JEAN & SAMUEL FRANKEL CENTER FOR JUDAIC STUDIES Fall 2019 Frankely Speaking From the Director

By Jeffrey Veidlinger, Director of the Frankel Center for Judaic Studies and Joseph Brodsky Collegiate Professor of History and Judaic Studies

iddish Matters. A Yiddish language produc- its own richness to the many places in which tion of Fiddler on the Roof has once again its speakers have lived. Other fellows are working Yextended its Broadway run, an Israeli TV on Yiddish responses to trauma, an important series that is partially in Yiddish has been a and, tragically, salient topic in Yiddish culture. runaway success on Netflix, a Yiddish language And, of course, what would Yiddish culture— musical album was nominated for a Grammy or life itself—be without food and poetry, two award, summer backpackers in Europe are flocking other topics we will be considering this year. to several Yiddish cultural festivals around the continent, and, here at the University of Michigan, For many of its enthusiasts today, Yiddish suggests enrollments in Yiddish language courses are once a type of intercultural conversation and understanding, again on the rise. I even saw an article just today rooted in shared histories. about how a candidate for the presidency of the United States is campaigning in Yiddish! I don’t think the revived interest in Yiddish is solely This year, the Frankel a function of nostalgia. Rather, Yiddish offers Institute for Advanced something that many young people today are Judaic Studies welcomes seeking— a way of reinterpreting the past by fifteen scholars from imagining alternative histories and suggesting around the world, who, future possibilities. Many Lithuanians and Poles, for under the leadership instance, are seeking answers to modern problems of Head Fellow and in the Jewish cultures that no longer exist in their Samuel Shetzer Associate home countries, and many around the world Professor of English are turning back to Yiddish either as a religious or a and Judaic Studies secular means of expression that doesn’t carry the Julian Levinson, will spend a semester or year weight of the last half century. Yiddish can provide in residency at the University of Michigan to a means of being subversive while drawing on explore Yiddish from a variety of perspectives. traditional archetypes. Yiddish and the culture it The Frankel Center will also be presenting a series represents is no longer just loshn ashkenaz, the of public programs on the theme over the course language of Ashkenaz, or even mame-loshn, the of the year. mother tongue, but rather has become taytsh, a term that originally referenced the language’s The multiple ways in which Yiddish matters today Germanic roots, but has since come to denote is indicative of the changing contours of Judaic translation. For many of its enthusiasts today, Studies, as it becomes increasingly diverse and Yiddish suggests a type of intercultural conversa- international. Several fellows are working on the tion and understanding, rooted in shared histories. global reach of Yiddish—its impact not only in On the Cover Poland and Lithuania but also in France, South Similar themes of Jewish diversity, hybridity, and HistoryLab course Africa, Suriname, and Peru. Yiddish translation adaptability permeate the Frankel Center’s course participants visit and bilingualism are also topics our fellows will offerings and public events, as we continue to find the United States be exploring, as they consider the ways in which new ways of engaging and inspiring students. Holocaust Memorial Yiddish functions as a fusion language, absorbing That’s why Yiddish matters. Museum in Washington, aspects of neighboring tongues and contributing D.C. (see pg. 13)

2 Franke ly Speaking — Fall 2019 Events

2019 Frankel Speaker Series Dennis Ross

s part of the Frankel Speaker Netanyahu. His most recent book, which Series, which features events he will be discussing, celebrates the early geared toward a student leaders of Israel and assesses how their audience, the Frankel Center leadership secured a future for the Ais bringing American diplomat and author nation. It also argues that the current Dennis Ross to the University of Michigan trajectory of the country is transforming campus to speak about his new book, it from a Jewish democratic state to a Be Strong and of Good Courage: How binational Arab-Jewish state. The book Israel’s Most Important Leaders Shaped was coauthored by David Makovsky, its Destiny. The event will be held in the Ziegler Distinguished Fellow at the Rackham Amphitheatre on the evening Washington Institute and director of the of November 6. Project on Arab-Israel Relations. Ross Ross, currently counselor and William and Makovsky describe how past prime Davidson Distinguished Fellow at the ministers could be an example for future Washington Institute, was one of the leadership and share new ideas on how architects of American policy in Israel for to implement policies that could, over presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. time, lead to peaceful separation. He has also served as Director of Policy Henry Kissinger calls the book “a Planning under President George H. W. powerful statement on the style and Bush and the special Middle East coordi- principles of leadership that are critical nator under President Bill Clinton. During for shaping the Middle East peace book, The Missing Peace: The Inside Story the Reagan administration, Ross served process” and Hillary Rodham Clinton of the Fight for Middle East Peace, as director of Near East and South Asian wrote “for those of us who care deeply was called “a major contribution to the affairs on the National Security Council about Israel and the US-Israel relation- diplomatic history of the 20th century” staff and deputy director of the Pentagon’s ship, Ross and Makovsky have done a real by Foreign Affairs,and his 2015 Doomed Office of Net Assessment. He was service. As Israel’s leaders face a fateful to Succeed: The U.S.-Israel Relationship awarded the Presidential Medal for choice about the future of the state and from Truman to Obama was awarded Distinguished Federal Civilian Service preserving its character, they tell the the 2015 National Jewish Book Award by President Clinton, and Secretaries story of Ben-Gurion, Begin, Rabin, and for history. of State James Baker and Madeleine Sharon. It is a story that can provide Albright presented him with the State guidance for today’s leaders in Israel and Department’s highest award. for all of us on the meaning of leadership.” Throughout his career, Ross created a Ross’ other publications have explored close connection with five Israeli prime different aspects of the peace process, ministers: Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres, the former Soviet Union, arms control, Ehud Barak, Ariel Sharon, and Benjamin and the greater Middle East. His 2004

Mark Your Calendar: Dennis Ross, November 6, 7 pm, U-M Rackham Amphitheatre

Franke ly Speaking — Fall 2019 3 Events

2019 Helen and Louis Padnos Lecturer Rachel Rubinstein

his November, Rachel Rubinstein, The topic for her lecture at Temple Rubinstein’s current research is focused professor of American literature Emanuel originated from her work on questioning what is traditionally and Jewish studies at Hampshire co-editing a volume for the Modern thought of as American Jewish literature. College, will give the Louis and Language Association for the Options for She hopes to extend the current notion THelen Padnos Lectures. Rubinstein will Teaching series about education and of both of these terms beyond how they give a talk at Temple Emanuel in Grand Jewish American literature. The finished are typically thought of and take them Rapids on Sunday, November 17 and at the work will be the first collection of essays further west than the Lower East Side. Frankel Center on Monday, November 18. on teaching Jewish American literature. Specifically, she is interested in Yiddish The Padnos Visiting Professorship is made “We aimed to emphasize the global, literature about the American West and possible by a generous donation from multinational, multilingual, and multidis- Native peoples and the intersecting Stuart Padnos, who in 1988 established ciplinary nature of Jewish American stories of Sephardi and Ashkenazi the Professorship in commemoration of literature,” said Rubinstein. “Ideally, histories in Latin America. his parents, Helen and Louis Padnos. I would want an audience to walk away “Yiddish writers were not creating in a The Padnoses’ endowment enables the from this discussion with a new frame- small bubble or echo chamber—they Frankel Center to bring a distinguished work for thinking about Jewish American were deeply engaged with the literary scholar to Ann Arbor and Grand Rapids literature, and a sense of a complex, and cultural conversations happening each year to give a lecture. Past scholars vigorous, and dynamic field that is in multiple languages around them, have included Yossi Turner, Sarra Lev, absolutely relevant in today’s university and were connected globally through and Jack Jacobs. classroom.” transnational Yiddish networks,” In Ann Arbor, she will lecture on the says Rubinstein. “In many cases, they Mexican Yiddish writer Jacobo Glantz and attracted the interest and attention of his daughter, historian and writer Margo non-Yiddish speaking writers and artists, Glantz. Margo Glantz is a significant and these exchanges are also a crucial scholar of colonial . part of the story I want to tell.” Her most famous work, Las genealogías, chronicles her parents’ experiences of migration and her own coming of age as a Jewish woman in . Rubenstein believes that Kristobal Kolon, Jacobo Glantz’s epic poem retelling Christopher Columbus’ voyage from the point of view of Luis de Torres, an interpreter and the only Jewish crew member, was the original inspiration for his daughter’s future work. Rubenstein explains: “Written in a rich, deliberately multilingual Yiddish with Spanish, Taino, Latin, and Hebrew borrowings, Jacobo Glantz’s epic functions as critical counter-history, a wild reimagining of a history he knew so well.”

4 Franke ly Speaking — Fall 2019 Events

2020 David W. Belin Lecturer Pamela Nadell

hat is the difference between a bookkeeper “ in the garment district and a Supreme Court Wjustice?” Ruth Bader Ginsburg once asked, “One generation.” On March 31, 2020, at the 30th David W. Belin Lecture in American Jewish Affairs, Pamela Nadell, professor and Patrick Clendenen Chair in Women’s and Gender History at American University and author of America’s Jewish Women: A History from Colonial Times to Today, will discuss the stories of how a group of American Jewish women from humble origins transformed the nation. America’s Jewish Women tells the individual stories of both prominent Jewish Americans as well as the lesser- known women who created social change within smaller communities. and American Judaism: Historical Judaism’s gender differences and those “I expect that many in the audience will Perspectives. She is also a past president who advanced women’s equality within hear echoes of their own family stories,” of the Association for Jewish Studies and the other branches of American Judaism.” she explained. “I hope that they will a recipient of the American Jewish TheNew York Times agreed that Nadell leave the lecture with a sense of the Historical Society’s Lee Max Friedman “creates an extremely readable portrait extraordinary power of this history and Award for distinguished service to the of Jewish women collectively realizing gain a deeper appreciation for the profession. the potential to change their destiny.” multifarious ways Writing a book with the scope of Ameri- The David W. Belin Lecture in American Jewish women ca’s Jewish Women presented exciting Jewish Affairs was established at the have contributed to challenges, Nadell said. So many women University of Michigan in 1991 through American life and “left legacies reverberating till this day.” a gift from the late David W. Belin, to culture.” The most significant challenge was to provide an academic forum for the Nadell is the author represent the diversity and breadth of discussion of contemporary Jewish life of Women Who Jewish women’s experiences: “I write in the United States. Previous speakers Would be Rabbis: about women who cheered as the new have included Lipstadt, Samuel A History of state of Israel was born and about those Freedman, Ruth Messinger, and James Women’s Ordination, 1889–1985, which who criticized its politics, about those Loeffler. Each lecture is subsequently was a finalist for a National Jewish Book who secretly had illegal abortions and published in the Belin Lecture Series. Award, and editor of American Jewish those who demanded abortion rights, Women’s History: A Reader and Women about those who cherished Orthodox

Franke ly Speaking — Fall 2019 5 Theme Year

Yiddishs part of its theme year on “Yiddish Matters,” the Frankel Institute is Matters presenting a wide variety of events in the coming academic year that will explore different facets of the history and culture of Yiddish. The Head Fellow in the fall semester will be Samuel Shetzer Associate Professor of American Jewish Studies Julian Levinson; he will be joined in this role in the winter by Justin Cammy from Smith College. AThe year will kick off with a concert by Daniel Kahn, polyglot program in Yiddish, English, Russian, Yeva Lapsker, and Jake Shulman-Ment. In collabo- German, and French. Featuring images and ration with the School of Music, the Frankel surtitles designed and projected by co-translator Institute will host the free concert September 26, and partner Yeva Lapsker and acclaimed violinist 7:30 pm at Britton Recital Hall in the Earle V. Moore Jamie Shulman-Ment, Kahn’s songscape traverses Building. Detroit-born, Berlin-based singer, the borders of language, culture, history, and songwriter, translator, and U-M alumnus Daniel politics and draws on Kahn’s own original songs Drawing by Eric Drooker Kahn will return to Ann Arbor for an intimate and translations of Yiddish folk songs. The Institute has also planned a series of lectures and panels that will showcase the fellows’ research and cover diverse aspects of contemporary Yiddish studies. U-M professors Geneviève Zubrzycki and Benjamin Paloff will join fellow Karolina Szymaniak November 19 to discuss the revival of Yiddish culture and language in contemporary Poland in a panel titled “Yiddish in Poland: Past, Present, and Future.” Head fellow Julian Levinson will be a part of a panel discussion on Yiddish and Trauma, together with Harriet Murav and Hannah Pollin- Galay, on February 25. On December 5, 4:00 pm in Room 2022 of the Thayer Building, there will be a panel entitled “Translating from Yiddish: New Approaches in Theory and Practice.” The panel will address the unique challenges of translating Yiddish into other languages and how translations are affected by phenomena such as the rise of Zionism, the Holocaust, and changing relations between American Jews and the immigrant experience. It will feature Frankel Institute fellows Anita Norich,

Stay tuned to the Frankel Center’s website, Facebook, and Twitter for more information on upcoming events.

6 Franke ly Speaking — Fall 2019 On December 3, Naomi Seidman, Chancellor Upcoming Events Yiddish MattersJackman Professor of the Arts in the Department Queer Expectations: of Religion and the Centre for Diaspora and a Genealogy of Jewish Transnational Studies at the University of Toronto, Women’s Poetry will deliver a talk entitled “The Navel of the Wednesday, October 16, 4 pm Dream: Freud and/in Yiddish,” which will explore Rackham Graduate School, the role of Yiddish in Freud’s writings and their East Conf. Room translational afterlife. On January 14, David Roskies, who teaches Yiddish In and Yiddish and modern Jewish literature at the Out of Context Tuesday, October 29, 1 pm Jewish Theological Seminary and the Hebrew Rackham Graduate School, University of , will speak about how West Conf. Room first-generation tellers of tales in Eastern Yiddish Yaakov Herskovits, and Julian Levinson. Norich learned to message their competing truth claims Yiddish in Poland: and Herskovitz will both be returning to Ann Arbor through dialogical means. Roskies has published Past, Present, and Future to participate in the Institute Theme Year after extensively on modern Yiddish storytelling, Jewish Tuesday, November 19, 4 pm retiring and graduating from U-M, respectively. responses to catastrophe, Holocaust literature Room 2022, 202 S. Thayer St., and memory. Ann Arbor The theme year will also include two larger symposia. On October 29, in addition to guest The Navel of the Dream: scholar Sunny Yudkoff of University of Wisconsin- Freud and/in Yiddish Madison, fellows Justin Cammy, Eve Jochnowitz, Tuesday, December 3, 4 pm Saul Zaritt, and U-M professor Mikhail Krutikov Room 2022, 202 S. Thayer St., will discuss the place of contemporary Yiddish Ann Arbor in current Jewish culture in an event titled, “Yiddish In and Out of Context.” On March 16, Translating from Yiddish: Jack Kugelmass, Dov-Ber Kerler, Amy Kerner, New Approaches in Theory Eli Rosenblatt, and Nick Underwood will discuss and Practice the Global Role of Yiddish. Thursday, December 5, 1 pm Room 2022, 202 S. Thayer St., In addition, there will be individual lectures Ann Arbor featuring guest scholars. Zohar Weiman-Kelman will be speaking on October 16 in Rackham Graduate School’s East Conference Room at 4 pm. Weiman-Kelman’s lecture, “Queer Expectations: a Genealogy of Jewish Women’s Poetry,” brings together Jewish women’s poetry in English, Nancy Rosenblum, Frisco Graphics Yiddish, and Hebrew from the late 19th century through the 1970s to explore how Jewish women writers turned to poetry to write new histories.

Franke ly Speaking — Fall 2019 7 Faculty Spotlight Maya Barzilai Associate Director, Frankel Center for Judaic Studies; Associate Professor

aya Barzilai is an associate in the German-speaking world around perfect complement to the ongoing professor of Hebrew World War I, as well as the ongoing diversification of our course offerings,” literature and Jewish metaphoric association of golems with said Frankel Center Director Jeffrey cultures at the Frankel war and its technologies in 20th-century Veidlinger. MCenter for Judaic Studies and the American and Israeli cultures. As Associate Director, one of Barzilai’s Department of Middle East Studies— Her current research concerns German- goals is to create a more open and and in January 2019, she also became Hebrew translation practices in the early inclusive environment for all students the new Associate Director of the to mid-20th century. She has uncovered interested in Jewish history, religion, Frankel Center. debates about the necessity of transla- and culture. As she explains: “Many of Barzilai joined the Frankel Center in 2009 tion and its national functions within the staples of the Jewish Studies curricu- and was a Frankel Institute Fellow during Hebrew culture. Barzilai also continues lum—including, but not limited to, the 2012–2013 academic theme year, to research Weimar film, and is currently Holocaust studies, migration, law, civil “Borders of Jewishness.” In 2016, she completing a short book devoted to the rights, intercultural exchange, translation published Golem: Modern Wars and Their 1920 film, The Golem, How He Came into studies—are of fundamental importance Monsters, which received the 2017 Jordan the World. to any U-M student, and we would like Schnitzer Book Prize and an honorable As the Judaic Studies Associate Director, to foreground these topics in our course mention for the Salo Baron First Book she is responsible for overseeing all offerings. For instance, we are planning a Prize. The book explores the mass appeal aspects of the undergraduate curriculum new introductory history course focused of the golem, an artificial clay monster, and of the Judaic Studies Graduate on Jewish expulsions, migrations, and Certificate. “I am honored diasporic communities across the globe.” to serve the Frankel Center The Judaic Studies curriculum will also as its Associate Director offer more graduate-level courses, and for curriculum matters, Barzilai has put emphasis, for graduate collaborating with Michael students pursuing the certificate, on Goldberg, our student professionalization opportunities, services coordinator,” preparation for the job market, and said Barzilai. “In my first events that bring together students term, I set up a new and faculty to reflect upon the field of curriculum committee in Jewish Studies. order to oversee our course offerings for 2019, and embarked on changes to the structure of the Judaic Studies major.” “Professor Barzilai is an outstanding scholar who brings fresh ideas into the Judaic Studies program. Her interest in expanding the limits of what we think of as Judaic Studies is a

8 Franke ly Speaking — Fall 2019 Fellow Spotlight Mostafa Hussein LSA Collegiate Fellow

tarting this fall, Mostafa Hussein This will not be Hussein’s first time in will join the Frankel Center for Ann Arbor. He attended the 2016–2017 Judaic Studies as a Collegiate Frankel Institute on “Israeli Histories, Fellow of LSA and the National Societies, and Cultures: Comparative SCenter for Institutional Diversity, an Approaches,” when he was on an Andrew initiative aimed at recruiting exceptional Mellon Dissertation Completion Fellow- early-career scholars in all liberal arts ship and working on a project titled fields who are committed to diversity, “The Refraction of Arabo-Islamic equity, and inclusion in the academy. Civilization in Hebrew and Israeli Cultures.” Hussein’s work focuses on Jewish Since then, he has been at the University engagement with Islam in the late of Southern California on a Society of Ottoman Empire, Mandatory Palestine, Fellows’ scholarship, where he has and the early years of the State of Israel. been developing his book, Islam and Hussein received his B.A. and M.A. from the Construction of a Jewish Culture in al-Azhar University in Cairo, with a major Late Ottoman and Mandatory Palestine. in Judaic Studies and minor in Arabic and While at U-M, Hussein looks forward to Islamic Studies. His dissertation, “Hebrew teaching courses on Jews and Arabs. Scholarship on Islam, 1894–1950,” “Though the conflict going on in the completed at Brandeis University’s Near region is an important aspect of that Eastern and Judaic Studies Department, relationship,” he said, “I am more explored the ways that Hebrew scholars interested in contextualizing the evolu- in late Ottoman Palestine and the British tion of that relationship over the course Mandate studied Islam and the cultures of time, seeing the conflict as only one of the Middle East. He argues that the dimension in a rather multidimensional Jewish intellectuals in Ottoman and relationship between both peoples.” Mandatory Palestine who studied their He will also be teaching a course on Arab neighbors were profoundly invested Jerusalem as a city of three faiths, looking in fostering a mixed culture and integrat- closely at the sacred spaces that link ing Arabic culture “to produce a model of the Abrahamic religions to the land. parity and cooperation.” “In my graduate Hussein believes that by studying studies,” he said, “I experienced firsthand Judaism and Islam together, students will the complexity of narratives surrounding realize how the cultures are connected. contemporary Muslim-Jewish relations.” “I really enjoy studying works where the Studying controversial issues in Israeli intertwined world between Judaism and social, cultural, and political history, Islam becomes apparent.” he continued, “constantly reminds me of the sensibilities of Arabs and Jews.” His research and teaching reflects the richness, diversity, and complexity of Jewish-Arab interactions, and the points at which these societies share common understandings of the world.

Franke ly Speaking — Fall 2019 9 Alumni Spotlight Rachel Robinson B.S. in Brain, Behavior, & Cognitive Science with Judaic Studies minor, 2009

achel Robinson graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree and Judaic Studies minor from the University of Michigan in 2009. Her minor in Judaic Studies steered her into her first professional position at the Jewish Federa- tion of Metropolitan Detroit. This eventually led to her current position as RDirector of Annual Giving at Cleveland State University. In an interview with Frankely Speaking, she talked about how her classes at the Frankel Center prepared her for her career in higher education development.

Describe your job responsibilities: How did your education prepare you for I am the Director of Annual Giving at your current job? Cleveland State University. I oversee In the midst of my experience with the fundraising and stewardship strategy Frankel Center, I never would have across 10 colleges and schools. These guessed how aligned my education and donations support scholarships, engaged career path would come to be. I left learning opportunities, student life, school with a deeper understanding of faculty research, and more. the Jewish people’s history and place in Why is your work rewarding? the world today and was inspired to In my line of work, I have the opportunity accept my first job at the Jewish Federa- to build relationships around the causes tion of Metropolitan Detroit. Had it not that people care about the most. My been for my Judaic Studies minor I would position allows me to share the positive not have even considered it. impact that one can make as a philan- While my Brain, Behavior, & Cognitive thropist (through time, talent, and/or Science major taught me how to identify money) and see the results in real time as and navigate different personalities, my funds are put to work immediately. minor taught me an appreciation of the Tell us about studying at the past and the role we must play in Frankel Center: sustaining the future. I believe I am a My classes through the Frankel Center better and more capable fundraiser today fulfilled my hunger for education in an because of my educational experiences. unexpected way. I quickly became What advice would you give to students immersed in the content and grew as a who are considering Judaic Studies? student and person of the world with the If you have the opportunity to take a help of dedicated teachers and insightful course, do it! I thought I was going to classmates. The experience reignited my supplement a science-heavy semester passion for the Jewish community and and ended up minoring in an area that ultimately changed my professional sparked interest and taught me to think trajectory. differently about my relationship to Judaism and my role in the world.

10 Franke ly Speaking — Fall 2019 Judaic Studies Faculty Collaborate on Research Projects

rankel Center faculty have received funding for Literatures/History Kira Thurman. Designed to spark compel- collaborative research through MCubed, a program ling conversations, 5x5 Incubator Grants bring together small that supports research from interdisciplinary groups of faculty, lecturers, research scientists, librarians, faculty-led teams at the University of Michigan. curators, postdocs, and other university scholars from a range F of fields for a short-term engagement in exploring common Professor Rebecca Wollenberg led a team of faculty from Judaic Studies, Middle East Studies, Anthropology, History, Communi- interests. cations, and Women’s Studies. The project, “Remapping The Open Access Rabbinics Project (OARP) was initiated by Peoples of the Book: Theorizing Abrahamic Vernaculars,” aims Rachel Rafael Neis of the University of Michigan, Chaya to bring scholars together to discuss the cultural intersections Halberstam of King’s University College, and Sarra Lev of of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, in collaboration with U-M The idea for the series started when a few of the Frankel Center colleagues at the Frankel Center for Judaic Studies, as well as faculty realized they had all been grappling with questions James Tucker of University of Toronto. OARP’s goal is to open around how the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim communities Rabbinics texts and scholarly methods to a broad audience of they study weren’t relating to each other in the way that undergraduate and graduate students, scholars within and existing models suggest they should behave. Wollenberg outside of Jewish Studies, and the wider interested public. explains: “As the examples piled up, we realized that further It aims to create a web-based application that will provide a conversation among ourselves and with scholars outside the comprehensive bibliographic list of critical editions of Rabbinic University of Michigan might suggests new models of thinking texts (and links to online resources where available), transla- about these phenomena that would account better for what tions of primary sources into English, dissertations on selected we were seeing on the ground.” Additional faculty participating topics, and links to digital humanities projects related to include Ryan Szpiech, Ruth Tsoffar, Bryan Roby, and Hussein Rabbinics, Jewish studies, and ancient studies. Fancy. “As the examples piled up, we realized that Another team of MCubed faculty and librarians, including further conversation among ourselves and with Shachar Pinsker, Devi Mays, Bryan Roby, Middle East Studies Librarian Evyn Kropf, and visualization librarian Justin Joque, scholars outside the University of Michigan have focused on digital mapping to deal with the challenge might suggests new models of thinking about of studying “Jewish space” and “Jewish geography.” These these phenomena that would account better for scholars seek to use digital archives and mapping techniques (ArcGIS, Scalar) in order to better understand the Jewish what we were seeing on the ground.” diaspora, patterns of migration, and multilingual networks Rebecca Wollenberg in literature, journalism, and art.

In addition to the MCubed teams, Judaic Studies professors In addition, there will be a guide to Rabbinic literature that Mays, Roby, and Deborah Dash Moore participated in a aims to educate the user on the vast array of Rabbinic texts, Humanities Collaboratory 5x5 Incubator Grant team. Their including their contents and academic citation methods. project, “Making Sense of Diasporas: Pedagogy and Public This portal aims to open up and demystify the study of Engagement,” is developing a “suitcase exercise” which asks Rabbinics in an effort to create non-exclusionary models of students to select 10–15 items they would bring if they had knowledge sharing, thereby expanding the field beyond visions to move to a new country quickly. The exercise is designed to of expertise that often are indebted to particular configurations help students understand and explore diasporic identities and of gender, race, religion, and ability. The project is nearing its issues of migration. Other participants in the team include initial alpha testing and aims to have a public beta version Kropf and Assistant Professor of Germanic Languages and available for use in December.

Franke ly Speaking — Fall 2019 11 Courses Judaic Studies Offers Jewish Foodways Course

tudents enrolled in “Jewish Foodways,” a new course The course is focused on regional food practices in several time offered by Professor Deborah Dash Moore and Amanda periods from medieval to modern, concentrating on how SFisher of Amanda’s Kitchen, examined Jewish food practices were affected by migration patterns, capitalism, and consumption and preparation from biblical times until today. industrial food production. “Food is so central and primal,” Fisher Students learned about the development of kosher laws and said. “You can learn so much about Jewish culture from it.” their meanings and explored how the laws of kashrut interacted Dash Moore and Fisher embraced a hands-on experiential with different food cultures around the world. There was also an dimension in developing the course, including food demonstra- emphasis on the relationships of food to Jewish religion and culture, tions, making a variety of different traditional—and not so paying attention to both Ashkenazi and Sephardi cooking traditions. traditional—kosher foods together, as well as taking field trips Amanda Fisher has also served as the Jewish Studies caterer for to both a kosher and “kosher-style” deli. Dash More hopes many years. “She is such a good kosher cook,” remarked Dash students will leave the class with an understanding of the Moore, “one who is conscious of how foodways develop and importance of foodways in Jewish cultures, as well as their change. I jumped at the chance to co-teach with her so that I gendered character and their relation to migration, industrial- would be able to learn from her.” ization, and social and religious change. “The study of foodways “I decided to embrace the challenge of teaching the hands-on is a relatively new field in academia, one that possesses part of the course and taking the students on a culinary journey practical dimensions. It is good for Judaic Studies to be innova- from biblical times and holiday traditions to Israeli Street food tive and experimental, engaging some of the most recent forms and beyond,” Fisher said. “I hope they come away with a better and topics of scholarship.” understanding of the rich and complex history and traditions of Jewish foodways.”

12 Franke ly Speaking — Fall 2019 Courses HistoryLab Course “Collaborative Research in the Holocaust”

n the winter term of 2019, Frankel Center director Jeffrey “Since the Holocaust Museum is an independent establishment Veidlinger and Professor of History and Associate Dean for of the United States government operating as a public-private IAcademic Programs and Initiatives at the Rackham Graduate partnership, there are a whole bunch of stakeholders involved,” School, Rita Chin, co-led the first graduate-level HistoryLab Veidlinger explains. “Typically, we encourage our graduate program offered by the Department of History. “History 716: students to find something new, to be creative and original,” he Collaborative Research in the Holocaust” was a partnership continues. “But in this case, we are trying to reach a consensus between the University of Michigan and the United States viewpoint. It’s an altogether different skill and one that we need Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., where to be teaching.” The class is part of a wider initiative in graduate Veidlinger serves on the Academic Committee. Ten University education to develop transferable skill sets and to encourage of Michigan students connected with the museum’s curators students to leverage their expertise for the public good. via video conference throughout the semester as they worked “There are so few experiences like this in grad school,” said on creating online modules that curate original sources for graduate student Michael Martin, “and seeing the practical learning about the Holocaust. applications of our research skills while also developing them The class was developed to train students in collaborative further was really refreshing and rewarding.” research methods and practices and to explore new ways of In February, the class traveled to Washington to meet with contributing to public understanding of the humanities. Two the museum staff in person and to present their work. They teams of five LSA graduate students created individual modules received critiques and collaborated with a number of stakeholders for Experiencing History, an online teaching tool used by the in the project, including museum curators and professors from museum. One team focused on Nazi Ideals and American other universities. The students also had a chance to explore Society and the other on Everyday Fascism in Europe. The the museum’s archives while visiting. Before they arrived, class identified primary-source materials from the research they were able to request primary-source documents relating collections of the museum and wrote analytical essays on to their projects, including photographs, films, testimonies, the material for public consumption and educational use. and artifacts. Create a free account online at perspectives.ushmm.org to view the final versions of their projects.

Franke ly Speaking — Fall 2019 13 Fellows Meet the 2019-20 Frankel Institute Fellows

Justin Cammy titled Bilingualism Reimagined: published literary and scholarly works in Smith College Hebrew and Yiddish Self-Translation Yiddish and two Yiddish studies collections “The Yiddish Trace in in the Twentieth Century. in English. In 2002 he co-founded, together Contemporary Jewish: with Jeffrey Veidlinger, the Indiana Univer- Fiction and Popular Eve Jochnowitz sity Archives of Historical & Ethnographic Culture” Workmen’s Circle and YIVO Yiddish Memories Project, which houses Justin Cammy is associate “A kosherer top un a and curates close to 900 hours of oral professor of comparative kosherer lefl: Yiddish history Yiddish interviews and ethnographic literature and director of the Program in Reactions to Modern video that were collected in over 20 Jewish Studies at Smith College, where he Jewish Food Practices” expeditions in over 100 different localities was the recipient of the Sherrerd Prize for Eve Jochnowitz, Yiddish throughout southeastern Europe and parts Distinguished Teaching. He is also adjunct instructor at the YIVO of Central Europe in 2002–2017. He is also associate professor and graduate faculty institute and the Workmen’s Circle, has a prolific Yiddish poet under the pen name in German studies at the University of been teaching Yiddish language, culture, Boris Karloff and has published six collec- Massachusetts at Amherst and senior fellow and literature, as well as Yiddish foodways tions of poetry in Britain and Israel. at the Goldreich Institute for Yiddish at and dance, for 25 years. She worked for Tel Aviv University. Cammy’s publications several years as a cook and baker in New Amy Kerner range from essays on the origins of modern York and received her Ph.D. in Jewish Brown University Yiddish literature (The Judgment of Shomer) culinary ethnography in the department of “Fragile Inheritance: to the Yiddish literary group Young Vilna. Performance Studies from New York Yiddish in Buenos Aires, He recently published the introduction to University. She has lectured both in the 1930–1970” The Full Pomegranate, a new English edition United States and abroad on food in Jewish Amy Kerner is a historian of selected poems by Abraham Sutzkever. tradition, religion, and ritual, as well as on of modern Europe and He just completed the first-ever translation food in Yiddish performance and popular Latin America whose work into English of Sutzkever’s memoir of the culture. The Vilna Vegetarian Cookbook focuses on the interactions of political and Vilna Ghetto. (Fania Lewando’s Vegetarish-dietisher linguistic identities among immigrant and kokhbukh) translated, annotated, and minority populations in the 19th and Yaakov Herskovitz adapted for the modern kitchen, was 20th centuries. Her dissertation, “Fragile Tel-Aviv University published in 2015. Inheritance: The Fate of Yiddish in Argentina “Bilingualism Reimagined: (1930–1970)” shows how Yiddish-Jewish Yiddish-Hebrew Literature Dov-Ber Kerler Argentines’ shared ethnic language in an Age of Monolingual- Indiana University interacted with and responded to Argentin- ism” “By the Wayside: Contem- ian cultural nationalism. She is currently Yaakov Herskovitz received porary Yiddish Poetry and thinking about the repercussions of mass his Ph.D. from the Depart- the Post-postvernacular” migration, Peronism, and revolutionary ment of Middle East Studies and the Frankel Dov-Ber Kerler holds the nationalism on the history of Yiddish in Center for Judaic Studies at the University Cohn Chair in Yiddish Argentina, as well as how the case of Jewish of Michigan. He is currently a postdoctoral Studies and is professor Argentina changes our understanding of Fellow at the Kipp Center for Hebrew of Jewish Studies and Germanic Studies the global fate of Yiddish. Literature and Culture at Tel Aviv University, at Indiana University. His main fields of where he continues his work on Hebrew- interest are the dialectology, sociology, Yiddish bilingual writers, focusing on and linguistic analysis of Yiddish. He is the practices of self-translation. He has author of The Origins of Modern Literary published on these matters as well as on Yiddish and various papers and articles on contemporary Israeli literature, and is Yiddish language, dialectology, and literary currently working on a book manuscript history. He has also edited, co-edited, and

14 Franke ly Speaking — Fall 2019 Mikhail Krutikov and the Rites of Citizenship; co-author of Harriet Murav University of Michigan Let There Be Laughter and From A Ruined University of Illinois at “Urban Space in Jewish Garden; and author of Masked Culture: The Urbana Champaign Literature(s)” Village Halloween Parade and The Miracle of “Archive of Violence: The Mikhail Krutikov is professor Intervale Avenue. He is also the author Literature of Abandonment of Slavic Languages and Sifting the Ruins: Émigré Jewish Journalists’ and the Russian Civil War Literatures and Preston R. Return Visits to the Old Country, 1946– (1917–1922)” Tisch Professor of Judaic 1948, which was published by the Frankel Harriet Murav is the Studies at the University of Michigan. He is Center as volume 23 of the Belin Lecture Catherine and Bruce Bastian Professor the author of Yiddish Fiction and the Crisis Series in American Jewish Affairs. of Global and Transnational Studies, and of Modernity, 1905–1914, From Kabbalah to a professor in the Department of Slavic Class Struggle: Expressionism, Marxism, Julian Levinson Languages and Literatures and in the and Yiddish Literature in the Life and Work University of Michigan Program in Comparative and World of Meir Wiener, and Der Nister’s Soviet “A Translation of Isaiah Literatures at the University of Illinois at Years: Yiddish Writer as Witness to the Spiegel’s Flamen fun der Urbana-Champaign; she is also editor of People. He co-edited nine collections on erd (Flames from the Slavic Review. Murav is the author of Holy Yiddish literature and culture, most recently Earth), an Autobiographical Foolishness: Dostoevsky’s Novels & the Three Cities of Yiddish: St. Petersburg, Novel of the Łódź Ghetto” Poetics of Cultural Critique, Russia’s Legal Warsaw and Moscow, co-edited with Julian Levinson is the Fictions, which was awarded the MLA Gennady Estraikh. He has been a cultural Samuel Shetzer Professor of American 1999 Scaglione Prize for Studies in Slavic columnist for the Yiddish Forward since Jewish Studies and associate professor of Languages and Literatures; Identity Theft: 1999. A collection of his Yiddish essays English at the University of Michigan. His The Jew in Imperial Russia and the Case of came out in Israel in 2018 under the title publications include Exiles on Main Street: Avraam Uri Kovner; Music From a Speeding Tsvishn shures: notitsn vegn yidisher kultur Jewish American Writers and American Train: Jewish Literature in Post-Revolution (Between Lines: Notes on Jewish Culture). Literary Culture (Indiana University Press; Russia; David Bergelson’s Strange New World, winner of the National Jewish Book Award and co-translator of David Bergelson’s Jack Kugelmass for American Jewish Studies, 2008) and novel, Judgment. University of Florida articles about topics such as Holocaust “Traveling in Yiddish” representation in American movies, Antia Norich Jack Kugelmass is professor American Jewish poetry, and Jewish University of Michigan of Anthropology and the storytelling. His work in Yiddish studies “Women’s Imaginative Melton Legislative Professor includes articles on Yiddish responses to Prose in Yiddish” at the University of Florida. Walt Whitman, the uses of English in Anita Norich is the Tikva He was previously professor Yiddish American literature, and the Frymer-Kensky Collegiate of Anthropology and director of the Folklore poetry of Moyshe-Leyb Halpern in relation Professor Emerita of English Program at the University of Wisconsin– to international literary modernism. His and Judaic Studies at the Madison, and professor in the Interdisci- translations of poems by Halpern, Aron University of Michigan. Her most recent plinary Humanities Program and the Glanz-Leyeles, Reuben Ludwig, and Chaim book, A Jewish Refugee in New York, is a Director and Lowe Professor of Holocaust Grade have appeared in Tikkun, Jewish translation of a Yiddish novel by Kadya and Modern Jewish Studies at Arizona State Currents, The Michigan Quarterly Review, Molodovsky. She is also the author of University. He is editor of Between Two and In Geveb. Writing in Tongues: Yiddish Translation in Worlds: Ethnographic Essays on American the 20th Century; Discovering Exile: Yiddish Jewry; Going Home: How American Jews and Jewish American Literature in America Invent the Old Country; Key Texts in During the Holocaust; and The Homeless American Jewish Culture; and Jews, Sports,

Franke ly Speaking — Fall 2019 15 2019-20 Frankel Institute Fellows, continued

Imagination in the Fiction of Israel Joshua Europe and southern Africa. He is currently European Studies at the University of Singer, and co-editor of Languages of working on a book about the nexus of California, Berkeley, and a Visiting Scholar Modern Jewish Cultures: Comparative Jewish culture and racial politics in four at the Simon Dubnow Institute for Jewish Perspectives; Jewish Literatures and urban complexes. He has taught at History and Culture at Leipzig University. Cultures: Context and Intertext; and Gender UC-Berkeley, George Washington University, He has taught at Sonoma State University, and Text in Modern Hebrew and Yiddish and Georgetown University’s School of Napa Valley College, and the University of Literatures. She translates Yiddish Foreign Service. Wisconsin–Milwaukee. He earned his Ph.D. literature, and teaches, lectures, and at the University of Colorado–Boulder in publishes on a range of topics concerning Karolina Szymaniak modern European and Jewish history in modern Jewish cultures, Yiddish language University of Wrocław 2016; his first book manuscript is titled and literature, Jewish American literature, “Entangled Histories of Yiddish Paris: Staging Nation and Commu- and Holocaust literature. Yiddish Polish Cultural nity in Interwar France. He has begun work Contacts in the First Half on a second book project, Plural Jewish Hannah Pollin-Galay of the 20th Century Communities: Yiddish Culture, Jewish Tel-Aviv University (up to 1948)” Migration, and the Making of Post-Holocaust “My Foreign Mother Karolina Szymaniak is France. His articles have appeared in Jewish Tongue: Khurbn Yiddish assistant professor at the Jewish Studies Social Studies; French Politics, Culture & and the Cultural Contours Department at the University of Wrocław Society; East European Jewish Affairs; of Trauma” and Research Fellow at the Jewish Historical Urban History; and Archives Juives. He also Hannah Pollin-Galay is Institute in Warsaw. Her research interests serves as managing editor for the journals assistant professor (senior range across modern Yiddish literature, American Jewish History and East European lecturer) in the Department of Literature Polish-Jewish cultural relations, politics of Jewish Affairs and is project manager for at Tel Aviv University, where she is also memory, theories of modernism and of the the digital humanities consortium the the Yiddish Studies M.A. program adviser. avant-garde. In addition to having taught Digital Yiddish Theatre Project. She researches and teaches on Holocaust Yiddish language and culture throughout Studies, Yiddish literature, and all the ways Poland and Europe, she has also served as Saul Zaritt that these two fields intersect. Her first a consultant for the Museum of the History Harvard University book, Ecologies of Witnessing: Language, of Polish Jews and the Museum of Modern “Yiddish, Translation, and Place and Holocaust Testimony, was Art in Łódz. Her book on the Polish-Yiddish Jewish Language Afterlives: published by Yale University Press in 2018. modernist writer Debora Vogel was A Taytsh Manifesto” Her scholarly articles have appeared in published in 2006 in Poland. She co-edited: Saul Noam Zaritt is an journals such as Holocaust and Genocide Warszawska awangarda jidysz (Warsaw assistant professor of Studies, Jewish Social Studies, and Jewish Yiddish Avant-garde), Dialog poetów Yiddish literature in the Quarterly Review. She has also published (Dialogue of Poets), Montages. Debora departments of Comparative Literature and articles for the broader public in journals Vogel and the New City Legend, and Moja Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at such as The Nation and Boston Review. dzika koza. Antologia poetek jidysz (My wild Harvard University. His research on modern Before entering academia, Pollin-Galay goat. Anthology of women Yiddish poets). Jewish writing focuses on the politics of was Director of Education at Yiddishkayt She is the editor of Rachel Auerbach’s translation, examining how writers contend LA, where she launched a Yiddish-language ghetto writings, which received the 2016 with the malleability of Jewish vernaculars program for high school and elementary Polityka History Award for the best edition in transcultural contexts. He received his schoolchildren. of sources. Ph.D. from the Jewish Theological Seminary and has held fellowships at the YIVO Eli Rosenblatt Nick Underwood Institute for Jewish Research and Georgetown University University of California Washington University in St. Louis. He is “Enlightening the Skin: Berkeley a founding editor of In geveb, an open- Yiddish Culture in the “Plural Jewish Communi- access digital journal of Yiddish studies. Black Atlantic” ties: Yiddish Culture and He has published essays and articles in Eli Rosenblatt received his Jewish Migration in Prooftexts, Studies in American Jewish Ph.D. in Jewish Studies Post-Holocaust France” Literature, and American Literary History, from the University of Nick Underwood has been among others. California, Berkeley. His dissertation a Visiting Fellow in the History of Migration examined the reception of racial and racist at the German Historical Institute West language in the Yiddish literature of Eastern and Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute of

16 Franke ly Speaking — Fall 2019 Frankel Ink

Leora Auslander, Past Institute Fellow Monica Colominas Aparicio, Past Frankel Emerita of English Language and Litera- (2009–2010), Objects of War: The Material Institute Fellow (2018–2019), The Religious ture, Professor Emerita of Judaic Studies, Culture of Conflict and Displacement, Polemics of the Muslims of Late Medieval A Jewish Refugee in New York: A Novel by Cornell University Press Iberia: Identity and Religious Authority in Kadya Molodovsky, translated by Anita Mudejar Islam, Brill Norich, Indiana University Press Sara Blair, Professor, Frankel Center for Judaic Studies, How the Other Half Looks: Harvey Goldberg, Past Frankel Institute Shelley Perlove, Professor Emerita, The Lower East Side and the Afterlives Fellow (2012–2013), Anthropology and Department of the History of Art, Visual of Images, Press, Hebrew Bible Studies: Modes of Inter- Typology in Early Modern Europe; Continuity Remaking Reality: U.S. Documentary change and Interpretation, Brill and Expansion, Berpols Publishing Culture after 1945 (with Joseph Entin Kirsten Fermaglich, Past Frankel Institute Michael Swartz, Past Frankel Institute and Franny Nudelman), University of Fellow (2015–2016), A Rosenberg By Any Fellow (2017–2018), The Mechanics of North Carolina Other Name: A History of Jewish Name Providence: The Workings of Ancient Rick Bonnie, Past Institute Fellow Changing in America, NYU Press Jewish Magic and Mysticism, Mohr Siebeck (2017–2018), Being Jewish in Galilee, Mikhail Krutikov, Preston R. Tisch 100–200 CE: An Archaeological Study, Professor of Judaic Studies, Department Ryan Szpiech, Associate Professor, Brepols of Slavic Languages and Literatures, Department of Romance Languages Gabriele Boccaccini, Professor, Depart- Tsvishn shures: Notitsn vegn yidisher and Literatures, Astrolabes in Medieval ment of Middle East Studies, Reading the kultur, National Agency for Yiddish Cultures, Brill Gospel of John’s Christology as Jewish Culture, Israel; Der Nister’s Soviet Years: Herbert Weisberg, Past Frankel Institute Messianism (edited by Benjamin E. Yiddish Writer as Witness to the People, Fellow (2010–2011), The Politics of American Reynolds and Gabriele Boccaccini), Brill; Indiana University Press Jews, University of Michigan Press Wisdom Poured out like Water: Studies on Ellen Muehlberger, Associate Professor, Kenneth Wald, Past Visiting Faculty, Jewish and Christian Antiquity in Honor of Department of Middle East Studies, Gabriele Boccaccini, edited by Ellens, J. Foundations of American Jewish Liberalism, Moment of Reckoning: Imagined Death Cambridge University Press Harold, Oliver, Isaac W., von Ehrenkrook, and its Consequences in Late Ancient Jason, Waddell, James, Zurawski, Christianity, Oxford University Press Yael Zerubavel, Past Frankel Institute Jason M., De Gruyter Fellow (2016–2017), Desert in the Anita Norich, Tikva Frymer-Kensky Promised Land, Stanford University Press Collegiate Professor Emerita of English Language and Literature, Professor

Franke ly Speaking — Fall 2019 17 2019 Student Funding

Twenty-one students—thirteen graduates and eight undergraduates— were awarded funding in the 2018–2019 academic year from Judaic Studies to do research, participate in summer seminars, and study abroad.

Bell Family Fund Delta Phi Epsilon Scholarships Judaic studies minor Dalia Gatoff and Dory Fox, a graduate student in English language and literature Judaic studies major Alex Harris were and Judaic studies, received funding to support continued able to attend the iEngage Fellowship work on her thesis, “The Biological Imagination in Twentieth- in Israel over winter break. Gatoff Century Jewish American Culture.” Her dissertation examines commented, “I was privileged to works of fiction, poetry, photography, and autobiography spend a week of my winter break through the biological theories of inheritance that these works learning at the Shalom Hartman put forward. Institute through their program iEngage. It was a unique opportunity to contextualize what I had been learning in my Judaic studies classes. iEngage provided the students on the Frankel Center Director’s Fund program a chance to meet different inhabitants of Israel who Graduate Students Yael Kenan (comparative literature and had varying stories about their experience with the state of Judaic studies), Hannah Roussel (history and Judaic studies), Israel. This really connected to my classes on the A‘ rab Israeli and Shira Schwartz (comparative literature and Judaic studies) Conflict’ and ‘What is Judaism.’” attended the Association for Jewish Studies conference in Boston last December.

Brandt Challenge Fellowship Nora Greenstein attended the JPRO Network conference Frankel Family Fund in Detroit as a part of her involvement with the Jewish Graduate student in Middle East studies and Judaic studies Communal Leadership Program. Michail Kitsos received funding to continue research on his thesis over the summer, which examines rabbinic multi-vocal Sam Shuman, a graduate student in narratives and Christian anti-Jewish dialogues, also known as anthropology and Judaic studies, Adversus Iudaeos dialogues. spent April in New York to do research among Jewish diamond traders and brokers in New York City. “I was there Stanley Frankel Summer Travel Fellowship to conduct the last phase of my Josh Scott, a graduate student in dissertation research, which focuses Middle East studies and Judaic on the cutting out, or ‘disintermediation,’ of brokers from the studies, presented at the Broadening global diamond supply-chain. The fellowship enabled me to live Horizons 6 conference in Berlin. in New York and conduct research within the insular and “My presentation considered how secretive world of the diamond industry and among the Hasidim Herod’s remodeling of the Jerusalem who work within it.” Temple in the mid-Second Temple period complicated the use of the space as sacred and political,” explained Scott.

18 Franke ly Speaking — Fall 2019 Judaic studies major Alex Harris traveled to Israel to conduct research Jerold & Kathleen Solovy Fund at the Shalom Hartman Institute and Graduate student in history and Judaic studies Shai Zamir Jerusalem University. “I was privileged attended a Spanish intensive course at Middlebury College. to be able to work with at the Shalom Hartman Institute. Marshall M. Weinberg Endowed Fund for I helped him launch his Arabic copy of Graduate Students Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor into the Arab world and learn about Israeli-Arab and Jewish-Arab relations,” said Harris. “I am Pavel Brunssen, graduate student in excited to return to U-M in the fall, with new perspectives on Germanic languages and literatures Arab-Israeli relations and Israel education.” and Judaic studies, presented a paper on antisemitism in German soccer fan culture at the World Congress of Kaufman Friendship Foundation Sociology of Sport in New Zealand and Judaic studies at the International Football History minors Taila Conference in Manchester, UK. He also continued to conduct Gothelf and research on soccer fan culture in Germany and attended the Ali Rosenblatt, Yiddish Summer School at Tel Aviv University. and Judaic Graduate student Sam Shuman received funding to support studies major the process of transcribing hours of interviews he conducted Macciocchi with diamond brokers, traders, and industry representatives Adriano attended the iEngage Fellowship at the Shalom Hartman from New York City, Antwerp, Tel Aviv, and Mumbai. Institute in Jerusalem during winter break. “I heard thought- provoking lectures from renowned scholars and engaged in Jewish Communal Leadership program enriching chaveruta on topics relating to Jewish exceptionalism, student Ashley Schnaar attended the Jewish attachment to Eretz Yisrael, Jewish peoplehood, and JPRO conference in Detroit to help more,” said Rosenblatt. develop connections with Jewish human service agencies from around the country. Schnaar explained, Keywell Graduate Fund “Attending JPRO was an incredible Lauren Benjamin, graduate student in comparative literature, experience for me and instrumental in jump-starting my career.” English language and literature, and Judaic studies, received funding to help continue her work on writing her dissertation, Feral Modernisms. Weingast Family Fund Social work graduate student Mary Kay Hazel, completed a Malkin Graduate Fellowship 14-week field practicum in Israel this summer as part of her Master of Social Work degree, a placement coordinated through Marina Mayorski, graduate student in comparative literature and the University of Haifa. She worked with the Community Social Judaic studies, received funding to continue work on her doctor- Work Department at the Haifa Municipality to design and ate degree and attend a month-long Yiddish-language course. evaluate programs serving refugees and asylum seekers.

Al and Florence Schwartzberg Scholarship Fund Wolens Global Experience Fund Judaic studies minor Will Hearn attended Judaic studies minor Jessica Matz an intensive language program offered spent a semester studying abroad through the Rothberg International School in Tel Aviv. While there, Matz of Hebrew University. “I’ve explored the volunteered at Save A Child’s Heart, Old City, visited museums, interacted and an organization that offers treatment bargained with locals in Machane Yehuda, to children suffering from congenital and found local cafes to study in. All of and rheumatic heart disease. these activities gave me an unprecedented perspective of Israel.

Franke ly Speaking — Fall 2019 19 Mazel Tov!

Undergraduate Students Shira Schwartz received a She also released “Sidewalk Histories, or graduate fellowship from the Uncovering the Vernacular Jewishness of Alexa Smith will be an Institute for the Humanities New York,” in Conversations with Colleagues. administrative assistant for the 2019–2020 academic at the American Israel Karla Goldman organized and year. She was also a Public Affairs Committee chaired “Jewish Feminisms/ participant in the Sweetland (AIPAC) office in New York American Visions: Questions Dissertation Writing Institute City for the summer. from Fifty Years of Activism” for spring 2019 and a in cooperation with the Frankel Graduate Student Diversity Center and the Jewish Ally for the Department of Comparative Women’s Archive. The Literature for the summer of 2019. Ilana Young will be a conference brought together summer intern in the Sam Shuman will be a 36 veteran and contempo- Asset Management summer fellow at The New rary feminist pioneers, thinkers, and activists department of the United School’s Institute for Critical to consider how contributed to Bank of Switzerland in Social Inquiry in a seminar modern American feminism. New York City. with Professor Nancy Fraser. Caroline Helton received a He has also been invited to grant from the University of present his research at the Michigan Office of Research Graduate Institute of Geneva to record a CD of solo vocal for a Swiss National Science William Hearn received repertoire by Italian Jewish Foundation project entitled “Transparency: the Michigan Center for composers whose lives were Qualities and Technologies of Global Early Christian Studies affected by World War II. Gemstone Trading.” Undergraduate Student Award from the Middle East Studies Department. Rachael Rafael Neis published Faculty several articles, including: Walter Cohen published two “Generating Bodies of book reviews: “Treating the Knowledge: Food, Family, and Public: Charitable Theater Fetus in Early Rabbinic Graduate Students and Civic Health in the Early Science,” “‘All That Is in the Settlement:’ Humans, Likeness, Nadav Linial received Modern Atlantic World,” by and Species in the Rabbinic a Rackham One-Term Rachael Ball and “Shake- Bestiary, “The Seduction of Dissertation Fellowship speare and the Politics of Law: Rethinking Legal Studies in Jewish Studies,” from Rackham Graduate Commoners: Digesting the and “Interspecies and Cross-Species Genera- School. New Social History,” by Chris Fitter. He also presented his paper, tion: Limits and Potentialities in Tannaitic “Toward an Ecological History of World Reproductive Science.” She also gave a lecture Literature” at Washington University in at Columbia University titled “Species: Rabbis, St. Louis and Stockholm University. Humans, And Other Creatures In Late Antiquity.” Jana Mazurkiewicz Meisarosh Deborah Dash Moore spoke Shelley Perlove spoke on her founded Yiddish Arts and on “Visualizing the Jewish research about the artist Academics of North America, Immigrant Ghetto” at Spertus Rembrandt van Rijn at the a group that works to College of Jewish Studies and University of Melbourne promote and preserve at several screenings of the (Melbourne, Australia) and Yiddish language and culture. documentary film, GI Jews: the Telfair Museum in Jewish Americans in World Savannah, GA. She also wrote War II, for which she served a review for the Historians of as a senior historical advisor. Netherlandish Art on Rembrandt and his Circle by Stephanie S. Dickey.

20 Franke ly Speaking — Fall 2019 Scott Spector received a Rick Bonnie received and “‘De-camping’ Through Development: re-invitation grant from the University of Helsinki three The Palestinian Refugee Camps in the Gaza German Academic Exchange year Research Project Strip under the Israeli Occupation.” Her recent Service to do research in funding for his project titled book, Seizing Jerusalem: The Architectures of Berlin, and will be a visiting “Religious Responses to Unilateral Unification, received the 2019 Spiro fellow in Vienna through the Climate Change in the Kostof Award from the Society of Architectural Institute for Human Sciences Southern Levant: Under- Historians. standing the Rise and Fall (Institute für die Wissen- Veerle Vanden Daelen of Jewish Ritual Purification schaften vom Menschen). released multiple articles, Baths in the Hasmonean-Roman Period.” He also published an article, “No Fixed Abode: including: “In the Port City He also published an article, “Researching Homeland and Legacy in Max Brod and Franz We Meet? Jewish Migration Cultural Objects and Manuscripts in a Small Kafka,” in Franz Kafka in an intercultural context. and Jewish Life in Antwerp Country: The Finnish Experience of Raising Jeffrey Veidlinger published During the Late 19th and Awareness of Art Crime.” “Everyday Life and the Early 20th Centuries,” Shtetl: A Historiography” in Kirsten Fermaglich lectured “Antwerp, 1930–2008,” and Polin Volume 30 and gave at the 92nd Street Young “Foreword: The International presentations on pogroms in Men’s and Young Women’s Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, the Holy the Russian Civil War at the Hebrew Association on See and the International Conference on Center for Jewish History in her book, A Rosenberg Refugee Policies.” by Any Other Name. New York, George Washington Yael Zerubavel published University, and the College her article, “Negotiating of Charleston. He remains a vice president of Difference and Empathy: the Association for Jewish Studies, associate Cinematic Representations chair of the Academic Committee of the Harvey Goldberg wrote two of Passing and Exchanged Center for Jewish History, a member of the articles for Jewish Libya: Identities in the Israeli- Academic Committee of the United States Memory and Identity in Palestinian Conflict” in Holocaust Memorial Museum, and director Text and Image, released by Rethinking Peace: Discourse, of the Frankel Center. Syracuse University Press: Memory, Translation and Rebecca Wollenberg “Tradition with Modernity: Dialogue. She has also recently given lectures published “The Bad Wife From Ottoman Times to on her new book, Desert in the Promised Who Was Good: Woman Italian Encounters” and Land, at Yale University, Princeton, University as a Way of Life in Genesis “Violence and Liturgical/ College London, Oxford University, and Rabbah 17:3” in Prooftexts Literary Traditions: Joining the Chorus While Cambridge University. and “The Book that Changed: Retaining Your Voice.” Tales of Ezran Authorship Juan Manuel Tebes published as a Form of Late Antique three articles: “The Mesha Alumni Biblical Criticism” in the Inscription and Relations Rabbi Aura Ahuvia was elected chair of the Journal of Biblical Literature. with Moab and Edom,” board of ALEPH: Alliance of . “The Southern Home of Robin Echt Axelrod was a presenter at the Yahweh and Pre-Priestly 2019 Wexner Alumni Institute. Past Fellows Patriarchal/Exodus Traditions Leora Auslander contributed from a Southern Perspective,” Nick Block published his article “The Ex Libris to “When a Great Photogra- and “Memories of Humiliation, of the German-Jewish Artist Emma Dessau pher Takes Bad Photographs: Cultures of Resentment Towards Edom and the Goitein” in Emma Dessau Goitein: Un’artista Robert Haas’ Images of Formation of Ancient Jewish National Identity.” europea a Perugia and presented “Dialogue and Intersection in German Holocaust Memory Exile,” for a catalogue for Miriamne Krummel published “‘Enge unpathas Culture: Stumbling Blocks and the Memorial to an exhibition at the Jewish uncuð gelad’: The Long Walk to Freedom” in the Murdered Jews of Europe” at the Notre Museum in Munich. She also Monsters and Monstrosity in Jewish History: Dame German Jewish Studies Workshop. He gave guest lectures at the From the Middle Ages to Modernity. Oxford Centre for Hebrew will also be starting as an assistant professor Alona Nitzan-Shiftan and Jewish Studies, the University of Chicago of the Practice at Boston College this fall. co-authored several articles, Center in Paris, the Institut national des Saskia Coenen Snyder received a 2018–2020 including: “Introduction: Langues et Civilisations Orientales, the Maison Humanities Grant from the University of South The Meaning of ‘Europe’ de la Recherche de la Sorbonne, the Simon Carolina’s Office of the Provost. She also for Architectural History,” Dubnow Institute, the London Area French published “An Urban Semiotics of War: Signs “Memorandum on the Plan History Workshop, and the McNeil Center for and Sounds in Nazi-Occupied Amsterdam” in for Jerusalem,” “The Role Early American Studies at the University of Place in Modern Jewish Culture and Society: of Conservation in the Pennsylvania. Studies in Contemporary Jewry and gave Production of Urban Space,” lectures at the John Adams Institute and the

Franke ly Speaking — Fall 2019 21 Mazel Tov!, continued Students

Anne Frank House, and the Center for Frankel Center for Judaic Studies European Studies of Harvard University. She was a National Endowment for the Celebrates Spring Graduates Humanities Fellow at the Pearlstine/Lipov Center for Southern Jewish Culture at the College of Charleston in the summer of 2019. he Frankel Center celebrated fifteen Judaic Studies minors, five majors, Greg Epstein began writing a weekly series two PhDs, and one master’s student at this year’s graduation reception investigating the ethics of technology and on May 3 in the Thayer Building. business for leading Silicon Valley publication T TechCrunch. Several students will be continuing their education at graduate school. Michele Freed became a facilitator with Max Topel, who was awarded the Outstanding Undergraduate Award, will Resetting the Table, a program that works to be starting in the doctoral program in molecular engineering at the University build dialogue between parties on divisive issues. of Chicago. Erica Schuman will be attending the University of Michigan Law Zachary Goldsmith earned a Ph.D. in political School, and Madeline Jacobson will be studying maritime civilizations at the science from Indiana University, Bloomington. University of Haifa. Sara Halpern received a Dissertation Completion Shira Brandhandler, who is moving to Chicago to work as the Director of Youth Fellowship from the Association for Jewish Engagement at Temple Jeremiah, praised her Judaic Studies classes for Studies and a Central European History Research allowing her to “get to know each subject deeply and participate in meaning- Grant. She also gave talks at the Jewish Museum of Maryland and the University of Minnesota– ful ways.” Judaic Studies minor Ali Rosenblatt will also be engaging in Jewish Duluth. communal leadership as an Eisendrath Legislative Assistant Fellow at the Yaakov Herskovitz gave a lecture at the opening Religious Action Center of . of Sholem Asch House Museum in Bat Yam, Israel. Sarah Prendergast studied acting, creative writing, and Judaic Studies while at P’ninah Kanai started a new position as the U-M and is pursuing a career in the arts. “Judaic Studies offers a wide range of Director of Creative Services at the Jewish engaging and diverse classes,” she said, “that both encourages one to look Community Center of Metro Detroit. back and examine the long, rich, religious and ethnic history of the Jewish Ali Rosenblatt will be an incoming Eisendrath people, as well as challenges one to question what it means to be a ‘Jew’ in Legislative Assistant at the Religious Action today’s political and cultural climate. I have learned so much about myself, Center of Reform Judaism. She also wrote the world, and humanity as a whole. I am a more informed, creative, and “Don’t Falsely Label U-M” for New York Jewish Week and “Keeping the Mishpachah Together,” empathetic person because of the classes I took at the Frankel Center.” for the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaic Studies minor Henry Zou majored in psychology and is taking a gap Judaism online blog. year. “Judaic Studies provided me with the valuable opportunity to improve my understanding of a global culture different from my own,” he said. “It also Emeritus Faculty helped me to better understand social justice from the Jewish perspective and Todd Endelman wrote improve my awareness of the challenges and successes of Jewish communi- “Fighting Antisemitism ties.” Judaic Studies major Amanda Smith will also be taking a gap year, at with Numbers in Early Friendship Circle in West Bloomfield. Twentieth-Century Britain,” for Patterns of Prejudice. Rachel Ohayon majored in both Judaic Studies and sociology. She recalled that “as an alum of Yeshiva Day School K-12 I was unsure what Judaic Studies would have to offer me...but...now that I have completed the program, I have learned so much new information, history, and viewpoints that I had not been exposed to previously and I am so grateful for that....Judaic Studies has Anita Norich received a shaped my future, my interests, and my opinions.” grant from the National Endowment for the Yaakov Herskovitz, a graduating Judaic Studies certificate student, defended Humanities—Center for his PhD, “Linguistic Limbo: Writing and Rewriting in Hebrew and Yiddish,” in Jewish History in New York. Middle East Studies under the direction of Frankel faculty Shachar Pinsker, Maya Barzilai, Mikhail Krutikov, and Anita Norich. His dissertation analyzed little-known literary works by three important writers, who published in both Hebrew and Yiddish. Herskovitz will be joining the Frankel Institute as a fellow for the 2019–2020 academic year under head fellow Julian Levinson.

22 Franke ly Speaking — Fall 2019 Back Row Left to Right: Amanda Smith, Sarah Conwisar, Lindsey Davis, Delesiya Davis, Alexa Smith, Max Topel Front Row Left to Right: Madeline Jacobson, Erica Schuman, Alana Barofsky, Jacqueline Dresler, Emily Slavkin

William Runyan, whose 2018 dissertation “Global Form and Fantasy in Yiddish PhD Graduates Literary Culture: Visions from and Buenos Aires”was also super- Yaakov Herskovitz vised by Norich and Krutikov, taught first- and second-year Yiddish in 2019. Will Runyan He received a translation fellowship through the Yiddish Book Center and will be translating selections from the 1935 poetry collection Shtot in profil (City Master of Arts in Profile) by Yankev Shternberg, a leading Yiddish cultural figure in interwar Jacqueline Dressler Bucharest. Logan Wall received the Michael Bernstein Dissertation Prize, which is Majors awarded to a recent University of Michigan graduate based on excellence of Shira Brandhandler scholarship, originality of research, quality of writing, and significance of Evan Heugel contribution to Jewish Studies. Wall successfully defended his dissertation, Rachel Ohayon “Covenantal Poetics: Jewish, Irish, and African American Modernisms Beyond Amanda Smith the Lyric,” in January. Professor Deborah Dash Moore, who worked with Wall, Max Topel (Judaic Studies Honors) wrote that his dissertation “exemplifies the best in interdisciplinary scholar- ship that draws not only on his knowledge of 20th-century American Minors literature but also on his mastery of Judaic Studies.” Alana Barofsky Yosef Gross received the Outstanding Yiddish Student Award, which is given Sarah Conwisar to a student whose classwork and commitment to Yiddish stands out. Yiddish Delesiya Davis language instructor Michael Yashinsky noted that “he is taking the language Lindsey Davis not because it is integral to his academic study or career path, but rather Emily Duchene because he has a love for Yiddish, for its words and sounds and history.” Dalia Gatoff This year’sMarshall Weinberg Prize, given annually to an outstanding Madeline Jacobson graduate student who is engaged in writing a dissertation, was awarded to Michael McGrath Yael Kenan, a doctoral student in the Department of Comparative Literature. Sarah Prendergast Her dissertation, “Communities of Loss: National Mourning in Israeli and Ali Rosenblatt Palestininan Literature after 1948,” looks at the relationship between mourn- Erica Schuman ing and national formation. Professor Emerita Anita Norich and associate professor Maya Barzilai wrote, “Having read Kenan’s work over the years and Emily Slavkin witnessed her participation in the field of Jewish studies, both on campus and Alexa Smith internationally, we can attest that she is an exceptional writer and thinker, Hannah Student as well as a promising future colleague.” Henry Zou The 2019 graduates and student award winners join a distinguished group of Frankel Center alumni.

Franke ly Speaking — Fall 2019 23 Non-Profit Org. U.S. Postage PAID Ann Arbor, MI University of Michigan (734) 763-9047 Permit No. 144 Frankel Center for Judaic Studies [email protected] 202 S. Thayer St., Ste. 2111 Ann Arbor, MI 48104-1608

Drawing by Eric Drooker Save the Date! Daniel Kahn, Musical Performance Thursday, September 26, 8 pm — Earl V. Moore Building, Ann Arbor

Dennis Ross, Diplomat and Author Wednesday, November 6, 7 pm — Rackham Amphitheater, Ann Arbor

Ayelet Tsabari, Author Monday, October 28, 7 pm — Literati Bookstore, Ann Arbor

Executive Committee Frankel Institute for Academic Advisory Board The Regents of the Jeffrey Veidlinger, Director Advanced Judaic Studies Lila Corwin Berman, Temple University University of Michigan Gabriele Boccaccini Steering Committee Miriam Bodian, University of Texas-Austin Jordan B. Acker, Huntington Woods Karla Goldman Gabriele Boccaccini Ross Brann, Cornell University Michael J. Behm, Grand Blanc Devi Mays Anne Curzan Richard Cohen, Hebrew University Mark J. Bernstein, Ann Arbor Karla Goldman Shaul Kelner, Vanderbilt University Paul W. Brown, Ann Arbor Newsletter Credits Devi Mays Marjorie Lehman, Jewish Theological Seminary Shauna Ryder Diggs, Grosse Pointe Editor: Kelsey Keeves Peggy McCracken Ranen Omer-Sherman, University of Louisville Denise Ilitch, Bingham Farms Designer: Mike Savitski Helmut Puff Derek J. Penslar, Harvard University Ronald Weiser, Ann Arbor Printer: Allegra • Print • Mail • Marketing Jeffrey Veidlinger, Director Jeffrey Shandler, Rutgers University Katherine E. White, Ann Arbor Michael Swartz, Ohio State University Mark S. Schlissel (ex officio) Beth Wenger, University of Pennsylvania Yael Zerubavel, Rutgers University

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