Florida Jewish History Month January 2013

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Florida Jewish History Month January 2013 Florida Jewish History Month January 2013 Celebrating the Florida Jewish Community through Language, Literature, and Philosophy Miami-Dade County Public Schools Division of Social Sciences THE SCHOOL BOARD OF MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, FLORIDA Ms. Perla Tabares Hantman, Chair Dr. Lawrence S. Feldman, Vice-Chair Dr. Dorothy Bendross-Mindingall Mr. Carlos L. Curbelo Mr. Renier Diaz de la Portilla Dr. Wilbert “Tee” Holloway Dr. Martin S. Karp Dr. Marta Pérez Ms. Raquel A. Regalado Mr. Jude Bruno Student Advisor Alberto M. Carvalho Superintendent of Schools 2 BACKGROUND INFORMATION In October of 2003, Governor Jeb Bush signed a historic bill into law designating January of each year as Florida Jewish History Month. The legislation for Florida Jewish History Month was initiated at the Jewish Museum of Florida by Marcia Zerivitz, the Museum's Founding Executive Director and Chief Curator. Ms. Zerivitz and State Senator Gwen Margolis worked closely with legislators to translate the Museum's mission into a statewide observance. It seemed appropriate to honor Jewish contributions to the State, as sixteen percent, over 850,000 people of the American Jewish community lives in Florida. Since 1763, when the first Jews settled in Pensacola immediately after the Treaty of Paris ceded Florida to Great Britain from Spain, Jews had come to Florida to escape persecution, for economic opportunity, to join family members already here, for the climate and lifestyle, for their health and to retire. It is a common belief that Florida Jewish history began after World War II, but in actuality, the history of Floridian Jews begins much earlier. The largest number of Jews settled in Florida after World War II, but the Jewish community in Florida reaches much further into the history of this State than simply the last half-century. Jews have actively participated in shaping the destiny of Florida since its inception, but until research of the 1980s, most of the facts were little-known. One such fact is that David Levy Yulee, a Jewish pioneer, brought Florida into statehood in 1845, served as its first U.S. senator and was the first person of Jewish ancestry to serve in the U.S. Congress. Floridian Jews have contributed greatly to the development of the entire state, but in recent history much of the Jewish community’s involvement has been primarily within southeast Florida. The earliest known permanent Jewish settler in Miami was Isidor Cohen, a signatory of the city's charter. He helped found many civic organizations, as well as Jewish organizations. The heartbreak of the Holocaust came close to home for the Jews of Miami Beach, who experienced a feeling of helplessness when the S.S. St. Louis, a ship filled with Jews fleeing Hitler and Nazism, was denied permission to anchor there in June 1939. The American government of the time refused to allow the St. Louis to land its human cargo on the shores of south Florida. The steamer anchored for two hours within sight of Miami Beach. The Jewish populace of Miami has worked hard to help develop their community. Today, Miami is the nation's ninth largest Jewish community and continues to grow in population and cohesive strength. Palm Beach County is host to Florida's largest Jewish population in the state, Broward County the second largest and Miami-Dade is third in number. Throughout the history of the State, and like other groups, Jewish people have actively participated in shaping the destiny and direction of Florida at its roots. In 250 years, the Jewish community of Florida has left their indelible footprints across the entire State. Floridian Jews have served in every U.S. war, and have been prominent in the cattle, citrus, tomato and tobacco industries, to name a few. Diverse cultures have enriched the state of Florida since its earliest days and Florida’s Jewish communities have 3 become an integral part of the state and its history. Jewish History Month is a time to learn about the rich tapestry of Jewish life here. Since 1763, Jews have been involved in enhancing the lives and dreams of all Floridians. Florida Jewish History Month celebrates these accomplishments. Florida Jewish History Month has been so successful since its establishment that it inspired the legislation for Jewish American Heritage Month, which is observed in May with a Proclamation signed by President George W. Bush in April, 2006. The Proclamation states that “The faith and hard work of Jewish Americans have played an integral role in shaping the cultural fabric of America. During Jewish American Heritage Month, we celebrate the vital contributions of Jewish Americans to our Nation. Throughout our history, Jewish Americans have contributed to the strength of our country and the preservation of our values. The talent and imagination of these citizens have helped our Nation prosper.” 4 STUDY GUIDE Florida Jewish History Month 2013: Celebrating the Florida Jewish Community through Language, Literature, and Philosophy Part I: Research Using the Internet and other resources in your classroom and media center, research for Part II activities, writing and discussion: 1. If we are to recognize a group of people, we must first know who they are as a people. In order to celebrate Florida Jewish History Month, research and discuss the following: Who are the Jews and what is Judaism? What beliefs and traditions separate them from other groups? What does it mean to be Jewish? Aside from English, is there a language or languages that many Jews speak? 2. What are the roots of Florida’s Jewish community? Who were the first Jews here? Keeping this year’s theme in mind, Celebrating Florida’s Jewish Community Through Language, Literature and Philosophy, research the early Florida Jewish population. You may want to start your research with the Jewish Museum of Florida, www.jewishmusem.com. Write a 2-3 page essay on your findings. Were there any authors of note among those Jews who settled Florida? Who were they? Note their major literary contributions 3. Why is it important to celebrate the language of a culture? What are some ways that Florida’s Jewish community celebrates its culture through language? How does the written word help to define one’s cultural experience? Using these questions as the basis for your research, learn as much as you can about Yiddish, the language of Eastern European Jews that many Jews in Florida still speak and present your findings to the class. 4. What are some of the literary and philosophical contributions of Florida’s Jewish community? Research to discover some answers. You might begin your research with the South Florida Center for Jewish Ethics, the Institution of Jewish Knowledge and Learning, or one of the many Jewish Book Festivals held in Florida each year using the Resources & Webography on page 11 for websites to begin your research. Choose three notable Florida Jewish writers or philosophers from your research and write a short biography of each one. Read your biography to the class. 5. Research Florida Jewish writers such as Cuban-American poet, Elisa Albo, non- fiction writer Alan Sakowitz, author Rabbi Edwin Goldberg, scholar Dr Alan Berger, or historical authors, Marcia Jo Zerivitz, and Seth Bramson. What specific focus does each author represent about the Jews of Florida and their history? Do these writers express their Jewish heritage in their works? Share your findings in small groups. 5 6. Florida’s unique history is especially diverse because of the number of immigrants who have settled here, among them many Jewish immigrants: including Cuban- American memoir writer, Ruth Behar. Research Jewish writers who have immigrated to Florida. What impact do you think that emigration has had on these writers? Find evidence to support your opinion. 7. How has Florida's rich cultural diversity created opportunities for the Jewish literary, journalistic, and philosophical community to flourish? Research writers such as political columnist Gary Stein, novelist Michelle Hodkin, medical columnist Suzy Cohen, and Holocaust survivor and author, Joe Sachs. How have their works been influenced by their cultural experience as being Jewish and living in Florida? What themes do each focus on that represents one aspect of their culture as a Jew? 8. Research to discover other Florida Jewish poets, playwrights, and novelists. Choose one to focus your research on and write an in-depth biography of that person’s life, to be presented in small groups. 9. Consider some of Florida’s Jewish religious leaders as writers, such as authors, Rabbi Edwin Goldberg, Rabbi Terry Bookman, Rabbi Sol Schiff and Rabbi Irving Lehrman. Research their lives and their works and then answer the following questions in small group discussions. How have these authors and leaders been vital to the landscape of Florida’s Jewish community, as well as in the greater Florida communities? 10. South Florida has one of the largest communities of Holocaust survivors in the world. Research to discover some of the writings of these survivors, such as author Ruth Glasberg Gold, memoir writer Icek Kuperberg, and Leon Shagrin. What do their experiences add to the world of literature? Why is it important for their writings to be read and their voices to be heard? 11. Research the life of Isaac Bashevis Singer. Who was he? What was his work? Who influenced his writing? Why is it important? What other writers can you find that have been influenced by Singer, a major Jewish writer from Miami Beach, Florida? 12. Look up the Dora Teitelboim Center for Yiddish Culture, and research Yiddish Theatre. How is Yiddish Theatre a reflection of Jewish culture? Who were some of the playwright writers and actors in early Yiddish Theatre? And currently, in Florida? Consider starting your research with Bruce Adler and Avi Hoffman.
Recommended publications
  • Yiddish Literature
    Syracuse University SURFACE Religion College of Arts and Sciences 1990 Yiddish Literature Ken Frieden Syracuse University Follow this and additional works at: https://surface.syr.edu/rel Part of the Religion Commons Recommended Citation Frieden, Ken, "Yiddish Literature" (1990). Religion. 39. https://surface.syr.edu/rel/39 This Other is brought to you for free and open access by the College of Arts and Sciences at SURFACE. It has been accepted for inclusion in Religion by an authorized administrator of SURFACE. For more information, please contact [email protected]. i C'L , IS4 ed l'ftOv\ Yiddish Literature 1077 וt..c:JI' $-- 131"'1+-" "r.כ) C fv כ,;E Yiddish Literature iddiSh literature may 00 said to have been born the Jews of northern Europe during this time than among twice. The earliest evidence of Yiddish literary ac­ non-Jews living in the same area. Many works achieved Y tivity dates from the 13th century and is found such popularity that they were frequently reprinted over in southern Germany, where the language itself had origi­ a period of centuries and enjoyed an astonishingly wide nated as a specifically Jewish variant of Middle High Ger­ dissemination, with the result that their language devel­ man approximately a quarter of a millennium earlier. The oped into an increasingly ossified koine that was readily Haskalah, the Jewish equivalent of the Enlightenment, understood over a territory extending from Amsterdam to effectively doomed the Yiddish language and its literary Odessa and from Venice to Hamburg. During the 18th culture in Germany and in western Europe during the century the picture changed rapidly in western Europe, course of the 18th century.
    [Show full text]
  • From Yiddish Theatre: Past, Present, and Future Comes a Field Trip to the Nafional Yiddish Theater
    Volume XXIX No. 9 June/July 2017 Sivan-Tammuz 5777 From Yiddish Theatre: Past, Present, and Future Comes A Field Trip to the National Yiddish Theater It’s not often that one event begets another, but that’s what happened after a very successful April 30 event about the National Yiddish Theatre. The more than 100 who people packed into Boardman Road Branch Library to hear Motl Didner, Associate Artistic Director of the National Yiddish Thea- tre Folksbiene, speak about Yiddish Theatre: Past, Present and Future spawned a second event: a field trip to the theater later this summer. On April 30, Julie Makowsky, Vassar Temple Religious and Hebrew School Director, began the afternoon with a prayer for Israel and then led the crowd in singing Hatikva. Motl Didner, Associate Artistic Director of the National Yiddish Theatre Folks- biene, gave an “instant Yiddish lesson” Maltz Sefer Haftarah Scroll dedicated at Temple Beth-El to the assembled audience then spoke about the origins and history of the by Michael Witman, Vice President Board of Directors Yiddish language, the rise of Yiddish Motl Didner speaking in Poughkeepsie theater, and how the theater has sur- on April 30 Celebration of a Bar or Bat Mitzvah is Clubs (FJMC), which had experience vived and flourished around the world. one of the major religious events in the creating Haftarah scrolls. The FJMC con- life of a Jewish individual. Being called tracted with Oter Israel, a consortium of to the Torah for an Aliyah, to stand next soferim in Jerusalem, to produce Temple Experience the National Yiddish Theater first hand! to the words of God as a portion of the Beth-El’s scroll.
    [Show full text]
  • Table of Contents
    Table of Contents From the Editors 3 From the President 3 From the Executive Director 5 The Sound Issue “Overtures” Music, the “Jew” of Jewish Studies: Updated Readers’ Digest 6 Edwin Seroussi To Hear the World through Jewish Ears 9 Judah M. Cohen “The Sound of Music” The Birth and Demise of Vocal Communities 12 Ruth HaCohen Brass Bands, Jewish Youth, and the Sonorities of a Global Perspective 14 Maureen Jackson How to Get out of Here: Sounding Silence in the Jewish Cabaretesque 20 Philip V. Bohlman Listening Contrapuntally; or What Happened When I Went Bach to the Archives 22 Amy Lynn Wlodarski The Trouble with Jewish Musical Genres: The Orquesta Kef in the Americas 26 Lillian M. Wohl Singing a New Song 28 Joshua Jacobson “Sounds of a Nation” When Josef (Tal) Laughed; Notes on Musical (Mis)representations 34 Assaf Shelleg From “Ha-tikvah” to KISS; or, The Sounds of a Jewish Nation 36 Miryam Segal An Issue in Hebrew Poetic Rhythm: A Cognitive-Structuralist Approach 38 Reuven Tsur Words, Melodies, Hands, and Feet: Musical Sounds of a Kerala Jewish Women’s Dance 42 Barbara C. Johnson Sound and Imagined Border Transgressions in Israel-Palestine 44 Michael Figueroa The Siren’s Song: Sound, Conflict, and the Politics of Public Space in Tel Aviv 46 Abigail Wood “Surround Sound” Sensory History, Deep Listening, and Field Recording 50 Kim Haines-Eitzen Remembering Sound 52 Alanna E. Cooper Some Things I Heard at the Yeshiva 54 Jonathan Boyarin The Questionnaire What are ways that you find most useful to incorporate sound, images, or other nontextual media into your Jewish Studies classrooms? 56 Read AJS Perspectives Online at perspectives.ajsnet.org AJS Perspectives: The Magazine of President Please direct correspondence to: the Association for Jewish Studies Pamela Nadell Association for Jewish Studies From the Editors perspectives.ajsnet.org American University Center for Jewish History 15 West 16th Street Dear Colleagues, Vice President / Program New York, NY 10011 Editors Sounds surround us.
    [Show full text]
  • Kirzane CV 2020
    JESSICA KIRZANE Jewish Studies Scholar, Literary Translator, [email protected] Editor, Yiddish Instructor Jessicakirzane.com ACADEMIC POSITIONS 2018-present Assistant Instructional Professor in Yiddish, University of Chicago EDUCATION 2017 Ph.D. Yiddish Studies, Columbia University Dissertation: “The Melting Plot: Interethnic Romance in American Jewish Fiction in the Early Twentieth Century”; Advisor: Dr. Jeremy Dauber 2013 M. Phil., Yiddish Studies, Columbia University 2011 M.A., Yiddish Studies, Columbia University 2008 B. A., English Literature and Jewish Studies, University of Virginia EDITORIAL POSITIONS 2018-present Editor-in-Chief, In geveb: A Journal of Yiddish Studies 2016-2018 Pedagogy Editor/Managing Editor, In geveb: A Journal of Yiddish Studies 2017 Contributing Editor, Teach Great Jewish Books, a website of the Yiddish Book Center PUBLICATIONS Books Diary of a Lonely Girl, or the Battle Against Free Love. by Miriam Karpilove, trans. and with an introduction by Jessica Kirzane (Syracuse University Press, 2020). A Provincial Newspaper, and Other Stories by Miriam Karpilove. Trans. and with an introduction by Jessica Kirzane (manuscript under review). Essays in Edited Volumes “Emma Wolf” in the Shalvi-Hyman Encyclopedia of Jewish Women (Jewish Women’s Archive, forthcoming). “The ‘Yiddish Gaze’: American Yiddish Literary Representations of Black Bodies and their Torture.” Race with Jewish Ethics. Jonathan Crane, ed. (Penn State University Press, 2020). “Kansas Jewish Literature.” Kansas Jews: People and Places. An Encyclopedia of Kansas Jewish History, 1854-1954. (forthcoming) “Afterward” (with Ellen Cassedy) to On the Landing: Collected Stories of Yenta Mash. Trans. Ellen Cassedy. University of New Mexico Press, 2019. “‘What Kind of a Man are You?’: The Sexualization of Race and the Trope of Alienation in Yiddish American Narratives of Interethnic Sexual Encounter.” The Sacred Encounter: Jewish Perspectives on Sexuality.
    [Show full text]
  • Yankev Waislitz – the Veteran of the Yiddish Stage (To His 50 Years of Theatrical Activeness) by Yitzkhak Kahan
    YANKEV WAISLITZ – THE VETERAN OF THE YIDDISH STAGE (TO HIS 50 YEARS OF THEATRICAL ACTIVENESS) BY YITZKHAK KAHAN In his book about Victor Hugo, the well‐known French writer, Andre Marua, gives this definition about youth: “What do you call it when all senses are on the fire, and the heart is clean and sings in the breast with such power, impatient, desperate and yet – overfilled with hope: when the person feels stronger, like the world, but powerless to prove his power, when the life that began just a moment ago is already packed with external events and happenings?...This has a name, it is called: youth”. Yankev Waislitz was this kind of youth, when fifty years ago he set his first steps on the Yiddish stage. He belonged to an idealistic youth, restless, searching, that was spiritually young and dynamic. He was of a youth that was driven by internal striving, not to practical practicalities and careerism, but to a higher purpose of truth and a search for justice. This youth made a historical rendezvous with ideas of a violent epoch and picked itself up to the most wonderful heights of devotion for light humanitarian ideals that promised and enchanted so much. The years 1907‐1914 (after the failure of the Russian Revolution) marked the big rise of national‐secular Jewish culture, which searched for a new expression of Yiddishkayt and of Yiddish creativity, a new form in which the past, present and future search harmoniously to connect themselves. *) Written in 1963. The so called Peretz era began to bloom.
    [Show full text]
  • Yiddish Since When?
    Yiddish Since When? By Jerry Klinger May you get passage out of the old village safely, and when you settle, may you fall into the outhouse just as a regiment of Ukrainians is finishing a prune stew and twelve barrels of beer.1 Yiddish Curse The way it is does not mean the way it was or the way it will be. - William Rabinowitz Oy ! 2 When your parent's, your extended family, your neighbors speak Yiddish, and they were all old people to me as a kid, I assumed the world spoke Yiddish; Yiddish, the language of the Yids - the Jew's language. It was the Jewish language from what I thought must have been forever. Of course that did not refer to the Hebrew we learned in the Yeshivah - that was Lashon Ha'Kadosh - the Holy Language, only to be used studying Torah. We were a modern Orthodox Yehshivah. Girls were permitted in our classrooms and studied with us but had to sit on a separate side of the room. In more traditional Yeshivahs, girls are taught separately from boys and not in Hebrew. Not being much different from many of the kids of my generation, growing up as Americans, trying to assimilate, Yiddish was not on our minds, English and Baseball and girls were. We really did not want to learn Yiddish. It was the language of the Ghetto, the language of the European Holocaust. If there was a language we wanted to learn, it was the language of freedom, the language they spoke in Israel, the language of the strong independent Jew, Modern Hebrew.
    [Show full text]
  • Musica Judaica Jewish Music Between Oral and Written Traditions: the 19Th Century in Context
    Musica Judaica Jewish Music Between Oral and Written Traditions: The 19th Century in Context Sunday-Monday, 14-15 July 2019 Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies Clarendon Institute Walton Street, Oxford OX1 2HG Generously supported by: Mickey Katz Endowed Chair in Jewish Music Herb Alpert School of Music University of California Los Angeles The Department of Music Columbia University in the City of New York Table of contents Event abstract ............................................................................................................... 4 Event rationale ............................................................................................................. 4 Conference programme................................................................................................ 6 Abstracts ....................................................................................................................... 8 Registration ................................................................................................................ 23 Contacts ...................................................................................................................... 23 Note on kosher food: .................................................................................................. 23 Performers accompanying the keynote lecture ......................................................... 24 Venues and map ......................................................................................................... 26 MusJud2019@Oxford
    [Show full text]
  • Conference Program
    Connecting Jewish Theatre To the World CONFERENCE PROGRAM AJT Board/Staff Staff Executive Director: Jeremy Aluma Registrar/Finance: Marcy Segal Website Creative/Graphic Designer: Michelle Shapiro Conference Stage Manager/Program Designer: Danny Debner Executive Board President: Hank Kimmel Vice-president: Wendy Kout Vice-president: Ralph Meranto Vice-president: Deborah Baer Mozes Secretary: Jesse Bernstein Treasurer: Susan Lodish Immediate Past President: David Y. Chack Members-at-Large Social Media Manager: Danielle Levsky Toby Klein Greenwald Ronda Spinak Adam Immerwahr Robyn Israel Ex Officio Mira Hirsch Ellen Schiff Robert Skloot Honorary Board Tovah Feldshuh Adam Kantor Theodore Bikel (z”l) We wish to express our gratitude to the Performers’ Unions: ACTORS’ EQUITY ASSOCIATION AMERICAN GUILD OF MUSICAL ARTISTS AMERICAN GUILD OF VARIETY ARTISTS SAG-AFTRA through Theatre Authority, Inc. for their cooperation in permitting the Artists (Tessa Aubergenois, Arye Gross, Karen Malina White, Sally Wingert, Minka Wiltz, and Aviva Pressman) to appear on this program. Program Contents Day One Schedule – Sunday October 25 4 Mara Isaacs 5 Debórah Eliezer 6 Seraph-Eden Boroditsky 7 Lindsey Newman 8 Stories of Jewish Holidays 9 The Great Escape 10 Bubble Schmeisis (excerpt) 11 BJW (excerpt) 12 Imagining Heschel (excerpt) 13 Day Two Schedule – Monday October 26 14 Shimrit Ron 15 Igal Ezraty 16 Hadar Galron 17 Maya Arud Yasur 18 Noam Gil 19 Hanna Azoulay-Hasfari 20 Udi Ben Moshe 21 Joshua Harmon 22 Anike Tourse 23 András Borgula 24 Helen Marcos 25 Rachel
    [Show full text]
  • R Ro~Ay~, M ~--Ch--19~, 1--97~ 'Thursday, March 19, 1970.~-,- -'-..;.O.;.-'-'-.,;..;.;~ ______-,-______.;.;....:...;; ___T;.;~;.:;
    , . '~ .. -~ '. " p~ge~gh~t~ ________ •______ ~ ____________~ __~~~~~~T~H~E~.~J_E~~~IS~H~P~O~S~T ______ ~~ ______ ~~ ________~~ ___·__ T_h~ur_ro~ay~,_M_~--ch--19~,_1--97~ 'Thursday, March 19, 1970.~-,-_-'-..;.o.;.-'-'-.,;..;.;~ ______ -,-_____________.;.;....:...;; ___T;.;~;.:; .. E.;;;... ..;,;.;..~:.,;.E;.;W:.;..·..;.I;.;S:.,;.~:.,;.·.;..P___ 6~S:.,;..T:.,;.. _________ . ;... _':.,;..:.,;.. _________ ...:... _________ ..,... ____________-.,. ....... ___ .............. ~page Nine Box Office - The Bay, Jewish Com­ Program highlights will include a Israeli. Emissary in Edmonton; and: Shmuel Wander, lsrael Community the AACA can help you. Present Yiddish· Theatre' munity Book Shop, 1356 Main St. debate Oli. the role of Jews in the Centennial Breakf.Gst. AI.IYAfI'.. NEWS nipeg contact carole liiWiri~- . , Emmissary in Winnipeg. ~hen Jewish lore. He is known from coast Diaspora, discussions of Young Manitoba Legislators, Judges and faith Bteakfust· was the Right Hon. The housing situation in ISrael 339-6040. For m~re detailed Aliyah 'Also featured will be Friday night. '. I Judaea camps in c:anac3a and Isi-ael, .Justices, Members of Parliament, L. B. Pearson,' former Prime Min- wllilikely present the most difficuItinforination .. ' contl;tct Bert . ~aldman to coast as the foremost producer of S Z S C ... I serVices, 'hayrides, entertainment· I folklore and stage-o-ramas. As for • • • . arn,va . and study programs in ·lsrael, . and leaders of the religious com­ ister of Canada. Mr: Pea~son·iS hti~di.e· for the new Oleh f~ily.· to at the' Aliyah . Desk ..,.. 94200785 or and a ,banquet. I interprE.tirlg folk songs -' he is inim- • Come one: Come aU to· the Con­ Among the speakers will be Her­ :munity gathered in· the Piano Nobile now 'chairman of .the ··Commission o;':ercome in his jntegration in Israel.
    [Show full text]
  • Introductory Essay: What Is Jewish Theatre?
    INTRODUCTORY ESSAY: WHAT IS JEWISH THEATRE? Edna Nahshon The essays included in this volume were originally presented at an aca- demic conference titled “Jewish Theatre,” sponsored by the Institute of Jewish Studies in June 2002 at University College London. The term “Jewish theatre” was used by the organizers as convenient shorthand for a richly heterogeneous array of topics: Yiddish, Israeli, European and American theatres; playtexts written in Hebrew and Yiddish; others, dealing with Jewish topics in non-Jewish languages, works by Jews and Gentiles, some composed for Jews and others for distinctly non-Jew- ish audiences (at times even to the detriment of Jewish interests); folk theatre; popular theatre and cabaret. At the conference, the quagmire of defi ning the precise meaning and boundaries of its title was sidestepped, possibly as a result of academic prudence, for pinpointing the precise nature of “Jewish theatre” and arriving at a consensus as to what to include or preclude in this category is practically a hopeless task. This is so fi rst and foremost because the very complexity of the term “theatre,” which encompasses practitioners (i.e. performers, directors, playwrights, designers, and producers), play- scripts and textual material, non-literary elements of performance such as music, costumes and set design, physical spaces where performance take place, and the audiences assembled for a performance. Not only can these be theorized from literary, performative, historical, political, anthropological and sociological perspectives, but although most theatre scholars see the very core of the theatrical enterprise as the transac- tion between live performer and spectator, in effect most theatrical events are the result of a collaborative effort that cannot claim a single “author,” and they use a multiple syntax of mixed media that refl ect their materiality and mutability.
    [Show full text]
  • The Crown Family Center for Jewish and Israel Studies
    THE CROWN FAMILY CENTER FOR JEWISH AND ISRAEL STUDIES 2018-2019 Clockwise from top: Global Engineering Trek (page 6); Jess Schwalb (Weinberg College ’19) at Harris Day of Jewish Study (page 2); The Klutznick Lecture in Jewish Civilization (page 4); German-Jewish Hermeneutics Workshop (page 2). II THE CROWN FAMILY CENTER FOR JEWISH AND ISRAEL STUDIES 2018-19 FROM THE THE DIRECTOR CROWN FAMILY Dear Friends, When the academic field of Jewish Studies CENTER first developed in the nineteenth century, its earliest advocates sought FOR to place the Jewish tradition on equal footing with the established JEWISH disciplines of History, Philosophy, and the Classics. Some of these scholars envisioned the nascent “Science of Judaism” as a kind of AND Jewish antiquarianism that might, through disciplined study and critical objectivity, at ISRAEL long last “give Judaism a decent burial.” The Hebrew Bible, rabbinic literature, medieval Jewish philosophy, and so on might no longer be of practical relevance to emancipated, STUDIES enlightened modern Jews, but the fossilized remains of the Jewish tradition could at least be catalogued and analyzed from a modern, critical vantage point. David Shyovitz Needless to say, the intervening years have belied the notion that Jewishness is nothing but Director a relic to be pored over and then shelved in a museum case. Far from grinding to a halt with Claire Sufrin the arrival of modernity, the Jewish tradition has continued to develop and transform, its Assistant Director, Jewish Studies creativity, complexity, and contentiousness undiminished. The field of Jewish Studies has Elie Rekhess been revived in turn, as an increasingly diverse array of scholars expand the canon of Jewish Associate Director, Israel Studies literature, apply innovative methodologies to familiar sources, and bring to light neglected Nancy Gelman historical figures and events.
    [Show full text]
  • USHMM Finding
    http://collections.ushmm.org Contact [email protected] for further information about this collection CHAYALE ASH-FUHRMAN [1-1-1] Key: CA — Chayale Ash-Fuhrman, interviewee JF — Josey Fisher, interviewer Interview Date: September 21, 1981 Tape one, side one: JF: This is an interview with Chayale Ash-Fuhrman, done on September 21, 1981 with Josey Fisher. Tape 1, side 1. Mrs. Fuhrman, can you tell me when and where you were born? CA: I was born in 1920 in the city of Kishinev. It was the capital of the province Bessarabia. Till 1918 Bessarabia was Russia. From 1918 and further till 1940 it belongs to Romania, so we were always using simultaneously three languages. Russian in the streets, Romanian in the school, and Yiddish at home. I was born there, my parents were born there, my brother was born there, my grandparents were born there, and all my youth, my childhood, I was in the same street, in the same house, grew up together with children, what most of them are not alive today, only one family what I met in 1973, when I went to see my town. JF: What kind of community was this? CA: Kishinev was a specific, very Jewish community. A lot of Jews came to Bes- sarabia from Russia after Romania took over the province, took it away from Russia, so a lot of Jewish people came in, so Kishinev became a really Jewish community. It was a lot Jews and Russians, no Romanians there, very little Romanian community, only the army what was standing around the town was Romanian people.
    [Show full text]