Past Events
Amos Oz, Israel: A Personal Perspective
A video of the event will be available here soon.
November 15, 2009, Hassenfeld Conference Center
Acclaimed Israeli author and public intellectual, Amos Oz, addressed Brandeis audiences with his personal perspective on Israel and the art of story telling.
The Challenge of the U.N. Gaza Report
To view the discussion of the U.N Gaza Report please follow this link.
November 5, 2009, Levin Ballroom
Hosted by the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies and the Ethics Center.
Justice Richard Goldstone, head of a controversial UN fact-finding mission to the Gaza Strip and Dore Gold, a former Israeli ambassador to the UN, will visit Brandeis to discuss assertions that Israel and Palestinian fighters committed war crimes during fighting last winter.
Dan Meridor, Deputy Prime Minister of Israel:
Israel in the Changing Middle East
October 15, 2009, Rapaporte Treasure Hall
Co-Sponsored by the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies and
the Crown Center for Middle East Studies
Deputy Prime Minister of Israel and Minister of Intelligence and Atomic Energy, Dan Meridor, discussed the many challenges facing Israel due to the changing region of the Middle East. Among the issues touched upon were: the challenges of uncoventional warfare and violence of non-state actors; the growing regional and international concern over the Iranian nuclear program; Israeli- Palestinian peace negotiations; the Goldstone Report, etc. After speaking, the Deputy Prime Minister conducted a Q&A section moderated by Professor Shai Feldman, Director of the Crown Center for Middle East Studies.
Re-Viewing the Nation: Memory, Membership, and Ethnicity
A series of lectures with Alex Weingrod, Emeritus Professor of Anthropology,Department of Sociology-Anthropology, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.
October 14, 2009
Bones, Burials and Forming the Nation
October 19, 2009
Ethnicity Matters: Or Does it?
October 22, 2009
The New Israeli Minorities
Tel Aviv at 100: Myth, Memory & Actuality
March 22-23, 2009, Hassenfeld Conference Center
Scholars joined together from Israel and the United States to examine the significance and meaning
of establishing the first Hebrew city in nearly two millennia. Panels were held to to discuss Tel Aviv, from its founding to the present, with emphasis on its cultural legacy as
well as presentations on Tel Aviv’s art and architecture, and the premiere screening of the documentary film, Tel Aviv by two of Israel’s most popular filmmakers, Modi Bar-On and Anat Zeltser.
At Home Abroad: Diasporas and Homelands
Comparitive Perspectives Workshop
March 1, 2009, Hassenfeld Conference Center
Co-sponsored by the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies and
Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies
Nili Scharf Gold, Associate Professor of Modern Hebrew Literature, University of Pennsylvania
February 9, 2009, Hassenfeld and Lown
Gold held a seminar and booksigning on two aspects of her book, Yehuda Amichai: The Making of Israel's National Poet. Considered an astonishing revision of the prevailing critical analysis of the poetry of Yehuda Amichai, Gold’s book is based on materials she discovered in a Yale archive and a cache of unpublished letters written by Amichai in 1947 and 1948 to his lover. She spoke both about the art of literary biography and about the nuances of her research.
David Newman of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel
November 4, 2009
David Newman spoke about Thirty Years of the Settlement Movement: Gush Emunim.
Newman is professor of political geography in the Department of Politics and Government at Ben Gurion University in Israel. He edits the international journal Geopolitics, and has published widely on territorial dimensions of the Israel-Palestine conflict. Since the late 1980s, Newman has been involved in peace-related activities and in a variety of Track II discussions and negotiations.
Brandeis in the Berkshires, 2008
August 3-4, 2008
Irwin Cotler, MP, member of parliament, former minister of justice and attorney general of Canada delivers keynote address at Brandeis in the Berkshire: Israel at 60: The Gathering Storm and Beyond.
Israeli Author and Filmmaker Etgar Keret
October 27, 2008
Film Screening of Jellyfish at the Wasserman Cinemateque
October 28, 2008
Meet the Author Series Public Lecture & Book Signing at Usdan
Etgar Keret is internationally acclaimed for his short stories. His book,The Nimrod Flip-Out, which was published in 2006, is a collection of 32 short stories that captures the craziness of life in Israel today. His books are bestsellers in Israel, and have been published in 22 languages. As a filmmaker, Keret is the writer of several feature screenplays, including Skin Deep (1996), which won First Prize at several international film festivals and was awarded the Israeli Oscar. Keret is a lecturer in the film department of Tel Aviv University. At Brandeis, in addition to his public events, he offered a creative writing workshop and participated in a Hebrew-language class.
Israeli author Ronit Matalon
September 24, 2009
On Memory and Autobiography, Hassenfeld
Matalon discussed aspects of her book in lectures in both English and Hebrew.
Ronit Matalon was born into a family of Egyptian-Jewish descent in 1959 and studied literature and philosophy at Tel Aviv University. Matalon has worked as a journalist for Israel TV, and for the daily Ha`aretz (covering Gaza and the West Bank during the 1st Intifada). More recently, she has been a critic and book reviewer for Ha`aretz, and has taught at the Camera Obscura Academy for the Arts in Tel Aviv. Matalon's critically acclaimed first novel, The One Facing Us, presents a kaleidoscopic saga chronicling several generations of an Egyptian Jewish family. At Brandeis, Matalon discussed her most recent novel The Sound of Her Steps.
Schusterman Center Inaugural Conference
Visions & Visionaries: Imagining Israel at Sixty
April 6, 2008, Sachar International Center
The Schusterman Center for Israel Studies held its inaugural conference marking the sixtieth anniversary of the State of Israel. Invited speakers included Shlomo Avineri -- professor of political science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and former director-general of Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the first government of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Ruth Gavison -- Haim H. Cohn Professor of Human Rights in the Faculty of Law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Hillel Halkin -- translator, journalist and author, and David Makovsky -- senior fellow and director of the Project on the Middle East Peace Process at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
The Theology of the Disengagement: Rabbinical Response to a Crisis of Faith
Co-sponsored by Schusterman Center for Israel Studies and
Near Eastern and Judaic Studies Department
March 13, 2008, Lown
A public lecture by Dr. Motti Inbari, Post-Doctoral Fellow, on the theological dilemmas raised by Israel’s Disengagement plan (2005) and the widening faultline within the yeshiva world, particularly the Mercaz Harav.
New Forms of American Spirituality: Kabbalah Centre as an Israeli Export
A Public lecture by Jody Myers of California State University, Northridge
January 24, 2008, Lown
Co-sponsored by the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies, the Tauber Institute for the Study of European Jewry and the Hornstein Jewish Professional Leadership Program
Jody E. Myers is a professor at the Department of Religious Studies, California State University, Northridge. Her most recent area of research is popularization of Kabbalah in contemporary American society. Her publications include “Phasing In: American Jewish Women’s Ritual Celebrations for the New Moon (Rosh Hodesh)” in Women Remaking American Judaism and Kabbalah and the Spiritual Quest: The Kabbalah Centre in America.
One Land, Two Peoples: Sixty Years since the 1947 Partition Plan for Palestine
An International Symposium
December 1-2, 2007, Hassenfeld Conference Center
Co-sponsored by the Crown Center for Middle East Studies and
Schusterman Center for Israel Studies
Sixty years after the U.N. decision of November 29, 1947, the question of partitioning Palestine remains unresolved. This symposium will explore the Jewish and Arab debates on partition in the 1930s and 40s, reflect on the history of partitions as a way of resolving multi-ethnic and multi-national conflicts worldwide, and examine the relevance of this issue in today’s discourse among Israelis and Palestinians.
Reknowned Israeli Author, Meir Shalev, Speaks at Brandeis
November 14, 2007, Shapiro Campus Center
Meir Shalev, a leading Israeli author, is attracting widespread attention in the United States and Europe. At Brandeis, Shalev talked about his just-published sixth novel, A Pigeon and A Boy, a tale of wandering passion and the return home -- whether by humans or winged creatures. The talk was held at Shapiro Campus Center and was followed by a discussion and book signing.
Israeli NGO Expert Visits Heller School
November 12, 2007, Heller School
Benny Gidron, director of Ben Gurion University's Center for Third Sector Research spoke at the Heller School on The Israeli Non-Profit Sector and an Evolving Policy Outlook.
South African-born Journalist Compares South Africa and Israel
October 17, 2007, Golding
Is Israel the New Apartheid State?
A Public Lecture by Benjamin Pogrund. This lecture was presented by the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies, in cooperation with the International Center for Ethics, Justice and Public Life.
Benjamin Pogrund is the founding director of Yakar’s Center for Social Concern in Jerusalem, which promotes dialogue among Jews, and between Israelis and Palestinians. Born in South Africa, Pogrund served as a reporter for the Rand Daily Mail (Johannesburg) newspaper, where he specialized in investigating apartheid. He was jailed for this work and later emigrated from South Africa. Pogrund has authored books about Nelson Mandela and the media under apartheid, and writes for newspapers such as Haaretz and The Guardian. He is a co-editor of Shared Histories: A Palestinian-Israeli Dialogue, and a member of the editorial board of the Palestine-Israel Journal. Pogrund is currently serving as an INSPIRE Fellow at the Institute for Global Leadership at Tufts University.