Jews of the Americas September 2024 Newsletter
Photo Credit: The Louis Collection
Dear JOTA colleagues and friends,
As we begin a new academic year, I am excited to share with you what is sure to be a productive and impactful series of programs and events.
First, our long-awaited kick-off event “Art, Architecture and the Jews: A Story of Modernism and the Diaspora” with Rosa Lowinger and David Fixler is scheduled for Saturday, September 28, 4:00-5:30 pm, as part of Brandeis University’s Alumni weekend. We are grateful we can honor the memory of Professor Gerald Bernstein with this event. His book, Building a Campus: An Architectural Celebration of Brandeis University’s 50th Anniversary, has served as an important resource about the university’s connection to the mid-century modernist movement.
We also have a number of workshops planned for this year that we will examine the Latin American Jewish contemporary presence in the United States and also probe the extent and meaning of the Latin American Jewish presence in Israel before and after October 7.
We are particularly delighted to announce the opening of our application for our inaugural JOTA Artist/Scholar Residency. This year’s residency workshop will focus on the theme “Spine/Médula,” signifying both the encasement of the body’s spinal cord and that which unites the pages of a book. Books have been at the center of the Jewish experience and have historically showcased the migration of peoples and their communal stories. The residency workshop, in partnership with artist Mirta Kupferminc, will be held at Brandeis University in October 2025. Learn more about the residency, including plans for the exhibit and related publications, and the application process.
Finally, JOTA is also pleased to welcome Professor Raanan Rein from Tel Aviv University as a Visiting Scholar. Professor Rein will contribute to our scholarship on Latin America Jews in Israel and the Jewish community’s participation in human rights activism in Latin America.
We hope that you will join us for our upcoming events and programs, and we invite you to be a part of our groundbreaking work that bridges conversations between the academy and the community.
Saludos cordiales,
Atenciosamente,
ברכה חמה
Dalia Wassner, PhD
Director, Brandeis Initiative on the Jews of the Americas
Meet the Director, Jews of the Americas
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.