SPEAKING LY FRANK Save theDate Mazel Tov! Todd Endelman Honors Conference Fellows Gather Frankel Institute Maya Barzilai Promises City of Deborah and DashMoore Judaic Studies Jean &Samuel Frankel Centerfor

12 11 10 6 5 2 The FrankelThe Judaic Center for Studies •University Michiganof 202 S. Thayer St. • Suite 2111Ann Arbor, MI 48104-1608 Thayer St. • 202 S. July 2012 [email protected] • (734) 763-9047 [email protected] • E

(Rachel Rabinowitz,11th and Collins Avenue, Miami Beach, March 1987, photo credit: Richard Nagler) Deborah Dash Moore and City of Promises

In September, NYU Press will publish the first comprehensive history of New York Jews—City of Promises: A History of the Jews of New York—an impressive three-volume set that spans 1654 to post- World War II. Each volume includes a “visual essay” by art historian Diana Linden interpreting aspects of life for New York’s Jews from their arrival until today. These illustrated sections, many in color, illuminate Jewish material culture and feature reproductions of early colonial portraits, art, architecture, as well as everyday culture and community.

Overseen by Deborah Dash Moore, City of Promises offers the largest Jewish city in the world, in the United States, and in Jewish history its first comprehensive account.

What makes New York such a “Jewish” city? How is New York unique?

New York became a Jewish city as a result of massive immigration from Eastern Europe, starting in the nineteenth century and extending through the first decades of the twentieth century. More Jews lived in New York by 1940—almost 2 Volume I, Haven of Liberty, by historian Howard Rock, million—than in any other city in history. It was chronicles the arrival of the first Jews to New York (then the largest Jewish city in the 20th century as well. New Amsterdam) in 1654and highlights their political and economic challenges. Overcoming significant barriers, So, sheer numbers make New York a Jewish city. colonial and republican Jews in New York laid the founda- However, New York is unique because starting tions for the development of a thriving community. in the 19th century, when masses of immigrants from Ireland and Germany settled in the city majority population, Jews emerged in the twentieth prior to the Civil War, the city ceased to have a century as the city’s largest ethnic group, despite majority population. It was divided by ethnicity— the significant divisions among them. Hence, New Irish, German, Jewish, Italian, Polish, Russian, York Jews gave an ethnic flavor to the city, not just Bohemian—and by religion—Protestant, Catholic, in their neighborhoods but also in their places of Jewish, Russian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, not work, especially the garment industry, the city’s to mention small groups like Ethical Culture and largest industry. Christian Science—and by race—white, black (African American and Caribbean islanders), At some point, you turned your scholarly Latino (Puerto Rican in the 1940s and 1950s, then focus toward the history of American others, including Dominicans, Mexicans), and Jews. Was there a pivotal, defining Asian (Chinese mostly until the 1970s). Without a moment in which you decided that this

2 would become your focus, or was this a how to navigate the city on my own as a girl and gradual shift? deal with some of the less pleasant aspects of urban life that were the price one paid for the freedom to Both. I decided to become an historian of ride the subways and walk the streets. in 1970 when, as a result of the political upheavals in academia (I was a student How did you come to be involved in at and the City of Promises I was teaching at Montclair project? State College), I realized that I had a specific claim upon I was the chair of the this history. Even though I Academic Council of the had never taken a course on American Jewish Historical the subject, I had often used Society in 2004 when there opportunities to write papers were many celebrations in Jewish history seminars to of the 350th anniversary of focus on American Jews. So I Jewish life in what became gradually shifted my emphasis the United States. Jennifer from American history with Hammer of NYU press a minor in Jewish history to approached the Society’s American Jewish history. I Executive Director with should add that the intellectual an idea to publish a support I received from comprehensive history Gershon Cohen, who taught and he approached me and Jewish history at Columbia on through me, the Academic the Miller chair (the first chair Council. After a meeting of in Jewish history in the United potential scholars interested States), played a pivotal role in the idea, the project in my decision as well. fizzled because of lack of funding support from the To what extent did American Jewish Historical growing up as a Jewish Society. After I came to woman in New York Volume II, Emerging Metropolis, written by Annie UM, Jennifer contacted inform your own identity Polland and Daniel Soyer, describes New York’s trans- me again about the project politics? formation into a Jewish city. Focusing on the urban and I said I would see if I Jewish built environment—its tenements and banks, synagogues and shops, department stores and settle- could raise some money My parents raised me to be a ment houses—it conveys the extraordinary complexity to make it happen. I feminist and to assume that a of Jewish immigrant society. spoke to Bill Frost of the girl could do anything a boy Lucius Littauer foundation could do (though I couldn’t throw a ball very well, and asked if he was interested. Bill was and the I could excel in school). I had a Bat Mitzvah and foundation made a grant to NYU press that allowed assumed that this was normal (I later learned it us to move forward. Given my love of New York wasn’t widely accepted). I went to a progressive Jewish history, I was very happy to serve as elementary school that was racially integrated general editor. and committed to intercultural education. I think I learned a lot from that school. And I also learned

Deborah Dash Moore talks about City of Promises: http://vimeo.com/43350769 3 Each volume includes a visual essay by art Volume 3—by Jeffrey Gurock—highlights historian Diana Linden. How closely did the the neighborhood as a cornerstone to New two of you collaborate on her curatorial York Jewish life. Can you talk about New selections? York’s Jewish neighborhoods a Diana had complete bit? freedom to choose the pieces she wanted to New York’s Jewish neighborhoods include. I worked with were very diverse. Once Jews started her to articulate her to leave the Lower East Side for themes so that the essay Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Harlem, had coherence. they settled in neighborhoods divided by class and ideology. More Volume 1, Haven of religiously observant Jews tended to Liberty, by Howard migrate to Brooklyn neighborhoods; Rock, traces the first more politically radical and secular Jews’ arrival to New Jews tended to head to the Bronx. Amsterdam. What But given the large numbers of Jews, was life like for a Jew neighborhoods contained enormous in 1654? diversity. No matter what type of a Jew you might have been, in New York you Very lonely. There were could always find another Jew like you only 23 Jews on the boat so that you did not need to be alone. from Recife, Brazil, and Within the neighborhood, Jews felt as only two or three others though they were the majority (and who had arrived as statistically they sometimes were). individuals. Most Jews left New Amsterdam and If a contemporary account of went back to Amsterdam. Volume III, Jews in Gotham, by historian Jeffrey S. Jewish New York were to be Gurock, highlights neighborhood life as the city’s dis- made—of 2012—what would In Emerging tinctive feature. New York retained its preeminence as you note as a key shift? Metropolis, Volume the capital of American Jews because of deep roots in 2, Annie Polland and local worlds that supported vigorous political, religious, Jews are a distinct minority and economic diversity. Daniel Soyer chronicle in New York today. Only in certain the metamorphosis of neighborhoods do they possess the New York to a “Jewish city.” What are some feeling that they are a majority. Jews are part of the mix in key events that precipitated this shift? the multi-ethnic, multi-religious, multi-racial character of the city. They no longer concentrate in Mass immigration of Jews from Eastern Europe. The certain industries or occupations where they set the presence of hundreds of thousands of Jews in New tone. York, their dense concentration on the Lower East Side that exceeded the population density of Bombay, If you were to gather a group of New York their entry into and domination of the garment Jews from any point in history for Shabbat industry as workers and owners by the beginning of dinner, who would they be—and why? the 20th century, and the flourishing of Yiddish culture and politics mark this metamorphosis. I think I’d like to invite some second-generation Jews for Shabbat dinner in the mid-1920s to find out if I understood them.

4 Secularization and Religion in Hebrew Culture Maya Barzilai, Near Eastern Studies and Frankel Center for Judaic Studies

This past April, I participated in ing presence of religious practices the text. Some of the session topics a workshop on “Secularization and within modern Zionism. But in order included Israeli reality shows and their Religion, Ethnicity and Nationalism to reconsider our own presuppositions ethnic, religious, and national agen- in Hebrew Culture” at Duke Univer- about the interactions of nationalism, das; the role of the Bar-kokhva (Bar- sity. The workshop was co-organized religion, and ethnicity in Hebrew cul- kuzeva) myth for secular, national or- and co-sponsored by three institutions ture, we first needed to attain a com- thodox, and ultra-orthodox groups in in Israel and the United States: Ben- parative perspective. Two Duke fac- Israel; A. A. Kabak’s The Narrow Path, Gurion University in the Negev, Sa- ulty, Nadia Yaqub, professor of Arabic a novelistic rendering of the life and pir College, and Duke University. times of Jesus, and its signifi- This Israel-American cooperation cance for Israeli culture; and enabled participants from both Haviva Pedaya’s recent book countries to meet and exchange Space and Place: An Essay on the ideas. This opportunity to study Theological-Political Unconscious Hebrew-language texts together (Pedaya visited our campus this was especially important for many past Winter term). American scholars who work in isolation at their institutions (at the My own contribution to the Frankel Center, by contrast, we are workshop focused on the ques- fortunate to have several colleagues tion of the Hebrew language who study Hebrew culture). Simi- “revival” as a possible process larly, Israeli academics often do not of secularization. Reading texts from the late 1920s by Gershom leave the circuit of Israeli universi- Reuven Rubin, Jesus and the Jew (The Encounter), 1919-21, ties, aside from occasional large con- 70x95cm. Israel Phoenix Collection, Tel Aviv. Courtesy of Rubin Scholem and Chaim Nachman ferences. For all these reasons, Shai Museum Foundation. Bialik, alongside Jacques Derri- Ginsburg (Duke), Haim Weiss (Ben literature who researchs Palestinian da’s interpretation of Scholem, I asked Gurion), and Yael Shenker (Sapir) de- cinema, and Erdağ Göknar, Profes- how and when does national language cided to initiate a small, collaborative sor of Turkish studies and renowned revival necessitate renouncing multilin- workshop, aimed primarily at early ca- translator of Orhan Pamuk, shared with gualism and whether it is at all possible reer faculty. the workshop participants their obser- to sever the bonds between the secular vations on secularism, nationalism, and sacred in language? The theoretical premise of and religion in the modern Arab and The knowledge and analyti- the workshop was to question the di- Turkish contexts. The ensuing discus- cal tools that I gained at the work- rect link, often made in the scholarly sions of Hebrew-language texts sought shop will inform my research and discourse of Hebrew culture, between to keep in mind the larger Middle- teaching, particularly my graduate nationalism and secularization, as if Eastern picture. the creation of a new national Jew- seminar on “The Sacred, the Foreign ish culture required the negation of Since the texts selected for the and the Profane in Jewish Language.” the old religion. Recent scholarship workshop had been suggested by the The participants of the workshop has focused, instead, on the array of various participants, each session was all agreed that they would likely re- religious-national communities within led by a different scholar who shared convene and, hopefully, the University Israeli society and their cultural pro- his/her background knowledge and of- of and the Frankel Cen- duction, and has examined the ongo- fered comments and questions about ter will also host such a workshop in future years.

5 2012-2013 Frankel Institute Fellows Announced: Frankel Institute Assembles Roster of Accomplished Scholars Each year, the Frankel Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies at the invites scholars to Ann Arbor to pursue research projects on a general theme. For 2012-2013, the group—led by U-M English Professor Jonathan Freedman—will gather around the theme of “Borders of Jewishness: Microhistories of Encounter.” “The Frankel Institute hopes to foster an ongoing conversation among historians, literary critics, political scientists, students of religion, and anthropologists,” explains Freedman. “This theme year honors the interdisciplinary quality of scholarship at the University of Michigan and of at its very best by bringing together as varied a crew as possible— historians of the U.S.; students of rabbinics and theological history; sociologists and political scientists; art historians and literary scholars—and seeing what, working together and relationally, we can all come up with.”

Jonathan Freedman gence of civil marriage and divorce, and the relations (Head Fellow) between commerce, culture and politics in mercantile University of Michigan communities. Her award-winning book, The Port Jews The Jewish Decadence of Habsburg Trieste: Absolutist Politics and Enlightenment Jonathan Freedman was Culture (Stanford UP, 1999), was recently reissued in recently named the Marvin paperback and also translated into Italian. For the journal Felheim Collegiate Professor Jewish History, she edited a special issue on “Port Jews of of English, American Studies, the Atlantic” (2006) and is currently editing an issue on and Jewish Studies at the the scholarly legacy of the historian Yosef Hayim Yerush- University of Michigan. almi. She has written articles on contemporary Jewish He has also taught at Yale feminist theology and ritual, such as ““Who’s Blessing University, Oxford University, Whom? Transcendence, Agency and Gender in Jewish Williams College and the Bread Loaf School of English Prayer” (Cross Currents, 2002) and “A Ceremony for Re- and was recently a Fulbright fellow at Tel Aviv University. membering, Mourning, and Healing after Miscarriage” He’s the author of three books—Professions of Taste: Henry (Kerem, 1995-1996). James, British Aestheticism and Commodity Culture (1991); The Temple of Culture: Assimilation, Anti-Semitism and the Maya Barzilai Making of Literary Anglo-America (2001); and Klezmer University of Michigan America (2008). Monstrous Borders: The Golem Legend and the Creation of Lois Dubin Popular Culture Smith College Maya Barzilai is an assistant pro- Rachele and Her Loves: Marriage and Divorce fessor of Modern Hebrew and in a Revolutionary Age Jewish Culture in the Near East- Lois Dubin is Professor of Religion and a past Director ern Studies Department and the of the Jewish Studies Program at Smith College, where Frankel Center for Judaic Stud- she teaches courses in Jewish history and thought; world ies at the University of Michigan. religions; and women, feminism and spirituality. Raised She received her Ph.D. in 2009 from the University of in Montreal, she was educated at McGill and Harvard California, Berkeley, and researches Hebrew, German, Universities. She has published widely on eighteenth- and Yiddish multilingualism and translation; early pho- tography and film theory; and the aesthetics and ethics of and nineteenth-century European Jewish history and post-war literature and film. She has published essays on thought, particularly on the cultural and political move- German and Israeli authors such as W. G. Sebald, Inge- ments of Enlightenment and Emancipation, the emer-

6 borg Bachmann, and Ronit Matalon (forthcoming). Her historical anthropology both contributed to the growing book manuscript, The Golem and the Genesis of Modern understanding of the social history of Jews in North Africa Media, explores the centrality of the golem legend in nar- and deepened the appreciation of the variety of cultural ratives concerning the form and formation of modern factors that enter into the formation of Israel’s mosaic media such as film, comics, and computers. Her research of ethnic and religious identities. More generally, he has has been supported by grants from DAAD, The Berlin promoted the linkage between anthropological research Program for Advanced German and European Studies, and Jewish Studies. Among his books are Jewish Life in and NEH. Muslim Libya: Rivals and Relatives (Chicago, 1990) and Jennifer Glaser Jewish Passages: Cycles of Jewish Life (Berkeley, 2003). University of Cincinnati Kathryn Lavezzo Exceptional Differences: Race, University of Iowa Chosennes, and the Postwar Mapping Jews and Christians Jewish American Literary in Medieval and Renaissance Imagination Literature: A Cultural Jennifer Glaser is an assistant Geography of English professor of English and an Antisemitism affiliate faculty member in Judaic Kathy Lavezzo received her studies and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality studies at the Ph.D. from UCSB and teaches University of Cincinnati. She is completing a manuscript English at the University of Iowa. She is the editor of titled Exceptional Differences: Race, Chosenness, and Imagining a Medieval English Nation (2003) and the author the Postwar Jewish American Literary Imagination. She of Angels on the Edge of the World: Geography, Literature, has published and has publications forthcoming in a and English Community, 1000-1534 (2006). With Susie number of venues, including PMLA, MELUS, Prooftexts, Phillips, she edited New Work on the Middle Ages (PQ Literature Compass, Safundi, the American Jewish Archives 87.1-2; 2008), and with Roze Hentschell, she edited Journal (AJAJ); a book of essays about Philip Roth from Essays in Memory of Richard Helgerson: Laureations Continuum; and an anthology of essays from Random (2013). Her recent essays include “The Minster and House. She completed her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature the Privy: Rereading the Prioress’s Tale,” PMLA 126 and Literary Theory at the University of Pennsylvania (2011) and “Shifting Geographies of Antisemitism in in 2008. Thomas of Monmouth’sLife and Miracles of St. William Harvey Goldberg of Norwich,” in Mapping Medieval Geographies, ed. Keith Hebrew University Lilley (forthcoming). Her awards include a Solmsen Ethnographic and Historical Fellowship at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Perspectives on Maghrib Jessica Marglin Border Processes Princeton University Harvey E. Goldberg taught The Assarrafs Go to Court: at the University of Iowa for Jews in the Moroccan Legal six years, after completing System during the Nineteenth his doctoral research based Century on anthropological fieldwork Marglin’s research focuses on among Jews from Libya in Israel. In 1972, he moved the history of Jewish-Muslim to Israel and the Hebrew University until retirement in relations in North Africa and 1987, and also has engaged in teaching and research in the Mediterranean during the early-modern and modern Cambridge, Paris, and Istanbul. Goldberg’s approach to periods. She will defend her dissertation in December

7 of 2012 in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Judaism. In January 2013, he will begin working as Princeton University; in January 2013, she will begin an assistant professor in Religious Studies at Bradley a position as assistant professor of Judaic Studies at the University, Illinois. University of Michigan. Her dissertation examines the ways in which Jews used the various non-Jewish legal Ranen Omer-Sherman institutions available to them in nineteenth-century University of Miami Morocco. Her publications include articles in the Jewish Levantine Identities Jewish Quarterly Review, the International Journal of in Contemporary Memoir & Middle East Studies, and in edited volumes. Marglin Fiction graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College Ranen Omer-Sherman is and earned her master’s from Harvard’s Center for Professor of English and Jewish Middle Eastern Studies. She has received a number of Studies at the University of grants and fellowships, including the Wexner Graduate Miami. His essays on Israeli fellowship, the Fulbright, and the Whiting dissertation and Jewish writers have completion fellowship. appeared in the Journal of Jewish Identities, Journal of Modern Jewish Studies, Journal of Modern Literature, Tatjana Lichtenstein MELUS, Michigan Quarterly Review, Modernism/ University of Texas – Austin Modernity, Prooftexts, Religion & Literature, Shofar, and A Life at Odds: The Private and Political Worlds of Texas Studies in Literature and Language. His books a Prague Zionist include Diaspora and Zionism in Jewish American Tatjana Lichtenstein is an assistant professor in the Literature: Lazarus, Syrkin, Reznikoff, Roth; Israel in Department of History at the University of Texas Exile: Jewish Writing and the Desert; and two co-edited at Austin. She holds degrees from the University of volumes, The Jewish Graphic Novel: Critical Approaches Toronto, Brandeis University, and the University and Narratives of Dissent: War in Contemporary Israeli of Copenhagen. Since 2009, she has been teaching Arts and Culture, which will be published this winter. courses on modern Jewish and East European history at UT, including a study abroad program entitled Laurence Roth “Uncovering Jewish Prague, Past and Present.” Susquehanna University Unpacking my Father’s Isaac Oliver Bookstore: Collection, University of Michigan Commerce, Literature Luke: Marginalized Jew in the Greco Roman Laurence Roth is Professor Diaspora of English and Jewish Isaac W. Oliver earned his Ph.D. in 2012 from the Studies at Susquehanna University of Michigan, specializing in Second Temple University, where he Judaism and early Christian Origins. He has also spent founded and directs the significant time studying abroad in France, Argentina, Jewish Studies Program and Austria, and Israel. His dissertation, “Torah Praxis after the Publishing and Editing 70 C.E.: Reading Matthew and Luke-Acts as Jewish minor. He is the author of Texts,” was written under the supervision of Gabriele Inspecting Jews: American Boccaccini and the mentorship of Daniel Boyarin. Jewish Detective Stories Oliver is most interested in the topic of Jewish- and numerous essays on American Jewish popular Christian relations and has written articles on ancient literature (especially comic books), as well as essays Judaism and early Christianity for the journals Henoch, on Jewish bookselling and on scholarly publishing. New Testament Studies, and the Journal of Ancient He is also editor of Modern Language Studies,

8 the scholarly journal of the Northeast Modern Lisa Silverman Language Association, and is currently co-editing, University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee with Nadia Valman, The Routledge Handbook to Beyond Material Claims: Rhetorics of Restitution Contemporary Jewish Cultures. A guitarist and After the Holocaust songwriter in several bands on the L.A. post-punk Lisa Silverman is Associate Professor of History at club circuit, he performs regularly with the central the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She is Pennsylvania-based rock band Faculty Lounge. He the author of Becoming Austrians: Jews and Culture lives in Selinsgrove, PA, with his wife, Mary, and his between the World Wars (Oxford University Press, son, Jonah. 2012) and co-editor of Interwar Vienna: Culture between Tradition and Modernity (Camden House, 2009). She has published numerous scholarly Andrea Siegel articles, including contributions to the journals Pepperdine University Prooftexts, Austrian Studies, the German Quarterly, An Experimental Foray: and the Journal of Modern Jewish History, as well Calendar for Mother and as several essays in edited volumes. A specialist in Child and Mother and modern European Jewish history, her teaching and Child Yearbook research interests include German and Austrian Siegel completed her Jewish culture, photography, and gender history. She doctorate at Columbia received her Ph.D. from Yale University in 2004 and University’s Department of holds a Masters Degree from the Fletcher School of Middle East, South Asian, Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, as well as a and African Cultures in May Bachelor of Arts from Yale University. She has been 2011. Her dissertation was awarded several academic fellowships, including titled “Women, Violence, and the ‘Arab Question’ terms at the Centre for German-Jewish Studies at the in Early Zionist Literature.” She has taught at SUNY University of Sussex and the International Institute Purchase College and Pepperdine University, where for Cultural Studies (IFK) in Vienna. she directed an undergraduate service-learning project in partnership with an organization for the Orian Zakai Arab blind in Nazareth. Past fellowships include University of Michigan an Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship in Humanistic Hebrew Women, Their Others, Their Nation Studies (honorary), a Wexner Foundation Graduate Orian Zakai is a graduate student at the department Fellowship in Jewish Studies, and the 2008-2009 of Comparative Literature at the University of Ralph I. Goldman Fellowship in International Michigan, completing her dissertation “The Women’s Jewish Communal Service at the American-Jewish Project: Readings in Women’s Unrequited Love of Joint Distribution Committee (JDC). With JDC, Zion.” Her research and teaching interests include she has consulted to the Jewish community of women and gender in Modern and Classical Hebrew Istanbul, researched end-of-life and family caregiver literature; the interrelations between Hebrew support programs in Jerusalem, conducted Hebrew literature and nationalism; intersections of gender, poetry workshops for Alzheimer’s patients in Tel nationality and ethnicity in contemporary Israeli Aviv, and developed the conceptual framework for culture; and post-colonial and feminist theories. the new Institute for Global Jewish Citizenship—a Zakai has published articles on Hebrew women’s worldwide young leadership program set to launch writing in Nashim and in the anthology Creoles, in five cities in late 2012. Diasporas, Cosmopolitanisms. Her collection of short fiction, Hashlem et he-haser (Fill in the Blanks), was published in Hebrew in 2010 by Keter Books.

9 We honor We honor the memory of the memory of Jean Frankel Stuart Padnos 1915-2012 1922-2012

Reflections on Todd Endelman’s Retirement by Robin Judd, Ohio State University When Todd Endelman announced in 2007 that he would retire in 2012, a few of his former Ph.D. students began a several-year-long conversation with Deborah Dash Moore concerning how they might best honor his deep historiographical and professional achievements. With the generous backing and assistance of the Frankel Center for Judaic Studies, they, along with Endelman’s current and former Ph.D. students, colleagues, and long-time friends recently participated in a two-day conference in his honor. “Everyday Jews: Reimagining Modern Jewish history” showcased Endelman’s significant scholarly contributions and highlighted the many ways in which he has shaped a generation of teachers, scholars, and mentors.

The conference began with a presentation by Endelman’s close friend and former colleague, Miriam Bodian (University of Texas-Austin and 2011-2012 Frankel Institute fellow), concerning his scholarly contributions. It later featured three panels, each of which emphasized one of the major strands of Endelman’s work: his defense of social history, his embrace of comparative history, and his emphasis on the need to look at everyday Jews when studying Jewish history. In addition to these scholarly presentations, former students, colleagues, and friends toasted Endelman’s significant imprint on their lives as teachers, citizens of their communities, mentors of their own graduate students, and scholars.

10 Celebrating Our Judaic Studies Graduates by Deborah Dash Moore

This past spring, the Frankel Center celebrated its gradu- They did more than take a single course; they committed ates, Class of 2012. They included students from as far away to multiple Judaic Studies courses, a decision that will re- as Dunwoody, GA, and Owings Mills, MD, and as close verberate throughout their adult lives because it gives them as Birmingham, West Bloomfield, Fowlerville, and Dexter, insight into and ways of thinking about Jewish history and MI. Yet Carly Greenspan, Candyce Hill, Laura Marcus, culture. Indeed, Judaic Studies appeals to students in part Hannah Roussel, Asa Smith, Aliza Storchan, and Elizabeth because of its flexibility and intimacy. Students get to con- Traison share with Allie Maron and Cara Herman an en- template serious questions that animate the history of Jews, thusiasm for integrating study of Jews, Judaism and Jewish Jewish literatures written in many languages across the cen- culture into their studies. turies, and facets of a rich Jewish religious culture. Mazel tov to our Judaic Studies grads! MAZEL TOV! Fellows: Additionally, Sloin will be delivering a Paul Reitter has just published On series of lectures on Eastern European Students: the Origins of Jewish Self-Hatred Jewish History at the 2012 Summer James Bos received employment as a (Princeton University Press). Program in Yiddish Language and Visiting Instructor of Religion at the Literature at the Vilnius Yiddish University of Mississippi. Also, his Nancy Sinkoff was a panelist on the Institute in Lithuania. book, Reconsidering the Date and Prov- enance of the Book of Hosea: the Case session “The Promised City? 1924 for Persian-Period Yehud, has been ac- to the Present” at the Center for Faculty: cepted for publication by T & T Clark Jewish History as part of a day-long Caroline Helton sang the “Voices in the series Library of Hebrew Bible symposium on and of the Italian Holocaust” program at and Old Testament Studies. the Jews (sponsored by the Center for the American Association of Italian Jewish History, the American Jewish Studies conference in Charleston, Nick Block’s panel proposal “Ger- Historical Society, and the Center’s S.C., in May. man-Jewish Book Culture: Text and Scholars Working Group on New York Illumination” was accepted for the City and the Jews in collaboration Ryan Szpiech published “Between German Studies Association Confer- with the Goldstein-Goren Institute Court and Call: Catalan Humanism ence in October. He will be present- at New York University). She also and Hebrew Letters” in eHumanista ing with Naomi Feuchtwanger-Sarig participated in the roundtable on 21 (2012); “Latin as a Language from Tel Aviv University and Joshua “Writing Biography: The Historian’s of Authoritative Tradition,” Oxford Teplitsky from New York University. Challenge” at the 2012 Biennial Handbook of Medieval Latin Literature Ronit Stahl received the prestigious Scholars’ Conference on American (Oxford University Press, 2012); four Charlotte Newcombe Dissertation Jewish History, “Beyond Boundaries: entries in the exposition catalogue for Fellowship for 2012-2013. Interdisciplinary Approaches to Biblias de Sefarad: las vidas cruzadas Studying American Jews” in June. del texto y sus lectores (Sefardic Joshua Wilson has been awarded a Bibles: The Crossed Lives of the Text Rackham Graduate Student Research Andrew Sloin received a fellowship and Its Readers, Madrid: Biblioteca Grant for 2011-2012. from the Great Lakes College Nacional, 2012). He was also invited Moshe Kornfeld will be finishing up Association to spend part of the to deliver “The Aura of an Alphabet: twenty-two months of ethnographic summer translating Moshe Kulbak’s Interpreting the Hebrew Gospels fieldwork in New Orleans in August 1929 play “Yaakov Frank,” a Yiddish in Ramón Martí’s Dagger of Faith 2012. In the Fall, he will begin writ- and modernist reinterpretation of the (1278)” at University of Notre Dame ing his dissertation as a Research As- eighteenth-century pseudo-Messiah. in 2011. Finally, in April, he gave sociate in the Rutgers University De- He hopes to stage a production of this a talk at the Harvard conference partment of Anthropology. play at Earlham in the future. “Translating the Bible in the Middle Ages—Polemical Romance: Abner of Burgos and Romance Bibles.” 11 University of Michigan Frankel Center for Organization US Postage Judaic Studies 202 S. Thayer Street PA ID 2111 Thayer Building Ann Arbo r, MI Ann Arbor, MI 48104-1608 Permit No . 144 734.763.9047 Executive Committee Deborah Dash Moore, Director Mikhail Krutikov Julian Levinson Anita Norich

The Regents of the University of Michigan Julia Donovan Darlow Laurence B. Deitch Denise Ilitch Olivia P. Maynard Andrea Fischer Newman Andrew C. Richner S. Martin Taylor Katherine E. White Mary Sue Coleman, ex officio

Frankel Institute for SAVE THE DATE March 21-May 31, 2013 Advanced Judaic Studies ‘ Steering Committee Language’ Comes After ‘Artist’: Derek Collins Work by Lynne Avadenka Deborah Dash Moore Deborah Keller-Cohen (Exhibit) Mikhail Krutikov Institute for the Humanities Gallery Julian Levinson Anita Norich 202 South Thayer Street Sidonie Smith Ann Arbor, MI 48104

Academic Advisory Board Detroit-based Artist Lynne Avadenka, inspired by the idea Robert B. Alter of the book, combines words and images, working in a University of California-Berkeley Miriam Bodian variety of media. University of Texas-Austin Jonathan Boyarin www.lynneavadenka.com University of North Carolina Richard Cohen Visit www.lsa.umich.edu/judaic/ or find us on Facebook. Hebrew University [email protected] Frances Degen Horowitz 734/763-9047 City University of New York Deborah Lipstadt The University of Michigan, as an equal opportunity/affirmative action Emory University employer, complies with all applicable federal and state laws regarding Peter Machinist nondiscrimination and affirmative action. The University of Michigan is Harvard Divinity School committed to a policy of equal opportunity for all persons and does not Ray Scheindlin discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, age, marital status, Jewish Theological Seminary sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, disability, religion, Kay Kaufman Shelamay height, weight, or veteran status in employment, educational programs and Harvard University activities, and admissions. Inquiries or complaints may be addressed to the James Young Senior Director for Institutional Equity, and Title IX/Section 504/ADA University of Massachusetts at Amherst Coordinator, Office of Institutional Equity, 2072 Administrative Services Steven Zipperstein Building, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1432, 734-763-0235, TTY 734-647-1388. Stanford University For other University of Michigan information, call 734-764-1817.

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