Faculty News
Lumbard Presents Crown Paper
October 19, 2009
Since its inception in 2006, the Common Word initiative has quickly become one of the most significant interfaith movements of the modern era. Tracing the evolution of this historic movement, Professor Joseph Lumbard assesses the forces that gave rise to the Common Word, the reactions from all quarters, and the movement it has spurred. With significant figures, such as King Abdullah II of Jordan, the Pope, Archbishops and Grand Muftis, the Common Word has become a geo-theological initiative with geo-political implications. It also examines the progress to date and areas in which the movement may continue to bear fruit.
For more information, click here.
A PDF of the Crown Paper can be accessed through the following link:
http://www.brandeis.edu/crown/publications/cp/CP3.pdf
Ellen Smith Hosts Tours of Boston Jewish History
Professor Ellen Smith of the NEJS Department and co-author of the book, "The Jews of Boston," recently led a bus tour of Boston's historical synagogues organized by the Synagogue Council of Massachusetts. Some 30 people participated, curious about how the Jewish community evolved in Boston.
She also led a walking tour of Jewish Boston in the North End on October 18 sponsored by The Jewish Learning Initiative at Brandeis University.
ChaeRan Freeze Lectures at Harvard
Professor ChaeRan Freeze lectured at Harvard University on "The Private Life of a Noble Jewish Woman in Tsarist Russia: Gender in the Diaries of Zinaida Poliakova (1862-1952)" on October 15, 2009.
Sarna on Reinventing American Judaism
An article, Reinventing American Judaism, by Jonathan Sarna, was published in the Fall 2009 issue of Reform Judaism magazine. He writes about how the recent financial crisis and demographic shifts are reshaping the Jewish community in ways unimaginable 20 years ago. He reflects on what history can teach us about Jewish revival in these uncertain times.
Lumbard Article in "Catalyst"
September, 2009
Brandeis University's "Catalyst" highlights the work of Islamic & Middle Eastern Studies Professor Joseph Lumbard in its RE:ACTION Department on page 5.
Professor Lumbard is part of a team of four editors who are working to translate and publish the first study guide to the Islamic Qur'an produced in western academia. They expect this very complex task to require four years to complete, with the first manuscript to be complete in 2010.
Polonsky on Tarantino Film
Antony Polonsky, was quoted in a Los Angeles Times article on August 28, 2009 regarding the violence in Quentin Tarantino's new film, "Inglourious Basterds," a band of Jewish soldiers in a violent bid to avenge their people and halt the Holocaust. Professor Polonsky is Albert Abramson Professor of Holocaust Studies, an appointment held jointly at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and Brandeis University. >more
Bringing Israel Studies To China
August 2009
Professor Ilan Troen, director of the The Schusterman Center for Israel Studies at Brandeis University, led a delegation of American and Israeli scholars to China for an intensive two weeks of seminars for 125 academics, students, and government officials at Beijing and Shandong Universities. >more
David Wright's Latest Book
August, 2009
"Inventing God's Law: How the Covenant Code of the Bible Used and Revised the Laws of Hammurabi," written by David Wright is now available from Oxford University Press.
Professor Wright is the current Graduate Program Chair and professor of Bible and Ancient Near East. His research specialties are primarily Near Eastern and biblical ritual and law in comparative perspective.
This book argues that the biblical law collection in Exodus 20:23-23:19 was created as a response to Neo-Assyrian imperialism in Israel-Judah around 700 BCE and used Hammurabi's collection as a model for both its casuistic and apodictic laws.
Sylvia Barack Fishman, Guest Speaker
May, 2009
Professor Sylvia Barack Fishman presented "Negotiating both sides of the Hyphen: Juggling American-Jewish Lives" at The Vilna Shul, Boston's Center for Jewish Culture on May 31, 2009. This was part of Vilna Shul's Making a Mark Series.
Motti Inbari's New Book
May, 2009
"Jewish Fundamentalism and the Temple Mount: Who Will Build the Third Temple," written by Motti Inbari is now available in English through SUNY Press. Professor Inbari was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies.
The Temple Mount, located in Jerusalem, is the most sacred site in Judaism and the third-most sacred site in Islam, after Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia.The sacred nature of the site for both religions has made it one of the focal points of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Jewish Fundamentalism and the Temple Mount is an original and provocative study of the theological roots and historical circumstances that have given rise to the movement of the Temple Builders.
Jonathan Sarna Elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences
April 21, 2009
Three Brandeis faculty members were among the 212 new Fellows and 19 Foreign Honorary Members elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences (AAS) in late April 2009. The 2009 inductees who represent leaders in the sciences, the humanities and the arts, business, public affairs, and the nonprofit sector, join one of the nation's most prestigious honorary societies and a center for independent policy research.
Read more about this prestigious honor and the three Brandeis faculty members who will be inducted at the October ceremony.
Vardit Ringvald receives 2009 Keter Torah Award
Vardit Ringvald, Director, Hebrew Program, was honored in May with a Keter Torah award from the Bureau of Jewish Education of Greater Boston in recognition of her outstanding contributions to Jewish Education.
NEJS Faculty Research Colloquium
Feb. 26, 2009
Ellie Kellman, Assistant Professor of Yiddish, shared her research on "Educating 'Moyshe' or Entertaining Him?: Literature in the American Yiddish Press ca. 1910.
Jonathan P. Decter awarded the American Academy for Jewish Research's Salo Baron Prize
Feb. 15, 2009
The American Academy for Jewish Research (AAJR), the oldest organization of Judaica scholars in North America, has awarded its annual Salo Baron Prize for the best first book in Jewish studies (published in 2007) to Jonathan P. Decter, associate professor in the Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies at Brandeis University. Professor Decter's book, "Iberian Jewish Literature: Between al-Andalus and Christian Europe," was published by Indiana University Press.
In "Iberian Jewish Literature," Decter explores Hebrew prose and poetry in both its Islamic-Arabic context and its Christian-Romance context. His work draws on scholarship in Romance languages and literatures, medieval Hebrew literature, and Arabic studies and is in dialogue with contemporary literary theory and cultural studies. In speaking of the book at the award ceremony in Washington D.C. in December, professor Robert Chazan, a former president of the AAJR, praised the book for its willingness to encompass Hebrew literature from both the Muslim and Christian periods and for its methodological sophistication.
Decter's book grows out of his doctoral dissertation, which he wrote at the Jewish Theological Seminary under the supervision of Professor Raymond Scheindlin.
The Baron Prize honors the memory of the distinguished historian Salo W. Baron, a long-time president of the AAJR, who taught at Columbia University for many decades. It is, according to Professor Todd Endelman, the current president of the AAJR, one of the highest honors that can be bestowed on a young scholar in Jewish studies in North America. Previous recipients have gone on to stellar careers at major research universities and liberal arts colleges.
2009 Ina Levine Annual Lecture
Coming to Terms with the Dark Past: Confronting the Holocaust in Poland and Lithuania
Thursday, February 12, 2009
7-8:30 p.m.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
100 Raoul Wallenberg Place, SW
Washington, DC 20024-2126
Antony Polonsky, the 2008-09 Ina Levine Invitational Scholar, is Albert Abramson Chair of Holocaust Studies at Brandeis University. A specialist on the history and culture of the Jews of East Central Europe and the history of the Holocaust, he has served for more than a decade as the series editor of "POLIN: Studies in Polish Jewry" and is the author or editor of numerous books. He is the recipient of the Joseph and Edith Sunlight Literary Prize, the Jewish Book Council of America Prize, the National Jewish Book Award, and the Rafael Scharf Award for Outstanding Achievement. As the Levine Scholar, he is working on a synthetic account of the history of the Jews of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth from 1350 to the present.