The Newsletter of the Fern & Manfred Steinfeld Program in Judaic Studies the UNIVERSITY of TENNESSEE
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Volume 13 Fall 2006 The NewsleTTer of the Fern & ManFred SteinFeld Program in Judaic studies THE UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE Dear Friends of Judaic Studies, hen this a workshop for heads of religious studies We have been truly blessed this newsletter departments. These workshops are very past year in being able to welcome new reachesW you, the interesting, as we get to discuss issues that colleagues to the university and friends year 5767 will many of us struggle with in our jobs. It into the community. Of course Coach be well under is also a great way to network. As I am Bruce Pearl does not need an introduction way. We will writing this, the technicians are rewiring anymore, and after last year’s reception, be satiated with our building, McClung Tower, for the he knows he and his family are welcome. celebration and internet. Their work brings huge strands We, in turn, are grateful to him for giving will have begun of multiple cables hanging from the of his time to inspire the Jewish students implementing ceiling. I often feel that my days are made on campus. We are also delighted with the the resolutions up of such multiple strands of diverse and strong leadership in pursuit of excellence we wrought in a eclectic tasks, including activities to do that Dr. Bruce Bursten, Dean of the College clear-headed moment. with teaching, administration, scholarship of Arts and Sciences, has brought to the In last year’s newsletter I expressed and service. The department, like the college. It is an honor and pleasure to the hope that the thirteenth year of the program, is actively involved in growth, welcome Dr. Robert Holub, Provost and Fern and Manfred Steinfeld Program in and for that purpose new ways of seeking Vice-Chancellor for Academic Affairs. Judaic Studies would be a lucky one for outside funding are necessary. One of Provost Holub’s academic home is the us, and I was not disappointed. These our dreams is to establish a Center for German Program in Modern Foreign are exciting times for our program. In Middle Eastern Studies, building on the Languages and Literatures, also the home addition to many bright students taking considerable expertise in Judaism, Islam, of our new colleague, Assistant Professor our classes, exciting research projects for Arabic, and Hebrew in our department Dr. Daniel Magilow. Although hired in our faculty, and honors and accolades for and beyond. This dream may have a 2005, Dr. Magilow completed a year’s our colleagues, we are actively pursuing chance of becoming real because the fellowship at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial the expansion of our program, primarily Chancellor is committed to an intercultural Museum in Washington, D.C. and has through development as part of the and international diversity initiative called joined us in Knoxville. I hope you all will university’s Capital Campaign, but also “Ready for the World.” What better way introduce yourselves to these new friends through external grants. We owe a great to contribute to this initiative than by as they get to know the community. debt of gratitude to our “zaddikkim,” properly teaching Hebrew and Arabic, as Many times during the year someone families who helped found the Judaic well as other Middle Eastern languages. will tell me how much you enjoy receiving Studies program and who have supported To this end I am currently learning the the newsletter. I hope that you will enjoy us since then. Fern and Manny Steinfeld, ropes of filing an electronic application reading this one as well. We would love to Diane and Guilford Glazer, Dr. Alan for a federal grant with the Department hear from you. Solomon, Natalie Robinson and her late of Education, not something I have done With best wishes for a sweet year, husband Mitchell z”l, and Mitchell’s before. hopefully a year of peace for all humanity. brother Ruben Robinson z”l take the lead It has been a great joy to work in ongoing major contributions, enriched with the departmental Board of Visitors B’Shalom, by many friends and contributors who this past year, especially the Arabic support our work. We are deeply grateful subcommittee which is very active and to all of you for making Judaic Studies at deeply involved in making the quality the University of Tennessee one of your teaching of Arabic a reality. Similarly, ongoing priorities. our development officer in the college Gilya G. Schmidt, Ph.D., In addition to chairing the Fern is aggressively pursuing funding Professor and Head and Manfred Steinfeld Program in opportunities for Modern Hebrew. Private Department of Religious Studies Judaic Studies, I continue as Head of gifts for either goal or major contributions and Chair the Department of Religious Studies. to endowed professorships would be most The Fern and Manfred Steinfeld Preceding the American Academy of welcome and would provide a tremendous Program in Judaic Studies Religion annual meeting last fall I attended boost to our effort. Judaic studies Newsletter, Fall 006 chair of the German Program here, has as well as by Ambassador Ashe, his wife Judaic Studies moved to Emory University where he has Joan, and by his staff. We were introduced Advisory Committee become the Chair of the German Studies to the foremost Jewish intellectuals in Department. We wish him well in all of Poland today, among them Eleanor n Palmira Brummett his endeavors. Bergman, who directs the Jewish Historical One of the highlights of Professor Institute in Warsaw, a Holocaust museum n Brummett’s work this past year included Marilyn Kallet and museum of Eastern European Jewish participation in three international Through a Professional Development life. The museum is a treasure trove of conferences: Grant and a Hodges Research/Travel recovered Jewish artifacts and documents, — “The Ottoman Adriatic,” Symposium grant, Professor Marilyn Kallet, Lindsay and a must for any scholar of Jewish on Shakespeare and the Eastern Young Professor in English, was able European history. Mediterranean, Interuniversity Centre, to travel to Poland this past July, Once we left Poland for Latvia, we Dubrovnik, Croatia, October 2006. accompanied by Rabbi Beth Schwartz entered a more ominous zone, one without — Keynote Address, “The Lepanto of Temple Beth El, where Professor ambassadorial protection. At the border, Paradigm Revisited: Knowing the Kallet gave poetry readings on “Poetry Rabbi Schwartz passed through passport Ottomans in the Sixteenth Century,” and Jewish Identity” in Warsaw and control ahead of me, no problem. But I Symposium: “The Renaissance Krakow. The United States embassy was stopped. A young uniformed Latvian and the Ottoman World,” Warburg sponsored the readings as part of their officer told me dispassionately, “I cannot Institute and The School of African “America Presents” series. In Warsaw, let you enter my country.” My passport and Oriental Studies, London April she read at Beit Warszawa, a Reform had a few days short of three months left 2006; held in conjunction with the Jewish congregation; the Jewish Historical on it. I had no clue about that three months opening of the “Bellini in the World” Institute, the Schorr Foundation for Jewish rule. I asked to see someone higher up; the exhibit at the National Gallery. Culture; in Krakow at the Galicia Gallery commander read my passport, saw my — Discussant (invited), “Sources of Jewish Life in Poland. Rabbi Schwartz plane ticket to Paris, (our next destination), of Exoticism and Imperialism,” gave presentations on the history of and waved me through. Symposium on Ottoman and Atlantic women in the rabbinate, and on Jewish Jennifer, our Latvian guide, said this Empires in the Early Modern World, poetry in our liturgy. She led services at kind of red tape and arbitrary yes-or-no Omohondro Institute of Early Beit Warszawa, which has 300 members stamp, was very typical. Rabbi Schwartz American History and Bogazıçı on its rolls. On July 19, they were guests and I exhaled and proceeded on an intense University, Istanbul, October 2005. of Ambassador Victor Ashe, former mayor tour of sites of Jewish interest in Riga and of Knoxville, at a luncheon in their honor, surrounding areas. Jennifer had schooled n Heather Hirschfeld held at the residence. David Peleg, the herself in Jewish history and Hebrew. Heather Hirschfeld had a busy Israeli Ambassador to Poland, was present She became our friend and ally. With her year teaching, serving as book review at the lunch, as was Jersy Halbersztadt, help, we arranged to meet with Margers editor of the annual journal Medieval and the director of the new Museum of Jewish Vestermanis, a Shoah survivor and director Renaissance Drama in England, and working Life in Poland. They then traveled to Riga, of the Jewish Museum in Riga. He was a on her next book project, a study of Latvia, for Holocaust research. Professor sweet, spiritual man in his eighties, who English Renaissance revenge tragedy and Kallet read the poems about her research has documented every available scrap on Reformation theology. Three of her articles at the “Living On” exhibit at the East information about Jewry in Latvia that he appeared over the course of the year: “ Tennessee History Center on October 9. could find. And we visited Sasha Bergman, ‘We all expect a gentle answer, Jew’: The The event was cosponsored by the Fern filmmaker and author at his apartment. Merchant of Venice and the Psychotheology and Manfred Steinfeld Program in Judaic Mr. Bergman has made sixty trips to of Conversion,” ELH (73): 2006, 61-81; Studies of the University of Tennessee and Germany on behalf of Jewish survivors “Compulsions of the Renaissance,” the Tennessee Holocaust Commission, and their reparation rights. Shakespeare Studies 23 (2005): 109-114, and as were the other eight programs held We spent time at the extraordinary “Psychoanalysis and Its Contemporary between August 28 and October 22.