Visit HBI’s Scholars at AJS
Dec. 9, 2022
Compiled by Mara Lebovitz, Brandeis ‘24 and Amy Powell, HBI Assistant Director
HBI is proud of our current scholars in residence and research associates who will be presenting Dec. 18-20 at the 54th annual conference of the Association for Jewish Studies. This conference, the largest annual gathering of Jewish Studies scholars in the world, will feature more than 1,200 attendees and 190 sessions along with programming, awards ceremonies and a major book exhibit of leading publishers.
Below are the sessions featuring HBI's affiliates, including our director, Lisa Fishbayn Joffe, our visiting scholars in residence and our research associates . Join us for a session if you are registered for #AJS22. Please check your conference program for session locations and updates.
Session 5: 8:30-10 a.m. Dec. 19
Mediterranean Imaginaries: Rabbinics in Comparative Content
Chair: Sara Ronis, St. Mary's University, Texas, HBI Scholar in Residence
Bringing the Bible to Babylonia: The Bavli's Infusion of the Mesopotamian landscape with Biblical narratives, Omer Shadmi, Haifa University
Saving Face with David: Echoes of b. Sanhedrin 107a-b in Tafsīr and Late Midrash, Madeline Wyse, University of California — Berkeley
Tractate Kuttim and the Emergence of Jewish Dhimmitude, Eliav Grossman
Contesting Jewish Masculinities
Chair: Keren R McGinity, USCJ, HBI Research Associate
"I Could Not Live a Double Life": Giora Manor, the Kibbutz, and the Dynamics of the Transparent Closet, Dotan Brom, Tel Aviv University
Sidney Franklin's Verónica Pass: The First American Bullfighter and His Construction of Queer Jewish Masculinity, Emily Robins Sharpe, Keene State College
The First Hungarian Transgender Children's Book: Gender nonconformity in Jewish author Zsuzsa Kántor’s Szerelmem, Csikó (1973), Bogi Perelmutter, University of Kansas
"There is No Prize at the End of the Movement": Alon Karniel's Queer Choreographic Structures as Jewish Diaspora, Hannah Kosstrin, The Ohio State University
Session 3: 2:30-4 p.m. Dec. 18
Queering Jewish Studies
Moderators: Anna Hajkova, University of Warwick and Gregg Drinkwater, University of Colorado, Boulder
Discussants: Rafael Balling, Stanford University; Aleksandra Gajowy,University of College Dublin; Carli Snyder, City University of New York, Graduate Center; Max Strassfeld, University of Arizona, HBI Scholar in Residence; and Mir Yarfitz, Wake Forest University Department of History
Session 4: 4:15-5:45 p.m. Dec. 18
Gender, Embodiment and Animality in Rabbinic Texts
Chair: Yoel Kretzmer-Raziel, Achva Academic College
Constructing Corpses: The Babylonian Talmud and the Fetal Dead, Sara Ronis, St. Mary’s University, Texas, HBI Scholar in Residence
The Animalization of Illness in Rabbinic Literature: Models of Illness and Rabbinic Subjectivity, Shulamit Shinnar, Columbia University
"Torah scholars who are similar to women, but act mightily like men": Once again on construction of rabbinic masculinity Roni Shweka, Bar Ilan University
Session 4: 4:15-5:45 p.m. Dec. 18
Diaspora Within and Beyond Jewish Politics
Discussants: Mara Benjamin, Mt. Holyoke College; Marla Brettschneider, University of New Hampshire, HBI Research Associate; and Julie E. Cooper, Tel Aviv University
Session 5: 8:30-10 a.m. Dec. 19
Mediterranean Imaginaries: Rabbinics in Comparative Context
Chair: Sara Ronis, St. Mary’s University, Texas, HBI Scholar in Residence
Bringing the Bible to Babylonia: The Bavli's Infusion of the Mesopotamian landscape with Biblical narratives, Omer Shadmi, Haifa University
Saving Face with David: Echoes of b. Sanhedrin 107a-b in Tafsīr and Late Midrash, Madeline Wyse, University of California — Berkeley
Tractate Kuttim and the Emergence of Jewish Dhimmitude, Eliav Grossman
Jewish Women Across Continents
Chair: Marsha Dubrow, The Jewish Theological Seminary of America
"Call Forth My Southern Blood": Performing Confederate Jewish Womanhood, Heather Nathans, Tufts University
Cosmopolitanism and Cochin's Jewish Women, Bindu Malieckal, Saint Anselm College, HBI Research Associate
Contributions to a Mizrahi Women's Living Archive in the Face of Israel Ethnonationalism, Ilise Cohen
Session 7: 1:15-2:45 p.m. Dec. 19
Beyond Measure: Jewish Women's Biography and the Appraisal of Worth
Chair: Julia Sharff, The University of Toronto
Miriam Karpilove and the Yiddish Middlebrow, Jessica Anne Kirzane, The University of Chicago
Mary Antin as American Religious Seeker, Rachel B. Gross, San Francisco State University, HBI Scholar in Residence
Jessie Sampter: A Poet to Forget? Sarah Imhoff, Indiana University
Respondent: Laura Leibman, Reed College
Session 8: 3-4:30 p.m. Dec. 19
Transing Biblical Characters: Trans Lenses on Textual Interpretation
Moderators: Max Strassfeld, University of Arizona, HBI Scholar in Residence
Discussants: Rachel Adelman, Hebrew College; Esther Brownsmith, MF Norwegian School of Theology, Religion and Society; Tyson Herberger, University of Southeastern Norway; Jane Nichols, Yale University; and Madadh Richey, Brandeis University
Session 10: 8:30-10 a.m. Dec. 20
Religion and Secularism in the Yishuv and Israel
Chair: Michal Raucher, Rutgers University, HBI Scholar in Residence
Jewish Nationalism and Religion: The Hebrew Bible and the Formation of the “New Jew,” Yitzhak Conforti, Bar-Ilan University
Shabbat According to their Halacha: Worship Rituals and Secular Observance Amongst Israelis on the Weekend, Stav Shufan, Bar Ilan University
Educational Prayer in Mandatory Jerusalem: The Case of the Evelina de Rothschild SIDDUR for Girls, Rueven Gafni, The Department for Eretz-Israel Studies, Kinneret Academic College)
Jewish Sociolinguistics and Identity Construction
Chair Keren R. McGinity, USCJ, HBI Research Associate
Distinctively Jewish? Personal Names of American Jews, Sarah Bunin Benor, Alicia Blumenfeld Chandler, Wayne State University
Hebrew, French, and "Integration;" Confronting Community Change through Language Practices in a Luxembourgish Synagogue, Anastasia Badder, The University of Cambridge
Multilingualism and Identity Construction in the Ukrainian Jewish community during Russia's War against Ukraine, Renee Perelmutter, University of Kansas
Thinking Strategies of Bible Study, Ehud Tsemach, Stanford University
Session 11: 10:15-11:45 a.m. Dec. 20
Structural Inequalities in Jewish Divorce Practice: Ethnographic, Legal and Talmudic Perspectives
Sponsored by Hadassah-Brandeis Institute
Chair: Norma Baumel Joseph, Concordia University
"A Distinctly Jewish Form of Domestic Violence": Transformations in Jewish Communal Discourse Around Domestic Abuse and Get Refusal, Lisa Fishbayn Joffe, Hadassah-Brandeis Institute, Brandeis University
"It was Humiliating": Orthopraxy and power in stories of Get Abuse in Canada, Deidre Butler, Carleton University, Betina Appel Kuzmarov, Carleton University
“Scheming Woman, Clever Man: Rabbinic ambivalence towards abusive behavior in Jewish marriage and divorce” Mari Masha Yossiffon Halpern, University of Toronto, HBI Graduate Student Research Assistant