THE CROWN FAMILY CENTER FOR JEWISH AND ISRAEL STUDIES

2019-2020 Annual Report FROM THE THE DIRECTOR CROWN FAMILY Dear Friends: In March of this year, as the potentially CENTER catastrophic reach of the COVID-19 pandemic was beginning to come into FOR focus, a succession of friends and acquaintances remarked—half-jokingly, JEWISH half-anxiously—on the potential historical parallels. “So do you think we’re on the cusp of another Black Plague?” some asked. “How long before AND the are accused of poisoning the wells?” Indeed, the pandemic arrived on the heels of a ISRAEL dramatic upsurge in anti-Semitic sentiment and violence worldwide, and some reactions to the crisis have veered into conspiracy theorizing with implicit or overt anti-Jewish resonances. STUDIES “I bet you never thought we’d be reliving the ‘Dark Ages’ in the twenty-first century, eh?” Indeed not. While I am fascinated by the study of plague and persecution in the Jewish past, I never imagined having to apply my particular historical perspective so directly to the events David Shyovitz of the present. Like everyone else trying to maintain some balance between their personal Director and professional lives as the two increasingly converged during quarantine, I would have Claire Sufrin much preferred to leave work at work. Assistant Director Nancy Gelman The intervening months have shown that COVID—for all the devastation it has wrought Program Coordinator around the world—is unlikely to reach the cataclysmic scale of medieval plagues. Still, in Katie Jenio between teaching over Zoom, home-schooling my children, scavenging in vain for hand Program Assistant sanitizer, disinfecting my mail, and “doom-scrolling” through the latest news updates, I spent Krystle Felcaro Heaps much of the spring and summer lockdown mulling over what lessons might be gleaned from Program Assistant the Jewish past that could provide insight—or even solace—during these ominous times.

Judd A. and Marjorie Weinberg Jewish thinkers, artists, and storytellers have frequently sought to understand illness through College of Arts and Sciences Northwestern University the lens of Scriptural precedents. In the Hebrew , generalized “plague” (magefah, or Crowe Hall 5-179 sometimes dever) is understood to be a punishment that God dispenses when He grows 1860 Campus Drive displeased with the sins of humanity. But the specific illness that receives the most detailed Evanston, Illinois 60208 attention in the Bible—and in subsequent Jewish interpretation—is tsara’at, a skin disease 847-491-2612 often translated as leprosy. The Bible devotes hundreds of verses to the etiology and treatment Visit us on the web at of tsara’at, and narrates the experiences of numerous biblical figures who were inflicted with www.jewish-studies.northwestern.edu the ailment—from supporting biblical characters like Naaman and Uzziah (II Kings) to major protagonists like Moses (Exodus) and his sister Miriam (Numbers). Subsequent readers of the Bible asserted that tsara’at was a punishment for those who had committed specific sins For more information (most frequently leshon ha-ra, “evil speech”), but the biblical text itself never explicitly links the disease to any particular sin, or indeed, to sin at all. Instead, the text seems particularly or to be added to our concerned with the “social distancing” that a person stricken with tsara’at must undertake. mailing list, contact us Part of the elaborate purification ritual required to cleanse one oftsara’at involves a period of at jewish-studies@ isolation from the community at large. In the Bible illness entails not just physical discomfort, but also, perhaps more significantly, a loss of one’s sense of community. northwestern.edu. For the biblical Israelites wandering through the vast and threatening desert wilderness, forcible seclusion from family and friends must have been a desperately alienating experience. Over the past months, all of us have experienced some degree of this. At the Crown Center, our students and teachers abruptly transitioned from packed classrooms to the isolation of their own homes; faculty, students, and staff alike badly missed the camaraderie of our in-person intellectual community. We also felt isolated from our friends and partners in the broader Chicagoland area, especially once it became clear that the Center would have to cancel all our in-person public events for the remainder of the year.

ON THE COVER The Rylands Haggadah, fol. 14: “The Healing of Moses’ Leprous Arm” (top) and “The Return to Egypt, and Zipporah Circumcising her Son” (bottom). Catalonia, mid-14th century. The John Rylands University Library, The University of Manchester (Hebrew MS 6). ii THE CROWN FAMILY CENTER FOR JEWISH AND ISRAEL STUDIES 2019-20 But in the biblical account of tsara’at, alienation is followed by reintegration into the Israelite encampment. The cure for the disease is followed by—or perhaps even characterized by—the renewal of community bonds. Moses learns this lesson early in the Book of Exodus, when his hand is temporarily stricken with leprosy after he expresses doubts about his ability—as someone who had lived his life apart from the Children of Israel—to effectively represent them to Pharaoh. (This biblical vignette is depicted in our newsletter’s cover image.) Moses’s brief stint as a leper seems to lay his concerns to rest, and cements his self-image as the “faithful shepherd” who identifies with and works tirelessly on behalf of his people.

At the Crown Center, we’ve committed to following a similar path. In the face of the pandemic, it is all too easy to withdraw into isolation. But one lesson of the Jewish tradition is that now is precisely the time to reinvest in connection and community.

Over the course of the spring and summer, our faculty made determined efforts to master online teaching and to connect with our students—and the result was a substantial increase in the enrollment figures for our Jewish Studies and Israel Studies courses. While it is not yet clear when we will be able to gather on campus for public programming, we have planned an exciting array of online offerings for the 2020-21 year, which will provide our undergrads, graduate students, faculty, and community partners with access to innovative and engaging Jewish and Israel Studies programming. And in spite of the challenging circumstances, our faculty and students have continued to accomplish great things—as you’ll see in our “Updates” sections, our members are publishing award winning books and articles, designing innovative new courses, and building bridges with colleagues and institutions in Israel and around the globe.

I encourage you to stay tuned via our mailing list, our website, or our Facebook page for more details about our upcoming activities, and I hope to connect with each of you online. (And, hopefully soon, in person!) In the meantime, wishing you a new academic and Jewish year of health, peace, and happiness.

David Shyovitz Director

1 2019-2020 EVENTS

The Manfred H. Vogel Lecture in Judaic Studies “The Revival of the Jewish-Christian Debate in the 19th Century: Missionaries, Meshummadim, and Maskilim” David Ruderman, Joseph Meyerhoff Professor of Modern Jewish History, University of Pennsylvania Professor David Ruderman delivered the 2019 Manfred H. Vogel Memorial Lecture on Itamar Rabinovich November 7, 2019. Ruderman analyzed the fascinating career of Alexander McCaul, an influential and prolific Christian evangelical missionary who traveled to Warsaw in the nineteenth century to missionize among the Jews of eastern Europe. Ruderman discussed McCaul’s polemical but also admiring attitude toward Hebrew and , traced the careers of those who converted (meshummadim) under his direction, and demonstrated the lasting impact McCaul had upon the “enlightened” Jews (maskilim) who responded to McCaul and his work. David Ruderman Michelle Campos

“Israel Facing a New Faculty and graduate Middle East: Challenges student colloquia and Responses” Ambassador Itamar Rabinovich, Israel’s October 18, 2019 December 4, 2019 former Ambassador to the United States “Unmixing the Holy City: “ Theatre and the and former Chief Negotiator with Syria Coexistence and Segregation in Argentinean Avant-Gardes” Early 20th Century Jerusalem” C. Tova Markenson, PhD Candidate Ambassador Itamar Rabinovich addressed Michelle Campos, Associate Professor in Northwestern’s Interdisciplinary a full auditorium of community members of Modern Middle Eastern History, PhD in Theatre and Drama and students on Northwestern’s campus University of Florida on November 12, 2019, in his lecture “Israel March 9, 2020 Facing a New Middle East: Challenges October 23, 2019 “The Rise and Fall of ‘the Jewish and Responses.” During the lecture and “War and Peace of Iosif Trumpeldor: King’: Slovak Collaboration and subsequent Q&A session, Rabinovich tackled From Zionist Hagiography to Complicity During the Holocaust” an impressive breadth of issues surrounding Cultural History” Vanda Rajcan, PhD Candidate, Israel and its position vis-à-vis other regional Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern, Department of History, political power players. He also commented Crown Family Professor of Jewish Northwestern University on the present turmoil within Israeli politics Studies and Professor of History, and the ongoing conflict between Israel and Northwestern University the Palestinian territories.

2 THE CROWN FAMILY CENTER FOR JEWISH AND ISRAEL STUDIES 2019-20 2019-2020 COURSES

Hebrew I, II, III

Jewish History II: 1492-1789

Jewish History III: 1789-1948

Christians and Jews

Sects and Sectarians in Jewish History

Ottoman Jews in the Age of Nationalism

The Image of the Jew in Western Modernism Tova Markenson Origins of Zionism

Jewish Argentina: From Jewish Gauchos to Contemporary Culture

Jewish Studies The Blood Libel courses at Northwestern cover such a wide variety History of the Holocaust of subject areas spanning Gender, Race, and the Holocaust from ancient to modern “you really can’t go wrong. Holocaust Trials If you are even a little Holocaust Memory, Memorials, and interested in exploring Museums , Jewish history, Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern and David Shyovitz Jewish thinking, Jewish Memory, Monsters, and Magic: The writers, etc. It’s a really Holocaust and Popular Culture valuable resource for Modern Israel: History, Politics, and students and I would Co-sponsored events Society, 1882-present strongly encourage those who are interested to get 1948: History and Memory of the First October 31, 2019 involved. In addition to Arab-Israeli War “Entangled Memories: Hiroshima, the courses and faculty, Arabs and Jews in Palestine/The Land Jerusalem, and the Emergence of there are very cool events of Israel, 1880 - 1948 Global Memory Culture” throughout the year. My Ran Zwigenberg, Pennsylvania State time at NU was really, really Arabs in Israel University enriched by my involvement Culture and Leisure in 20th Century Sponsored by Department of Asian with the Crown Family Israel/Palestine Languages and Cultures Center and also taking these Jewish Studies courses.” Economic History of Israel November 11, 2019 Amanda Gordon, Medill 2020 “Forging Ties, Forging Passports: Political , Hamas, and Islamic Jihad Migration and the Modern Sephardi Water in Israel and the Middle East: Diaspora” Resilience, Sustainability, Security Devi Mays, University of Michigan Sponsored by Middle East and North African Introduction to Judaism Studies Program Introduction to Hebrew Bible

February 6, 2020 A and a Priest Walk into a Bar COJOT, Film Screening & Q&A to Talk about God with Writer, Director, and Producer American Judaism Boaz Dvir Sponsored by Holocaust Educational God after the Holocaust Foundation 3 UNDERGRADUATE AND GRADUATE STUDENT NEWS

C. TOVA MARKENSON program, and the Fan Foster Foundation. (Interdisciplinary PhD in Theatre and Ozkan’s research investigates Spain’s Drama) defended her dissertation, citizenship offer to Sephardi Jews from an “Entrance Forbidden to the Yiddish ethnographic, historical, and legal lens. Theatres: Prostitution, Performance, and More specifically, she examines the ways in Protest in Buenos Aires, 1900-1930” with which Sephardic identity and ancestry have support from the Crown Family Center’s been created, contested, and performed Crown Graduate Fellowship and the with a specific focus on the role of language. Memorial Foundation for . Her dissertation received a Pre-Dissertation Excerpts of her research are forthcoming Fellowship Honorable Mention from the in the journal Modern Drama and the Council for European Studies. anthology Women on the Yiddish Stage (History) specializes Netta Keesom (Syracuse University Press). The Latin BOGDAN PAVLISH American Jewish Studies Association has in the history of early modern Eastern awarded her the Edna Aizenberg Research Europe with a focus on Poland-Lithuania. JILL STACEY HARRIS PRIZE Award to support her book project His current research project deals with the IN JEWISH STUDIES on gender, antisemitism, and Jewish Armenian diaspora of Poland-Lithuania and its role in mediating between Europe The Jill Stacey Harris Prize has been migration. In the fall 2020, she will begin a and the Middle East. Focusing on trans- awarded annually since 1991 for the best three-year postdoctoral fellowship at the regional networks of Armenian merchants, undergraduate essay in Jewish Studies. Center for Research on Antisemitism at clerics, and missionaries based in southeast The 2019 essay prize was awarded to the Technishe Universität in Berlin. Poland-Lithuania, Pavlish examines social Weinberg College senior NETTA KEESOM. RACHEL MERRILL MOSS and religious dynamics across shifting Keesom’s paper, titled “‘Our Dear Nations’: (Interdisciplinary PhD in Theatre and political and confessional boundaries in the Esther Azhari Moyal and the Silhouette of Drama) is writing a dissertation on the second half of the seventeenth century. He an Arab-Jew,” was written for Professor pek İ interplay between Yiddish and Polish has done research in archives and libraries Yosmaoğlu’s course, “Ottoman Jews in the performances in interwar Łódź and in Ukraine, Poland, and the Vatican. His Age of Nationalism.” The paper analyzes one Warsaw, which features two exciting other research interests include the history of Azhari Moyal’s speeches as an illustration archival script discoveries. In 2019-2020, of global Catholic missions, European of her multiple identities. The analysis she completed a Fulbright fellowship Jewry, the Ottoman Empire, the history and is framed and supported throughout by extension, co-convened a Central, East philosophy of knowledge, material culture, secondary sources written by top scholars European-focused working session and art history. in the field of Ottoman Jewish history. The for the American Society for Theatre essay reflects a clear understanding of Moyal Research, and presented her work at VANDA RAJCAN (History) is a Ph.D. as a product of her time and place even as the Association for Jewish Studies candidate specializing in post-World it is also sensitive to the unique contours of conference. Moss is co-editor with Debra War II justice. During 2019-2020, she Moyal’s life and her contribution to Jewish, Caplan of the forthcoming collection, presented research at the Osher Lifelong Arab, and Jewish-Arab societies. The Century: The Jewish Play that Learning Institute in Evanston, at the Possessed the World. Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center in Skokie, and at the Association GRADUATE STUDENT NEWS ANASTASIYA NOVATORSKAYA for Jewish Studies in San Diego. She also LEV DASCHKO (History), with the (History) is a second-year PhD student presented at a Jewish Studies Faculty/ support of funding from the Neporany whose first-year project examined the Grad Student Colloquium. Rajcan received Doctoral Fellowship from the Canadian political attitudes of ordinary Ukrainians the 2020 Lacey Baldwin Smith Prize for Institute for Ukrainian Studies, has com- during World War II. Teaching Excellence for Outstanding pleted another chapter of his dissertation Section Leader in the History Department. on borderland policies towards Jews and IDIL OZKAN (Anthropology) is a She is currently a fellow at the Mandel other ethnic groups in Habsburg Bukovina. third-year PhD student. Her exploratory Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies During the winter quarter, he served as research in Barcelona, Madrid, and at the United States Holocaust Memorial a teaching assistant for “Global History: Istanbul in the summers of 2018 and Museum in Washington, D.C., where she The Modern World.” He plans to finish his 2019 was funded by the Social Science hopes to complete her dissertation entitled dissertation in the coming year. Research Council, the Graduate School of “Unpopular Justice: Holocaust-related Northwestern, the Keyman Turkish Studies Trials in Slovak People’s Courts.”

4 THE CROWN FAMILY CENTER FOR JEWISH AND ISRAEL STUDIES 2019-20 ANASTASIIA SIMFEROVSKA (Slavic Languages and Literatures) was on medical CROWN GRADUATE leave during winter and spring quarters 2019-2020. During her leave, she gathered FELLOWSHIP sources (documents, pictures, letters, and memoirs) for her Jewish Studies project. She also conducted interviews for her research paper, “A Jewish Artist Between the Galut and the Land of Israel: Wilhelm Wachtel, Zeev Porath, Mikhail Steinberg,” and prepared an article on the artistic legacy of Jewish artists Zinovii Tolkachev and Henryk Beck and the broader question he Crown of the artistic legacy of the Holocaust. Family Center AMANDA RUPPENTHAL STEIN for Jewish and (Musicology) was the 2018-2019 Crown Graduate Fellow and a recipient of a Israel Studies Northwestern Graduate Research Grant, Tawards the Crown Graduate which allowed her to conduct research at the Fellowship annually to one National Library of Israel. Her dissertation, “Sounding Judentum: Assimilation, Art Northwestern graduate Music, and Being Jewish Musically in student whose dissertation 19th Century Germany,” explores how art Alissa Schapiro music served as an avenue of assimilation research bears on an aspect for German-speaking Jews and expands of Jewish history, culture, at the hands of the Nazis. Schapiro argues existing scholarly narratives on musical that while such artistic interventions expressions of Judaism and Jewishness or religion. Alissa Schapiro, were intended to create awareness of the during this period. In 2019, Stein traveled a doctoral candidate in plight of European Jews in various ways, twice to , conducting fieldwork in Art History who specializes the antisemitic history and culture of the collaboration with a solidarity mission and United States ultimately rendered these recording project of the Cantors Assembly in twentieth century efforts ineffective in terms of rousing the celebrating 100 Years of the Abayudaya American art and the public and the government to the cause of Jewish community in Uganda. history of photography, is saving Europe’s Jewish population. OMRI TUBI (Sociology) began 2020 with the 2020-2021 fellowship Numerous institutions have supported data collection in Jerusalem and New Schapiro’s research through fellowships York for his dissertation titled “Building recipient. and grants, including the Mandel Center a Strong Settler State: The Case of Israel.” Schapiro will spend the year continuing for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the Tubi’s article titled “Kill Me a Mosquito work on her dissertation titled “‘Busy United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and I Will Build a State: Political Economy with Other News’: American Art, Visual the Graduate School at Northwestern, the and the Socio-technicalities of Jewish Culture, and Antisemitism during World Holocaust Educational Foundation, and Colonization in Palestine, 1922–1940” was War II.” the Feinstein Center for American Jewish published in the journal Theory and Society. History at Temple University. The paper also received the best graduate Unlike the robust scholarship on art student paper award from the American produced after the Holocaust, Schapiro’s Schapiro received her undergraduate degree Sociological Association’s section on Global work assesses how art and visual culture in the History of Art and Architecture from and Transnational Sociology. in America responded to Nazi terror Harvard University before earning a master’s during World War II in order to better degree in Curatorial Studies from the ARIEL WEINER (Comparative Literary understand the relationship between Courtauld Institute of Art, London. Schapiro, Studies and German) holds a Mellon U.S. wartime cultural production and who has contributed to numerous museum Fellowship in Jewish Studies as well as the Holocaust. She presents a narrative exhibitions and catalogues, currently serves a Doctoral Fellowship from the Canadian that traces specific artistic, institutional, as assistant curator on the exhibition and Social Sciences and Humanities Research performative, and mass media-related associated publication “Life Magazine and Council. Her research considers relationships practices in order to understand the the Power of Photography,” which opened between religious and technical conceptions ways in which the American cultural at the Princeton University Art Museum in of mediation in twentieth century German- field attempted to mediate knowledge February 2020 and is slated to travel to the Jewish thought, particularly in the writings of the ongoing mass genocide of Jews Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. of Walter Benjamin. 5 DECORATED PROFESSOR AND JEWISH STUDIES CHAMPION KENNETH SEESKIN RETIRES FROM NORTHWESTERN

A multi-dimensional man with a professed love of Italy, Humphrey Bogart, and Wildcat sports—Seeskin chaired the University’s Committee on Athletics and Recreation for 15 years—the 73-year-old father of two reflects on his passion for philosophy and commitment to Jewish Studies at Northwestern.

When Seeskin arrived at Northwestern as an undergraduate in 1964, he had no specific major in mind. That changed with one introductory philosophy course. “I compare my first touchpoint with philosophy to my first taste of chocolate ice cream, which is to say that it wasn’t an acquired taste. Philosophy was asking the most basic of all questions—Why are we here? Does God exist? What kind of life should we lead?—and offering a series of brilliant alternatives.”

Kenneth Seeskin After earning his undergraduate degree in philosophy, Seeskin ventured to Yale University, where he secured master’s fter nearly five decades as a Northwestern and doctorate degrees in philosophy. faculty member, Kenneth Seeskin called it Named an assistant professor in Northwestern’s Department of Philosophy a career in June 2020. The Philip M. and Ethel in 1972, Seeskin envisioned a long career Klutznick Professor of Jewish Civilization, in academia. “I loved the subject of philosophy. I wanted to read it, teach it, ASeeskin joined the Northwestern faculty ranks in 1972 and research it for the rest of my life.” and enjoyed a 48-year run at his alma mater that featured Though initially hired as a Plato numerous teaching awards, a prolific scholarly output scholar, Seeskin’s research soon highlighted by eight books, and an integral role in building gravitated to Maimonides and Spinoza. A medieval philosopher, the University’s now-robust Jewish Studies program. Maimonides attempted to produce a synthesis between Judaism and Aristotelianism, while Spinoza, an excommunicated Jew, revolutionized the study of the Bible and refuted ancient and medieval concepts of God. “Two absolutely fascinating figures.”

6 THE CROWN FAMILY CENTER FOR JEWISH AND ISRAEL STUDIES 2019-20 We wanted to build a program in which people were genuinely interested in the field not only because it was their background or heritage, “but because it was a worthwhile field of study. And I believe we got there.”

Kenneth Seeskin

Teaching thousands of students over Beyond his work in philosophy, Seeskin The program’s first director in 1985, 48 years, Seeskin loved the energy of played a prominent role in the story Seeskin championed the study of the classroom: the flow of ideas, the of Jewish Studies at Northwestern, Jewish thought, text, and culture as a lively discussions, the spontaneity. pulling inspiration from his legitimate part of the arts and sciences. Seeskin, who captured the E. Leroy Hall collegiate experience. During Seeskin’s In fact, when former Northwestern Award for Excellence in Teaching in undergraduate years, around the same President Arnold Weber asked Seeskin 1992 and served as the Charles Deering time Northwestern lifted an admissions how he would evaluate the program’s McCormick Professor of Teaching quota on Jewish students, there was no success, Seeskin declared it would be when Excellence from 1995-1998, hoped Jewish Studies to speak of. Seeskin recalls the percentage of Jewish students in the his courses inspired humility, open- Manfred Vogel, then the part-time director classroom was not any greater than the mindedness, and curiosity. “There are of Northwestern Hillel, teaching two Jewish percentage of the campus’ overall Jewish always significant alternatives to consider, Studies courses, one of which Seeskin took. student population. “We wanted to build a and I hoped to open students’ minds to that, “When people think of religious education, program in which people were genuinely so that their worldview was not closed or they think of Sunday School. I was not interested in the field not only because fixed, but rather fluid and dynamic.” prepared for the critical study of religious it was their background or heritage, but texts and got a C-plus on my midterm. I got because it was a worthwhile field of study. To achieve that, Seeskin viewed an A for the course, though, so I must have And I believe we got there.” teaching and research as connected pulled myself together.” endeavors. “If you’re going to be successful Seeskin savors the development of in the classroom, especially with students One of a handful of University the Jewish Studies program, which of Northwestern’s caliber, then you better faculty members whose research now boasts nearly two-dozen faculty be continually rethinking and researching. touched on Judaica, Seeskin members from across the campus I know I changed my mind several times advocated for the establishment of as well as a lecture series, a graduate as my research developed. I went into new an undergraduate Jewish Studies cluster, an annual essay prize, areas. I explored new questions. That’s the program in the mid-1980s. “We looked and active community participation. growth of one’s mind.” at the cumulative offerings and thought He credits much of that growth to passionate, we had enough. This was a program created engaged colleagues and a devoted donor base. Seeskin encouraged growth and from the bottom up with teaching and “We put the word out, had high hopes for passion in his students as well, research at its root.” what we could accomplish, and were blessed especially undergraduates fretting over to receive support that fostered our growth.” the economics of their career choice. “I watched my students go in all different Now embarking upon retirement, directions—medicine, law, business, media, Seeskin shares no concrete plans, only arts, and academia among them—because gratitude for a rich 48-year career they pursued what was in their heart and at Northwestern. “I grew as a person went with that. That’s something I was and a thinker and hope I helped students proud to see.” do the same.”

7 FACULTY NEWS

DANNY M. COHEN, Associate Professor during the Holocaust; and “Commentary on BENJAMIN FROMMER, Associate of Instruction in the School of Education and Primo Levi’s ‘The Grey Zone’” in The New Professor in the Department of History Social Policy Jewish Canon, a title co-edited by Crown In addition to teaching the “History of the In spring 2020, in response to the pandemic Center colleague Claire Sufrin (Academic Holocaust” survey and an advanced research and the need for remote learning, Cohen’s Studies Press). seminar about post-Holocaust trials of Nazi national nonprofit Unsilence launched war criminals, Frommer welcomed the MARTIN EICHENBAUM, Charles Moskos Hidden—a set of free and highly interactive publication of a collected volume that he Professor of Economics learning experiences that address co-edited and co-introduced: Intermarriage marginalized histories and neglected issues from Central Europe to Central Asia: Mixed PETER FENVES, Joan and Sarepta in middle school and high school Holocaust Harrison Professor of Literature, Professor Families in the Age of Extremes (Nebraska education, including intergenerational of German, Comparative Literary Studies, University Press). He also contributed an trauma, the denial of reparations for Roma Jewish Studies, and Asian Languages article to the volume, “Privileged Victims: Holocaust survivors, and the experiences and Cultures Intermarriage between Jews, Czechs, of the LGBTQ children of Jewish Holocaust and Germans in the Nazi Protectorate of Fenves recently completed (with Julia Ng) survivors. Hidden includes: I Saw Everything, Bohemia and Moravia.” This past winter, a new translation and edition of Walter a photography exhibition exploring the Frommer also authored a chapter on the Benjamin’s 1921 essay “Toward the Critique research of scholar Michelle Kelso; The Son, Holocaust in Zwischen Prag und Nikolsburg: of Violence.” The volume, which will be an interactive testimony based on the story of Jüdisches Leben in den böhmischen Ländern published by Stanford University Press in Chicago activist Michael Bauer; Hidden Pages, (Between Prague and Mikulov: Jewish Life in 2021, includes several sets of associated a historical “webquest” created by Cohen and the Bohemian Lands), which is forthcoming writings, including first-time English Northwestern student Dara McGreal; and The in Czech, English, and Hebrew. translations of certain portions of Hermann 19th Window, a choose-your-own-pathway Cohen’s Ethics of Pure Will and Erich Unger’s mystery written by Cohen and based on his EDNA GRAD, Distinguished Senior Politics and Metaphysics. The volume seeks experiences as the grandson of a Jewish Lecturer Emerita in Hebrew Language to cast a new light on German-Jewish Holocaust survivor. Each Hidden learning thought in the early twentieth century and, PETER HAYES, Theodore Zev Weiss experience is accompanied by a free educator in addition, demonstrate the degree to which Holocaust Educational Foundation Professor guide designed by Cohen and Northwestern the pressing problems of that era are also of Holocaust Studies Emeritus in the alum Sammi Oberman. very much our own as well. Departments of History and German SARAH CUSHMAN, Director of the Hayes’ most recent publication (in MARCI FREEDMAN, Sava Ranisavljevic Holocaust Educational Foundation of cooperation with Christopher Browning) Postdoctoral Fellow in Judeo-Spanish Studies Northwestern University and Lecturer in the is a book entitled German Railroads/Jewish Department of History Freedman developed and taught three Souls, to which he contributed an essay new courses this past year: “The Origins of In addition to teaching “Gender, Race, and demonstrating how little of Germany’s Censorship,” “A History of Europe through the Holocaust,” Cushman published several railway equipment was involved in the Objects,” and “Encountering the Global chapters in edited volumes: “Sexual Violence Holocaust and how little impact the killing Middle Ages.” In October, Freedman was and Sexual Agency in the Auschwitz- had on the German war effort. He spent a an invited speaker for the Medieval History Birkenau Women’s Camp,” in Agency week just before the pandemic struck as the Seminar at the Institute for Medieval and the Holocaust, a volume in honor of Sara and Asa Shapiro Scholar in Residence Studies at the University of Leeds, where Deborah Dwork (Palgrave MacMillan); “The at the University of Southern California, she delivered a paper entitled “Historical Auschwitz Women’s Camp: An Overview and where he delivered a public lecture called Writing and Historical Consciousness Reconsideration” in the Palgrave Handbook “Makeshift Murder: The Holocaust at its among Medieval Jewish Communities” as on Holocaust Literature and Culture Peak.” He also wrote chapters that appeared part of her ongoing research into medieval (Palgrave); “How Deep the Gray – ‘Privileged’ in a Festschrift for noted Holocaust historian Jewish historiography. Freedman completed Jewish Women Prisoners in Auschwitz- Christopher Browning and a German volume a book chapter entitled “Teaching Benjamin Birkenau,” in Women, The Holocaust, and on Nazi ideology and ethics, while also of Tudela’s Book of Travels” to appear in an Genocide (Seton Hill University Press); “To consulting on a Ken Burns documentary on MLA Options for Teaching volume. Most Follow and to Lead – Feminist Mentorship in the United States and the Holocaust. recently, Freedman has been invited to Holocaust Studies” in We Could Have Been write a Cambridge Element on the Jewish Them: Women Scholars Studying Women Diaspora in the Middle Ages.

8 THE CROWN FAMILY CENTER FOR JEWISH AND ISRAEL STUDIES 2019-20 New Anthology Chronicles Jewish Ideas

In the recently published New Jewish MAAYAN HILEL, Postdoctoral Fellow Canon (Academic Studies Press), in Israel Studies associate professor of instruction Hilel won the 2019 Ph.D. Dissertation Award Claire Sufrin and her co-editor Yehuda from the Middle East and Islamic Studies Kurtzer argue that the late twentieth Association of Israel. At Northwestern, she and early twenty-first centuries have developed and taught two courses about the social and cultural history of Palestine been a period of mass production and Israel throughout the twentieth and proliferation of Jewish ideas and century, focusing on aspects of daily life, debates, often in response to major leisure, popular culture, gender, and inter- changes in Jewish life. Within the communal relations. She published articles book, they offer a conceptual roadmap titled “Constructing Modern Identity - to make sense of such rapid change. New Patterns of Leisure and Recreation With over eighty excerpts from key in Mandatory Palestine” (Contemporary primary source texts and insightful Levant) and “Changing Texture of Childhood: corresponding essays by leading Palestinian Children as New Leisure scholars, the New Jewish Canon is Consumers in Mandatory Haifa” (British divided into four sections: history and memory; Jewish politics and the Journal of Middle Eastern Studies). She also public square; religion and religiosity; and identities and communities. Sufrin completed “Cultural Diplomacy in Haifa: and Kurtzer aimed to create a book that could be text and textbook of the The Role of Christian Communities in the Jewish intellectual and communal zeitgeist for the contemporary period Cultural Transformation in the City,” a and the recent past, canonizing important ideas and debates of the past chapter set to appear in European Cultural two generations and stimulating debate and scholarship about what is Diplomacy and Arab Christians in Palestine, 1918-1948, a forthcoming title from Palgrave yet to come. It is intended for both a lay and scholarly audience. MacMillan. In addition, Hilel also worked on her book project, tentatively titled Leisure, Pleasure, and Fun in Mandatory Palestine; organized a panel on reframing childhood in History, Politics, and Society, 1882-Present” in Wilhelm Filderman, 1940-44” in Resisting the modern Middle East for the MESA Annual winter 2020 and a first-year seminar on the Persecution: Jews and their Petitions Meeting in Washington, D.C., in October 2020; 1948 War in spring 2020, while maintaining during the Holocaust (Berghahn Books). and contributed several articles to the Israeli a robust profile in public engagement with Ionescu’s article, “Debates on the Restitution newspaper Haaretz. academics, the foreign policy community, of Romanianized Property during the and lay audiences. Antonescu Regime, 1940-1944,” was also SARA HIRSCHHORN, Visiting Assistant published in Holocaust and Genocide Studies. Professor in Israel Studies ȘTEFAN CRISTIAN IONESCU, During the 2019-2020 academic year, Theodore Zev and Alice R. Weiss-Holocaust LUCILLE KERR, Professor in the Hirschhorn drafted a book proposal and Educational Foundation Visiting Associate Department of Spanish and Portuguese working sample chapter for a second major Professor in Holocaust Studies Kerr’s teaching, research, and mentoring of book project tentatively entitled “New Day Ionescu was excited to join the Department students has continued to focus on the Latin in Babylon and Jerusalem: Zionism, Jewish of History as Theodore Zev and Alice R. American context with emphasis on works Power, and Identity Politics since 1967,” Weiss Holocaust Educational Foundation of fiction, testimonial texts, and films, which supported by an Israel Studies research grant Visiting Associate Professor in Holocaust include materials by Jewish-Latin Americans. from the Crown Family Center for Jewish and Studies in September 2019 and to In winter 2020, she had the opportunity to Israel Studies. She published “The History participate in the activities of the Crown offer an advanced undergraduate course and Politics of the Israeli Settler Movement Family Center for Jewish and Israel Studies. titled “Jewish Argentina: From Jewish and Prospects for Peace” (Journal of South He completed several chapters published Gauchos to Contemporary Culture” for Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, spring in edited volumes: “The Restitution students in both Comparative Literary 2020) and a book chapter “Commentary of Jewish Jobs in the Aftermath of the Studies and Spanish, incorporating on Peter Beinart’s ‘Failure of the American Antonescu Regime” in Agency and the substantive material based on her recent Jewish Establishment’” in The New Jewish Holocaust: Essays in Honor of Deborah research on Jewish-Argentine testimonial Cannon (Academic Studies Press), and is Dwork (Palgrave Macmillan) as well as production and the Jewish experience working on several other smaller projects. “Legal Resistance through Petitions? The during the 1976-83 dictatorship. She taught two courses, “Modern Israel: Strategies of Romanian Jewish Leader

9 JACOB LASSNER, Philip M. and Ethel forensic science, criminal justice, and ELIE REKHESS, Crown Visiting Professor Klutznick Professor Emeritus of Jewish forensic anthropology at John Jay College for in Israel Studies, Visiting Professor in the Civilization in the Departments of History Criminal Justice; and Spanish language study Department of History, and Associate and Religious Studies at the Cervantes Institute, New York. This Director of Israel Studies In the last year, Lassner published Middle training enhances the disciplinary breadth of Rekhess began the academic year by co- East Politics and Historical Memory: her previous scholarship in German Studies leading the second annual Israel Global Martyrdom, Revolution, and Forging National on the significance of affect and politics in Engineering Trek: Water, a two-week Identities (IB Tauris). He was scheduled to the wake of state sponsored violence in the international program for rising second and present “The Murder of the Umayyads in postwar West German public sphere, while third-year undergraduates to explore Israel’s Light of Ancient Rituals and Sources” at the also allowing for comparative transnational water innovation and technology scene. In Annual Meeting of the American Oriental research extending to the cultural afterlife of the fall, he gave a series of three lectures Society, “Jerusalem and the Apocalypse” at a state-sponsored violence in the context of at Congregation B’nai Tikvah in Deerfield, conference sponsored by Lutheran Research the Global South (here, specifically, South Illinois, on political turmoil in Israel, the Center, and “The Islamic City and the and Chile). Arab minority, and the security threats Israel Modern Western Metropolis” at a conference faces. Rekhess also co-organized YOHANAN PETROVSKY-SHTERN, sponsored by the University of London. All “The Promise of Biomed: Symposium on Crown Family Professor of Jewish Studies three presentations, however, were cancelled Joint Biomed Projects: Tel Aviv University and Professor in the Department of History due to the novel coronavirus pandemic. and Northwestern University” in January, In 2019-20, Petrovsky-Shtern was actively and he lectured in March on “Third Time’s PHYLLIS LASSNER, Professor of publishing, researching, writing, painting, the Charm: Analyzing the Israeli Election” at Instruction Emerita in the Cook Family giving lectures, supervising his museum the Serling Institute for Jewish Studies and Writing Program, the Gender and Sexuality research group, and participating in Modern Israel at Michigan State University. Studies Program, and Jewish Studies multiple on-campus events. He prepared 12 He published a chapter entitled “Netanyahu’s Program essays for the book Uman: a Historical Guide Policies toward Israel’s Arab Sector” in Israel Lassner published the essays “The Quest (forthcoming in Ukrainian and English), Under Netanyahu (Routledge). for Holocaust Memory in Polish Films, drafted two chapters for his book on Rabbi 2012-2016” and “Fashion as Self-Authorship, Levi Yitshak of Berdichev, and finalized two KENNETH SEESKIN, Philip M. and Escape from Fascist Terror, and Witness chapters for his long-lasting book project Ethel Klutznick Professor of Jewish Testimony.” She also co-edited The Palgrave on the history of modern laughter. In 2020, Civilization and Professor in the Department Handbook of Holocaust Literature and Petrovsky-Shtern was awarded a fellowship of Religious Studies Culture and co-wrote the introduction and at the Israeli Institute for Advanced After 48 years of service, Seeskin retired co-edited the new edition of the Holocaust Studies. He spent his spring/summer term in June 2020. He helped found the Jewish memoir I Was a Doctor in Auschwitz by working on his book chapter focused on the Studies Program in 1985 and was its first Gisella Perl. She serves on the Education Ukrainian contexts of Zeev Jabotinsky as director. His latest book, Thinking about and Outreach Committee and the Exhibition part of the research group “Cosmopolitan the Prophets: A Philosopher Reads the Bible, Committee of the Illinois Holocaust Museum. Odessa.” In addition, Petrovsky-Shtern was published by the Jewish Publication published a chapter on the Russian cultural Society this fall. MARCUS MOSELEY, Associate Professor and military contexts of Yosif Trumpldor, of Hebrew and Yiddish Literature which appeared in Hebrew in a volume LILAH SHAPIRO, Assistant Professor Moseley is pulling all of his manuscripts dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the of Instruction, School of Education and out of his desk to prepare a collection, destruction of Tel Hai (Makhon Ben Zvi). Social Policy Around the Point: Essays on Hebrew and The research for this work was supported DAVID SHYOVITZ, Associate Professor Yiddish Literature. by an Israel Studies Research Grant from the Crown Family Center for Jewish and in the Department of History and Director ANNA PARKINSON, Associate Professor Israel Studies. His book chapter on archival of the Crown Family Center for Jewish and in the Department of German sources appeared in a collective monograph Israel Studies As a Mellon New Directions Fellow in 2019- Hasidism: Studying Sources, Methods, Shyovitz spent the 2019-20 academic year 2020, Parkinson was granted leave to pursue Perspectives (Rutgers University Press). at work on his book manuscript, “Jews, advanced study in human rights and cultural Animals, and Jewish Animals in the Middle anthropology at Columbia University; Ages,” and also completed an article on the authorship of the influential medieval text

10 THE CROWN FAMILY CENTER FOR JEWISH AND ISRAEL STUDIES 2019-20 Sefer Hasidim (forthcoming in the journal BARRY WIMPFHEIMER, Associate Jewish History). He delivered invited lectures Professor in the Department of Religious at Rutgers University and University Studies and the Pritzker School of Law as well as the Winter Shapiro Lecture at the As co-editor-in-chief of Prooftexts, Congratulations to Catholic Theological Union and the Abraham Wimpfheimer recently published an issue Elie Rekhess on his Joshua Heschel Lecture at Elmhurst College. in memory of Jewish literature scholar Alan new appointment He also led a Jewish history study trip Mintz. He also took over as co-chair of the to Italy under the auspices of the Jewish Rabbinics Division of the Association for In the summer of 2020, Professor Federation of Metropolitan Chicago. When Jewish Studies. Elie Rekhess concluded his Northwestern courses moved online in the term as Associate Director of spring quarter, Shyovitz taught a Zoom İPEK K. YOSMAOĞLU, Associate Israel Studies at the Crown course on the history of Jewish-Christian Professor in the Department of History Family Center for Jewish and relations and an advanced undergraduate Yosmaoğlu began serving as the director Israel Studies. Rekhess arrived seminar on the history of the blood libel. of the Keyman Modern Turkish Studies at Northwestern as a Visiting Program at the Buffett Institute for Global Professor of Israel Studies in , Associate Professor of CLAIRE SUFRIN Affairs in fall 2019. Under her directorship, 2009, and took on the role of Instruction in the Jewish Studies Program Associate Director in 2013. the Keyman Program will continue and Assistant Director of Jewish Studies As a teacher, researcher, and collaborative programming with the Middle administrator, he has invigorated Sufrin continued her research in religion East and North African Studies Program the academic study of Israeli and literature while teaching courses in and the Crown Family Center for Jewish history, culture, and society American Judaism and post-Holocaust and Israel Studies to support Sephardic on campus, and has helped to theology as well as a first-year seminar Studies at Northwestern. Talks delivered forge close relationships with in Jewish-Christian dialogue. The New by Michelle Campos (University of Florida) leading Israeli scholars and Jewish Canon: Ideas and Debates 1980-2015, in October 2019 and Devi Mays (University academic institutions. Due to which she co-edited with Yehuda Kurtzer, of Michigan) in November 2019 were the his indefatigable efforts, the was published in July 2020 by Academic result of such collaboration and brought Crown Family Center has hosted Studies Press. together an interdisciplinary group of successful conferences and faculty and students. Campos and Mays also HANNA TZUKER SELTZER, Assistant workshops, forged partnerships made guest appearances at Yosmaoğlu’s Professor of Instruction in the Jewish Studies with diverse partners on campus, undergraduate seminar on “Ottoman Jews and the Middle East and North African and put Northwestern on the in the Age of Nationalism” to talk about (MENA) Languages Programs map as a leader in the field of the craft of history and discuss their work Israel Studies. Seltzer, along with her colleagues Ragy with the students. Yosmaoğlu continues to Mikhaeel and Oya Topcuoglu, received a work on her manuscript project about the Previously Rekhess served as a Senior Research Fellow in the grant from the Alumnae of Northwestern transformation of state policies concerning Moshe Dayan Center for Middle University for their project “Middle Eastern Ottoman (and subsequently Turkish) Jews Eastern and African Studies, Cities and Their Cultural Influence: Cairo- against the background of transitions Tel Aviv University, and headed Istanbul-Jerusalem.” This grant allowed from empires to nation-states during and the Program on Jewish-Arab her to develop a new class about the city of after WWI. The book she is co-editing with Cooperation in Israel sponsored Jerusalem, which she will be teaching for Kerem Öktem, “Guests in their Homeland: by the Konrad-Adenauer- third-year Hebrew students in the coming Turkish Jews and Their Diasporas,” is Stiftung (1995-2010). year. She also wrote a new communicative scheduled for publication by Palgrave online placement exam for Hebrew learners McMillan in fall 2020. Rekhess will continue to teach to replace the existing written placement courses for the Crown Family exam. In addition, she presented the Center, as he simultaneously acclaimed Israeli movies “Fill the Void” heads up the Israel Innovation and “The Cakemaker” in the Israeli film Project, an initiative focused series she curates for students in the MENA on promoting technological Languages Program. and scientific collaborations between Northwestern and Israeli academic institutions.

11 With Gratitude SUPPORT JEWISH to Our Supporters AND ISRAEL STUDIES The Crown Family Center for Jewish and Israel Studies gratefully AT NORTHWESTERN acknowledges the support of the following individuals and families whose support over the last two years ur success is dependent upon the support of enhanced all aspects of our work. our alumni, community partners, and generous donors, who help us fulfill our mission of providing Mrs. Leslie S. Aiello O Dr. Sharon Back-Padnos rich, rigorous, and relevant education in the fields of Ms. Sasha Elizabeth Becker Jewish and Israel Studies. A gift of any size can help us Mr. Zachary Michael Benjamin Mr. Jeffrey C. Bloom to maintain and expand our undergraduate and graduate Rabbi Karen N. Bodney-Halasz teaching, faculty and student research, and extensive Mr. Miles Jared Bronstein Mr. Irwin J. Brown public programming. Thank you for considering a gift to Ms. Katelin Anne Coronado support this work. To give, you can do one of the following: Ms. Ludmilla Coven The Crown Family • Go to wewill.northwestern.edu/jewishstudies Mrs. Lynn Galfond Delaney Mr. Robert J. Delaney • Phone 800-222-5603 and tell them you would like your gift allocated to the Mrs. Mary Beth Eichenbaum Crown Family Center for Jewish and Israel Studies. Mr. Todd A. Eichenbaum Mr. Samuel Fuchs Feldstein • Send your check, payable to Northwestern University, to Kim Milstein Buckley, Dr. Alan J. Freint Alumni Relations and Development, Northwestern University, 1201 Davis Street, Ms. Frances Friedlander Evanston, Illinois 60208. Be sure to indicate that your donation is for the Mr. Alan W. Galishoff Crown Family Center for Jewish and Israel Studies. Michael J. Gelfand, Esq. Ms. Jane Yanovsky Ginns Ms. Merle Gordon Dr. Alison Grann Mr. Eston M. Gross Mrs. Sandra W. Gross David Ethan Gutstein, MD Ms. Allison Rennert Kirshenbaum Mr. Martin S. Krongold Mr. Gary P. Kulwin Mr. Michael Lee Lehrer Mr. Aaron Michael Levine Ms. Hazel Louise Levine Dr. John Lewinson Mrs. Wendy Laskow Lipsman Mr. William S. Lipsman Mr. Joshua James O’Neil Mrs. Eve H. Pinkert Mr. Stuart L. Pinkert Mr. Howard H. Prager Ms. Paula M. Romberg Mr. Steven E. Rosen Rabbi Donald B. Rossoff Ms. Rachel Reinhold Sacks Mrs. Lynn Kirsche Shapiro Mr. Stephen M. Silverman Mrs. Yael R. Silverman Mrs. Harriet Devorkin Simon Mr. Adam Gregory Stewart Mrs. Meredith Goodman Stewart Mr. Aaron Isaac Strauss Ms. Kaley Anne Stroup Israel Global Engineering Trek Ms. Taina Viera-Bugarin Mrs. Maria Sakamoto-Vogel Mr. Henry M. Vogel Ms. Gail R. Weinstein 12 THE CROWN FAMILY CENTER FOR JEWISH AND ISRAEL STUDIES 2019-20 Mr. Benjamin Elisha Zoloth Dorfman 13 Nonprofit Organization U.S. Postage P A I D Carol Stream, IL Permit #101 Northwestern University Crowe Hall 5-179 1860 Campus Drive Evanston, Illinois 60208

or more information or to be added to our mailing Like us on Facebook The Crown Family Center for list, contact us at [email protected]. Jewish and Israel Studies is Up-to-date information is always available at on Facebook: facebook.com/ F CrownFamilyCenteratNU www.jewish-studies.northwestern.edu.

14 THE CROWN FAMILY CENTER FOR JEWISH AND ISRAEL STUDIES 2019-20