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

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.

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

4:00 - 5:00 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. 

An old and twisted olive tree with leaves

Oldest Olive Tree, Mount of Olives, East Jerusalem. Photo 1898

Photo Credit: Photo courtesy of Penta Springs Limited/ Alamy Stock Photo. Design by Karin Rosenthal

Listening to History: Memory of the Holocaust and Competing Narratives of the Israel/Palestine Crisis

May 6, 2024

12:30 - 2:00 pm EDT | Hybrid

In-Person at HBI | Liberman-Miller Lecture Hall and Online

Please join HBI’s Holocaust Research Study Group (HRSG) for a public brown-bag lunch event to honor Holocaust Remembrance Day, Yom HaShoah. Our panel will focus on how the memory of the Holocaust exists in complex personal and political conversations surrounding the contested narratives of Israel/Palestine, the Gaza War, and its repercussions. Sarah Silberstein Swartz and Laurel Leff will offer presentations prior to a panel discussion by members of the Holocaust Research Study Group.  

Register to join in person.

Register to join online.

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 in person.

Register here to join online.