Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies

Dalia Wassner, PhD, is the director of Jews of the Americas, an initiative of Brandeis University at the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies. Dr. Wassner is a historian whose research and teaching is dedicated to providing more inclusive and interdisciplinary approaches to the Jewish Diaspora and broadening the academic fields of Jewish Studies, Latin American Studies and Diaspora Studies.

Dr. Wassner is the author of Harbinger of Modernity: Marcos Aguinis and the Democratization of Argentina (Boston: Brill, 2014), which illuminates the intersecting roles of Jews and public intellectuals in bringing democracy to post-dictatorship Argentina. She is guest-editor of the launching issue of the journal Latin American Jewish Studies (Spring 2022), and her scholarship has been published in numerous academic journals, including Latin American Research Review, Iberian and Latin American Studies, Contemporary Jewry, and Journal of Modern Jewish Studies. Dr. Wassner serves on the Latin American Jewish Studies Association Board of Directors, the Jewish Women's Archive Encyclopedia Editorial Board in the field of Latin America, and the Association for the Social Scientific Study of Jewry Board of Directors.

Mirta Kupferminc, Profesora Superior de Grabado. An Argentine multidisciplinary artist, who lives and works in Buenos Aires, Mirta is a lecturer, curator  and teacher. Exhibiting since 1977, she had more than 100 solo shows. Professor Kupferminc’s works can be found in International Collections and Museums. She has received numerable local and international printmaking awards, including: Great Honor Prize (2012) in Argentina, First Prize Sivori Museum, Argentina (2018) Silver Medal Taiwan Biennale (2006) Honor Mention Taipei Biennale (1999)Third Prize  at 7^th Koichi Biennale (2008). In 2013 she was the first international fellow at LABA House of Study, a laboratory for Jewish Art and Culture at the 14^th St Y NYC, she is the founding LABA-BA director in Buenos Aires, and directs Grafia Insurgente Association.

Francine Birbragher-Rozencwaig is an art historian, independent curator, and art critic. She received a Master’s in art history and a Ph.D. in Latin American history from the University of Miami. She is a founding and contributing editor of ArtNexus magazine and the Executive Director/Curator of the ArtNexus Space in North Miami, Florida. Since 1989, she has written about modern and contemporary art for specialized magazines, newspapers, artists' monographs, and exhibition catalogs. She is the author of the book Essays on 20^th Century Latin American Art (Routledge, 2022). From 2008 to 2015, she worked as an adjunct curator at The Patricia and Phillip Frost Art Museum, Florida International University, Miami, Florida. As an independent curator, she has organized over one hundred exhibitions in the United States and Latin America. She currently serves on the Advisory Board of the Friends of the Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy, and the Advisory Committee of the Fundación Paíz para la Educacion y la Cultura, Guatemala City, Guatemala. She belongs to several professional organizations, including the International Association of Art Critics (AICA), the College Art Association (CAA), the Association for Latin American Art (ALAA), and Art Table.

Ruth Behar is the Victor Haim Perera Collegiate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Michigan. The recipient of a MacArthur Fellows Award, she is known for her interdisciplinary thinking about the search for home in our global era and her bold approach to writing in blurred genres that mix ethnography, memoir, fiction, and poetry. Her books include The Presence of the Past in a Spanish Village, Translated Woman: Crossing the Border with Esperanza’s Story, The Vulnerable Observer: Anthropology That Breaks Your Heart, An Island Called Home: Returning to Jewish Cuba, and Traveling Heavy: A Memoir in between Journeys. She is the editor of the pioneering anthology, Bridges to Cuba and co-editor of The Portable Island: Cubans at Home in the World. She also co-edited Women Writing Culture, which has become a classic text on women’s literary contributions to anthropology. Her documentary, Adio Kerida/Goodbye Dear Love: A Cuban Sephardic Journey has been shown in festivals around the world, and she is a poet and young adult fiction writer. Together with poet Richard Blanco, she has launched Bridges To/From Cuba to create a forum for Cuban stories that engage the heart as the island moves into a new era of its history.

Saúl Bitrán joined the Berklee Conservatory in 2019 and is an associate professor of violin. Bitran has been the first violinist of the award-winning Cuarteto Latinoamericano since 1986. He has received some of Mexico and Chile’s highest artistic awards, including the Bellas Artes Medal and Order of Merit Pablo Neruda.The Cuarteto Latinoamericano is one of the world’s foremost string quartets and champions of new music from Latin America. Founded in 1982, the Cuarteto has toured extensively throughout Europe, North America, South America, Asia, and New Zealand, and has premiered over one hundred new works composed for the quartet. Accolades include winning two Latin Grammy Awards and the prestigious Diapason d’Or. Bitran was an associate professor at Carnegie Mellon University from 1987 to 2008, and teaches regularly at numerous music festivals, including the Cremona International Music Academy, Dartington International Summer School, Centre d’Arts Orford, Grenoble Festival, Festival de Música de Cámara de San Miguel de Allende, and many others. Bitran’s noted solo appearances have included the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Seattle Symphony, San Antonio Symphony, and National Arts Center Orchestra in Ottawa, and Mexico’s National Symphony, with conductors such as Esa-Pekka Salonen, Gerard Schwarz, Eduardo Mata, and Keith Lockhart, among others. Bitran is a magna cum laude graduate of the Samuel Rubin Academy of Music in Tel Aviv, Israel, where he studied under the tutelage of Yair Kless. Currently, Bitran divides his time between Mexico City and Boston.

Julian Bonder is principal of Julian Bonder & Associates and is on faculty at Harvard University Graduate School of Design and Roger Williams University. Bonder’s work on Argentina’s Desaparecidos, civil rights, the Holocaust, September 11, and slavery include the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Clark University and with Wodiczko the Memorial to the Abolition of Slavery in Nantes, France. Bonder is active in EUROM (European Observatory of Memories) and is a member of the Symbolic Reparations Research Project. His work has received numerous honors and he has been published in a variety of journals.

Cuban-born writer and art conservator, Lowinger is the founder of RLA Conservation, LLC, one of the largest woman-owned art and architectural conservation firms in the United States. Lowinger is a fellow of the American Institute for Conservation, the Association for Preservation Technology, and the American Academy in Rome.

Laura Conrad Mandel, Executive Director of Boston’s Jewish Arts Collaborative, is an artist, public art advocate, and social entrepreneur. After graduating Carnegie Mellon University with a degree in Art and English, Mandel began her career as the founding director of alumni and parent relations for the Hillel Jewish University Center of Pittsburgh. She is currently Chair of the Board of the Council of American Jewish Museums, co-chair of the Boston Lyric Stage Advisory Committee, is a member of the MASSCreative Advisory Council, and the JCRC Boston Council. Mandel also writes a regular arts and culture blog for the Times of Israel. 

Raanan Rein is a Visting Scholar at CMJS as part of the Brandeis Initiative on the Jews of the Americas. He is the Elías Sourasky Professor of Latin American and Spanish History and former Vice President of Tel Aviv University. He is a member of Argentina’s Academia de Historia and ex-President of the Latin American Jewish Studies Association (LAJSA). Rein is the author of numerous books, including Jewish Self Defense in South America (2023); Populism and Ethnicity: Peronism and the Jews of Argentina (2020); and Fútbol, Jews, and the Making of Argentina (2015).