Hadassah-Brandeis Institute

Events

View our past events page to watch recorded events. 

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All of HBI’s events are free and open to the public. HBI is pleased to participate in the Mass Cultural Council’s Card to Culture Program.

Upcoming Events

On the left, the book cover with red, yellow and green geometric shapes, on the right, Keren McGinity, a White woman with brown hair
#UsToo: Interfaith Dialogue and Sexual Violence

March 21, 2024

7:30-9:00 pm | In-Person Only | Rapaporte Treasure Hall, Brandeis University

Dr. Keren R. McGinity, Hadassah-Brandeis Institute Research Associate, will contextualize the start of the U.S. movement against sexual misconduct and abuse of power, sharing research findings from her new book about women of different faith backgrounds, #UsToo: How Jewish, Muslim, and Christian Women Changed Our Communities. Brandeis University students will facilitate the Q & A between students and Dr. McGinity. Pizza and dessert will be provided. Bring your appetites, curiosity, open minds, and compassion.

Dr. McGinity is the interfaith specialist at United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism. Her book #UsToo: How Jewish, Muslim, and Christian Women Changed Our Communities (2023) is available free-of-charge via Open Access

Co-Sponsors: Prevention, Advocacy, and Resource Center (PARC), Brandeis University,  Brandeis HillelCenter for Spiritual Life at Brandeis University, Jewish Feminist Association of Brandeis (JFAB), The Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies at Brandeis University (NEJS)Women's, Gender, & Sexuality Studies at Brandeis University (WGS)Women's Studies Research Center at Brandeis University (WSRC).

Register here to join.

Ilana Szobel is a White woman with long curly hair.
Crip Justice: Gender, Disability, and Sexual Violence | Mellon Sawyer Seminar #7

March 26, 2024

5:00-7:00 pm EDT | Online 

Organized by Brandeis professor and HBI Scholar in Residence Ilana Szobel, this session will examine a wide range of issues unique to the experiences of sexual assault victims who have a cognitive, sensory, emotional, or mobility disability. By locating the conversations about sexual gendered violence in contemporary disability justice frameworks, the session will focus on prevention of sexual violence against people with disabilities, modes of resistance and self-empowerment of disabled victims, as well as on the creation of support systems by and for survivors with disabilities.

Events in the year-long Mellon Sawyer seminar series, “Imperiled Bodies: Slavery, Colonialism, Citizenship and the Logics of Gender-Based Violence” are sponsored by a prestigious John E. Sawyer Seminar grant from the Mellon Foundation. Brandeis sponsors and resources include the Heller School for Social Policy and Management, the Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, the Women’s Studies Research Center, the Mandel Center for the Humanities, the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute, the Feminist Sexual Ethics Project, the Rose Art Museum, the Kniznick Art Gallery, the Gender and Sexuality Center, and the Prevention, Advocacy, and Resource Center.

Register here to join.

Avigayil Halpern - a White woman with short brown hair wearing a red blouse standing in front of a tree with green leaves.
HBI Seminar Series with Rabbi Avigayil Halpern

April 1, 2024

12:00 pm EDT | Online

Rabbi Avigayil Halpern, Independent, HBI Scholar in Residence

Queer Niddah: Theory and Practice

Avigayil Halpern (she/her) is a rabbi and writer whose work focuses on feminist and queer Torah, most recently through her newsletter project, Approaching. Rabbi Halpern has taught in Torah institutions, synagogues, and served as the Cooperberg-Rittmaster Pastoral and Educational Intern at Congregation Beit Simchat Torah in 2023. Halpern holds rabbinic ordination from the Hadar Institute, and a BA in Judaic Studies from Yale University. 

At HBI, Halpern is working on Queer Niddah: Theology and Halacha. This book will serve as a guide for queer Jewish people who want to bring traditional Jewish laws around sex and menstruation into their lives, an entry point for niddah-curious progressive Jews of all genders, and a feminist and queer-theory-informed exploration of the role of embodied practices in shaping our relationships with ourselves, one another, and God. 

Please note this program will not be recorded as it is work in progress.

Register here to join.

Rachel Perry is a White woman with dark hair.
HBI Seminar Series with Rachel Perry

April 8, 2024

12:00 pm EDT | Hybrid: Online and In-Person at the Liberman-Miller Lecture Hall, Epstein Building, Brandeis University

Rachel Perry, University of Haifa, HBI Research Associate

Who Will Draw Our History? Graphic Witnessing by Jewish Women Holocaust Survivors

Dr. Rachel Perry teaches in the Weiss-Livnat Graduate Program for Holocaust Studies at the University of Haifa. Her research straddles the fields of art history, visual culture, and Holocaust studies, focusing on the representation and memory of the Holocaust in the immediate postwar period and questions of ethics, exhibition design, and cultural diplomacy. Her articles have appeared in October, History and Memory, Holocaust Studies: A Journal of Culture and History, French Cultural Studies, RIHA, Art Bulletin, Ars Judaica, MIEJSCE, the Journal of Holocaust Research, Images: A Journal of Jewish Art and Visual Culture and Holocaust and Genocide Studies

Perry’s current project examines graphic albums and artwork created by Jewish women survivors of the Holocaust. At HBI, Perry is working on her manuscript which will consist of six chapters, one on each survivor artists: Ágnes Lukács, Edith Bán Kiss, Elżbieta Nadel, Regina Lichter-Liron, Zofia Rosenstrauch, and Luba Krugman Gurdus.

Please note this program will not be recorded as it is work in progress.

Register here to join in person.

Register here to join online.

A black and white photo of a harbor from the viewpoint of sitting in a row boat with a small ship passing to the side.

Judy Glickman Lauder, "Harbor, Gilleleje, Copenhagen." 2018. Gelatin silver print.

April 9, 2024

4- 5:30 pm EDT | Rapaporte Treasure Hall, Goldfarb Library, Brandeis University

Reception to follow

Philanthropist, humanitarian and photographer Judy Glickman Lauder has been photographing Holocaust sites throughout Europe since the late 1980s, and her work is held in prestigious institutions around the world. In this talk moderated by Dr. Lisa Fishbayn Joffe, director of the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute, she will discuss what photography teaches us about social justice and resilience. Sponsored by the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute and Institutional Advancement.

This event is part of the Leonard Bernstein Festival of the Creative Arts.

Register here to attend.

On the left, the book cover shows a neighborhood of block-like black homes set among palm trees and telephone lines with a red sky and the title “The Wolf Hunt” in large yellow letters. On the right, a circular photo of part of Ayelet Gundar-Goshen’s face, a white woman with short, dark curly hair.

April 17, 2024

12:30 pm EDT | Online

A National Jewish Book Awards Finalist

Award-winning Israeli author Ayelet Gundar-Goshen joins HBI Director Lisa Fishbayn Joffe in conversation about The Wolf Hunt, a head-on collision between the American dream and the Jewish longing for the promised land, as the reality of racial tensions threatens to boil over. While the novel explores the burning questions of Jewish and Israeli identity, it is also a piercing psychological portrait of the relationship between parents and their children, a story about a mother forced to take on the role of a detective, in search of a truth that might destroy her. 

A clinical psychologist and author, Ayelet Gundar-Goshen's first novel, One Night, Markovitch, won the Sapir Prize in 2012 for debut novels, the Italian Adei-Wizo Prize, and the French Adei-Wizo Prize, and has been translated to 14 languages. Gundar-Goshen's second novel, Waking Lions, won the 2017 Jewish Quarterly-Wingate Prize. The New York Times Book Review picked Waking Lions as "Editors' Choice”, and The Wall Street Journal selected it for its "Best Summer Reads" list. Her critically acclaimed third novel, The Liar, was published in English in 2019. Gundar-Goshen was recently named one of Israel's 8 best contemporary women fiction writers.

The Wolf Hunt is available at Amazon, Bookshop, and your local bookseller.

Register here to join.

Please note: The recording of this event will be shared with registrants after the event for two weeks only. It will not be available to view on the HBI website. 

On the left, book cover image: 100 Jewish Brides written in the middle of the page in blue, with photos on the top and bottom showing photos of Jewish women around the world celebrating their marriages. On the right: top, Shulamit Reinharz, a White woman with short, dark hair wearing a black top; on the bottom, Barbara Vinick, a White woman with short blond hair wearing a colorful scarf and a black top.
Sandra Seltzer Silberman HBI Conversations Series Featuring Shulamit Reinharz and Barbara Vinick, Editors, "100 Jewish Brides: Stories from Around the World"

May 22, 2024

7:00 pm EDT | Hybrid: In-Person at HBI | Liberman-Miller Lecture Hall and Online

HBI Founding Director, Shulamit Reinharz, returns to HBI with co-editor Barbara Vinick, for a conversation with HBI Director Lisa Fishbayn Joffe about their expansive and colorful first person collection, 100 Jewish Brides: Stories from Around the World. The collection features stories of Jewish brides from six continents and highlights diverse rituals related to weddings then and now. 

Shulamit Reinharz is the Brandeis University Jacob Potofsky Professor of Sociology, Emerita, the founding director of the Women's Studies Research Center at Brandeis University, and the founding director of the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute/HBI. Barbara Vinick, former Associate Professor at the School of Public Health of Boston University, is secretary of Kulanu, an organization that supports isolated and emerging Jewish communities around the world. 

100 Jewish Brides is the third collection inspired by Shulamit Reinharz's vision of Judaism as practiced by women world-wide. As a past HBI Research Associate, Barbara Vinick collected and edited stories for Esther’s Legacy: Celebrating Purim Around the World.  Vinick and Reinharz followed this with the award-winning and co-edited anthology Today I Am a Woman: Stories of Bat Mitzvah Around the World.

Read the Times of Israel review: Global mazel tov! New book chronicles weddings of 100 Jewish brides from around world, Renee Ghert-Zand, 2/14/2024.

100 Jewish Brides: Stories from Around the World is available at Amazon, Bookshop, and your local bookseller.

Register here to join online.

Register here to join in person.