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Jean & Samuel Frankel Center for Judaic Studies • August 2016 Jean & Samuel Frankel Center for Judaic Studies • August 2016 Inside Israel at the Frankel Center 2 Jack Jacobs: Leaning to the Left 3 Introducing the Frankel Institute Fellows 4 A Summer of Scholarship 8 Repairing the World 10 Mazel Tov! 11 202 South Thayer Street , Suite 2111 Save the Date 12 Ann Arbor, MI 48104-1608 U-M student Keren Leshem at Masada, Israel [email protected] 2016 | 1 (photo by Eden Shulruff) (734) 763-9047 FROM THE DIRECTOR Israel at the Frankel Center By Jeffrey Veidlinger, Director of the Frankel Center for Judaic Studies and Joseph Brodsky Collegiate Professor of History and Judaic Studies Photo by D.C. Goings n our obsession with Israeli discussion that the subject of Israel yishuv (Palestine during the Mandate Ipolitical conflict, we Americans so deserves. I am sure that we will period). The U-M campus and the often forget the variety of cultures be discussing conflict. But we will wider community will have the and societies that coexist within the also be discussing literature and opportunity to learn from some of state. This year the Frankel Institute performance, migration and diaspora, the leading scholars of Israeli culture for Advanced Judaic Studies will be architecture and city planning. and society, as well as from some exploring the diversity of societies, more junior scholars conducting cultures, and histories of Israel. I cutting-edge research that transcends hope this year will help us better “The U-M campus and the the polemical approaches we hear so understand and appreciate the variety often about Israel. of the human experience in Israel. wider community will have I am personally looking forward to For as long as the state has existed, the opportunity to learn from engaging in these discussions. Israel Israel has been a major focus of the some of the leading scholars is a place that is dear to me in so world’s attention. But it does seem many ways. Like other things I love, that recently this focus has become of Israeli culture and society, a true obsession, particularly on as well as from some more Israel evokes in me a variety of emotions at different times: pride, college campuses. Ann Arbor is no junior scholars conducting exception. Michigan’s Central Student warmth, excitement, and familiarity; Government regularly debates cutting-edge research that but also anger, frustration, the notion of censuring Israel, as transcends the polemical embarrassment, and disappointment. though it were the most important approaches we hear so often I feel exasperation when it is unfairly issue to the Michigan student attacked or bullied by mean-spirited body. In front of the synagogue about Israel.” or naïve activists. I feel defensive I attend, just a few blocks down when its foundations are questioned. Washtenaw from campus, antisemitic I feel betrayed when its leadership protesters assemble every Sabbath Our public symposia will deal with acts against what I view as the holding hateful signs against Israel. multiple communities of Israel. The country’s ideals. I am most Professional scholarly organizations first symposium will look at Arabs, energized, though, when the State to which I belong have their meetings Jews, and Arab Jews, exploring of Israel is treated neither as a hijacked by zealots who insist that Israel’s entangled identities. Other “colonial settler state” nor as a “light the organization discard its scholarly public events will focus on the unto the nations,” but rather as mission to instead “commit itself to relationship between Israel and diverse groups of people struggling monitoring Israeli actions.” the Jewish diaspora; the variety to make the most of their lives. n But at the Frankel Institute, we will of Israeli literary traditions from be modeling the type of informed Arabic to Yiddish; and life in the 2 | Frankely Speaking VISITING PROFESSOR Jack Jacobs: Leaning to the Left oes Judaism mix with socialism? evolution of Jewish political opinion DJack Jacobs, who will serve as in the modern era, and because it the 2016–17 Louis and Helen Padnos has contemporary resonance. The Visiting Professor in Judaic Studies, candidacy of Bernie Sanders has explains why the answer is yes. led a number of commentators to discuss the links that existed between FRANKELY SPEAKING: How did you Jews and socialist movements in become interested in this subject? earlier generations. The recent JACOBS: I became interested in Jews controversy in the British Labour and socialism as a result of my family Party over the alleged antisemitism background. My parents survived of several prominent members of World War II in Europe, and arrived that party suggests that the question FS: If you had the chance to meet a in the United States in 1949. When I of the relationship of Jews to the left historical figure, who would it be was a child, my family and I lived in remains a lightning rod. and why? a working class neighborhood in the FS: JACOBS: I would like nothing Bronx where there were a number What do you want people to learn from your lectures? better than to meet a figure like of Jewish leftists. My mother had, Rosa Luxemburg—whose life and in prewar Poland, been a member JACOBS: My public lecture work I studied over an extended of SKIF, the children’s movement in Ann Arbor will be on the period of time—to debate with her associated with the Jewish Workers’ Frankfurt School on Israel. I hope the positions she took, and to probe Bund. She urged me to enroll in a to demonstrate that among the whether she agrees or disagrees school which was affiliated with the influential thinkers associated with with the things I have written Workmen’s Circle. Later, my mother the Frankfurt School, those with the about her relationship to her began to work for the Bundist deepest knowledge of the Jewish Jewish family background. summer camp, Camp Hemshekh. I religion were those who had the became acquainted with a number of deepest critiques of the Jewish state. Jack Jacobs is professor of political the leading figures in the Workmen’s I chose this theme because there will science at John Jay College and the Circle and in the Bund at an early be a distinguished group of scholars Graduate Center, City University of New York. n age, and enjoyed debating political at the Frankel Institute next year who matters with them, and attempting will be focused on matters related to to understand how and why they Israel, and I am eager to engage in a had arrived at their affiliations. These dialogue with these scholars. 2016 Padnos Lectures debates took place while our country was being rocked by the student My public lecture in Grand Rapids “The Frankfurt School on Israel” movement, the anti-war movement, will present my understanding Sep. 27, 4 pm the civil rights movement, and the of why there were so many Jews 202 S. Thayer St., Ste. 2022 women’s movement. My academic associated with leftist movements at Ann Arbor, MI interests grew out of the world in the end of the 19th and beginning which I was born and raised. of the 20th centuries, and why this “Jews and the Left Reconsidered” is less common today. I am hoping Nov. 13, 10 am FS: Why is your research important? that this talk, which will take place Temple Emanuel, 1715 E. Fulton JACOBS: The topic of Jews and immediately after our presidential Grand Rapids, MI socialism is an important one both election, will be of interest to a because it helps us to understand the wide audience. August 2016 | 3 INSTITUTE Introducing the 2016–17 Frankel Institute Fellows srael is headed to Ann Arbor this fall, when scholars at the Frankel Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies will conduct Iresearch around the theme “Israeli Histories, Societies, and Cultures: Comparative Approaches.” The fellows will present lectures, symposia, and other events to the public and will be led by head fellow Shachar Pinsker. “I hope that the interaction between the fellows will create an atmosphere of mutual learning and intense, open, and meaningful dialogue,” said Pinsker. “I am confident that the commonalities emerging from the various research projects of the fellows will chart new ways to study and understand the histories, cultures, and societies of Israel and the yishuv in comparative ways, and will point to the future of this field.” We are thrilled to welcome our new fellows. Naomi Brenner, Ohio State University “Best-Sellers and the Boundaries of Hebrew Literature” Brenner is associate professor of Hebrew and Jewish culture at Ohio State University. Her work focuses on issues of multilingualism and translation in modern Jewish literature and culture. Her book, Lingering Bilingualism: Modern Hebrew and Yiddish Literatures in Contact, was published this year. She has also published articles in a variety of different journals on translation, Jewish women’s writing, and intersections between Hebrew and Yiddish. Brenner’s newest project examines popularity and celebrity in Hebrew and Yiddish literatures. n Liora Halperin, University of Colorado-Boulder “Memories of Violence: The First Aliyah and its After-Images” Halperin is an assistant professor of history and Jewish Studies and the endowed professor of Israel/Palestine studies at the University of Colorado-Boulder. She specializes in the history of Palestine in the years before Israeli statehood, with a particular interest in Jewish cultural history, collective memory, the politics of language, and the evolution of Jewish-Arab relations. Her book, Babel in Zion: Jews, Language, and Nationalism in Palestine, 1920–1948, received the 2015 Shapiro Award for Best Book in Israel Studies. She received her PhD in history from UCLA and has held teaching appointments at Yale and Princeton.
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