jewish Historical and Cultural Studies\, a Professor of Political Science\, and the director of the Middle East Center at Northeastern University. He was previously an associate professor at the City University of New York\, an assistant professor at Bowdoin College\, and a visiting professor at the Middle East Technical University. He has also had visiting fellowships at Oxford University\, the Hebrew University\, Bar-Ilan University and Tel Aviv University. He graduated from Oxford University and received his Ph.D. and M.A. from the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. His research and writing focus on the Israel-Palestine issue\, contemporary antisemitism\, Jewish politics\, Israeli politics\, Israel-Diaspora relations\, U.S.-Israel relations\, and U.S.-Middle East relations. He is the author four books: The Pursuit of Peace and The Crisis of Israeli Identity: Defending / Defining the Nation (2006)\, Israel’s Palestinians: The Conflict Within (2011)\, Trouble in the Tribe: The American Jewish Conflict over Israel (2016)\, and The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: What Everyone Needs to Know (published by Oxford University Press in 2019). His writing has also been published in The New York Times\, The Washington Post\, The Los Angeles Times\, The Guardian\, Haaretz\, The Forward\, The Atlantic\, Time\, Slate\, Foreign Policy and many other places. \nThursday\, January 14\, 2027 • 306 Royce Hall • 2 PM\nThe Question of Antisemitism: A Guide for a World Divided by Israel-Palestine\nDov Waxman (UCLA)\nModerator: Michael Rothberg (UCLA) \nCosponsored by the UCLA Y&S Nazarian Center for Israel Studies and the Bedari Kindness Institute \nRSVP
URL:https://levecenter.ucla.edu/event/the-question-of-antisemitism-a-guide-for-a-world-divided-by-israel-palestine-dov-waxman/
LOCATION:UCLA Royce Hall\, Room 306\, 10745 Dickson Court\, Los Angeles\, CA\, 90095\, United States
CATEGORIES:Alan D. Leve Center Book Talk Series
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://levecenter.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/Waxman_Dov_Tile2.jpg
ORGANIZER;CN="UCLA Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies":MAILTO:levecenter@humnet.ucla.edu
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END:VCALENDAR