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

Tema Schneiderman, a young woman, in a painting with a wolf in a forest, and in a photograph with her family and a dog

Left: Lauren Bergman, "Tema Schneiderman", Oil on cradled panel, 36 by 36 in. Right: Tema Schneiderman, member of the Jewish underground in the Bialystok ghetto, with family members. Source: Yad Vashem.

Photo Credit: painting, Lauren Bergman

Art Exhibition

September 7 to October 25, 2023 

Kniznick Gallery, Epstein Building, 515 South Street, Waltham

Gallery HoursMonday-Wednesday: 10 am-4 pm, Thursday: 10 am-6 pm, Friday-Sunday: 11 am-3 pm.

An immersive exhibition of painting and music. Painter Lauren Bergman and composer Ella Milch-Sheriff honor young women and girls murdered in the Holocaust by using art to imagine the lives they might have led. Listen to Milch-Sheriff's composition accompanying Bergman's portrait of Tema Schneiderman.  

Read At Brandeis, A New Holocaust Memorial Unlike Any Other, by Kara Baskin of JewishBoston.com, and watch the powerful interview, Art exhibit at Brandeis University reimagines lives cut short by Holocaust, by NBC Boston's Eli Rosenberg.

Lives Eliminated, Dreams Illuminated is presented in partnership with the Dr. David M. Milch Foundation.

Logo is circular image that says "Celebrating Brandeis at 75"

a collage of black and white photos of people with their family

Now I know their names: Family members murdered in the Holocaust.

Photo Credit: ©Karin Rosenthal 2023

Torn Fabric: Loss, Gender and the Holocaust

October 11, 2023

7:00 pm ET / Hybrid

In person at the Liberman-Miller Lecture Hall, Kniznick Gallery and online.

Six members of the HBI Holocaust Research Study Group (HRSG) will discuss aspects of their own work that intersect with the themes of the Lives Eliminated, Dreams Illuminated exhibition. A panel discussion will follow, focusing on questions and issues raised by the exhibit and reflected in our individual work.

Lives Eliminated, Dreams Illuminated, an immersive exhibition of painting and music. Painter Lauren Bergman and composer Ella Milch-Sheriff honor young women and girls murdered in the Holocaust by using art to imagine the lives they might have led.

Lives Eliminated, Dreams Illuminated is presented in partnership with the Dr. David M. Milch Foundation.

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On the left: a photo of Janine Holc; on the right, a black and white photograph of two young girls sitting in front of a large tree holding onto each other's pinky fingers

October 17, 2023

7:00 pm / In Person 

Liberman-Miller Lecture Hall, Kniznick Gallery

Join HBI for the book launch of The Weavers of Tratenau: Jewish Female Forced Labor in the Holocaust, by Janine Holc, newest offering in the HBI Series on Jewish Women.

Holc’s talk is paired with Lives Eliminated, Dreams Illuminated, an immersive exhibition of painting and music. Painter Lauren Bergman and composer Ella Milch-Sheriff honor young women and girls murdered in the Holocaust by using art to imagine the lives they might have led. 

Holc will consider Bergman’s paintings that deal with sexual assault to present the instances of survivors responding to being forced to be naked in 1944 and how they remember their teenage selves responding. She would contextualize this instance with material on how they found themselves in these forced labor camps and how gender played an important role in how these women experienced the Holocaust. 

Lives Eliminated, Dreams Illuminated is presented in partnership with the Dr. David M. Milch Foundation.

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Left: Book cover, The Weavers of Trautenau with photo of Janine Holc, Right: Book cover of Jewish Families in Europe with photo of Joanna Michlic

October 18, 2023

12:30 pm ET / Online (new time)

Join HBI for an in depth conversation between noted scholars Janine Holc, author of The Weavers of Trautenau: Female Jewish Forced Labor in the Holocaust (2023) and Joanna Michlic, HBI Research Associate and Editor, Jewish Families in Europe, 1939-Present: History, Representation, and Memory (2017), about the impact of World War II and the Holocaust on Jewish families and communities, especially the lives of women and girls. Both works are publications in the HBI Series on Jewish Women

The Weavers of Trautenau is available at Brandeis University Press, Amazon, and your local bookseller.

Jewish Families in Europe, 1939-Present is available at Brandeis University Press, Amazon, and your local bookseller.

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Logo is circular image that says "Celebrating Brandeis at 75"

Caption: Susan Chen, Free Tampax, 2023, Ceramics Installation, Tampax Box: 6” W x 7” D x 7.5” H Free Sign: 3” W x 3” D x 2.25” H

Susan Chen, Free Tampax, 2023, Ceramics Installation, Tampax Box: 6” W x 7” D x 7.5” H Free Sign: 3” W x 3” D x 2.25” H

Art Exhibition

November 2 to December 14, 2023

An ambitious, multidisciplinary exhibition that looks at abortion and reproductive justice through the lens of faith, bringing Jewish feminist artists into dialogue with artists from other faith communities and backgrounds. Curated by Caron Tabb, Deeply Rooted  brings together 21 national and international artists working in sculpture, photography, painting, fiber, and video.

Supported by grants from Combined Jewish Philanthropies/CJP and the Mass Cultural Council.

Opening Reception

November 2, 2023

5:30-8:30 pm / In Person / hors d’oeuvres

Welcoming remarks and artists talk at 6:30 pm

Kniznick Gallery, Epstein Building, 515 South Street, Waltham

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The first logo is circular image that says "Celebrating Brandeis at 75", the second logo is a linear image that says "CJP, Combined Jewish Philanthropies, the third logo is an linear image that says "Mass Cultural Council"

On the left, Claudia Bernardi is a White woman with long brown hair wearing a black dress holding a bouquet of flowers. On the right, Toni Shapiro-Phim is a White woman with brown hair standing in front of a tree with green leaves.
A Loving Thread of Pain and Hope

November 7, 2023

7:00 pm ET / Hybrid

In person at the Liberman-Miller Lecture Hall, Kniznick Gallery and online.

A presentation by visiting artist Claudia Bernardi, followed by a discussion between Bernardi and Professor Toni Shapiro-Phim about the power of art, moderated by HBI Director Lisa Fishbayn Joffe. 

Tying into HBI’s art exhibition, Deeply Rooted: Faith in Reproductive Justice, Bernardi will focus on the tenacious search for the right of identity while looking at the merging of activism, art, human rights, legal demands and the pursuit of justice which includes the necessity to design and preserve laws that will ensure gender and reproductive rights.

Bernardi will focus on the intersection of art and human rights, with special emphasis on Argentina, where she lived during the military junta that ruled the country from 1976 to 1983 (Argentina’s "Dirty War"), examining the role of artists and activists from the time of the military dictatorship until the present.

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logos for co-sponsors

image of Allegra Goodman, a White woman with brown hair, wearing a woven hat with a wide brim, and a red and white-checked top
HBI Seminar Series

November 13, 2023

12:00 pm ET / Hybrid

In-Person at the Liberman-Miller Lecture Hall, Kniznick Gallery and online.

 Allegra Goodman, writer, independent

The Family Rubinstein

Allegra Goodman’s novels include Sam (a Read With Jenna Book Club selection), The Chalk Artist (winner of the Massachusetts Book Award), Intuition, The Cookbook Collector, Paradise Park, and Kaaterskill Falls (a National Book Award finalist).

At HBI, Goodman will finish a story cycle about a Jewish American family. In eighteen linked stories she tells the larger tale of the Rubinstein family—their relationships, their feuds, and their changing, sometimes contradictory beliefs about God, cake, politics, children, marriage, Israel, and history.  She is particularly interested in motherhood, and in this project she considers Jewish mothers as creators, partners, caregivers, and complex individuals.

Please note this program will not be recorded as this is work in progress.

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Religious Perspectives on Reproductive Rights

November 16, 2023

 7-8:30 pm ET / Hybrid

In person at the Liberman-Miller Lecture Hall, Kniznick Gallery and online.

In the post-Dobbs legal landscape, states across the US are passing laws that prohibit almost all abortions. These bans are inconsistent with the more subtle and complicated approaches to reproductive decision-making counseled by many faith communities. For many, they find support in their religious texts and values for respecting pregnant people's needs and visions for their reproductive lives. In this session, Jewish, Muslim and Christian clergy will describe the ways in which religious traditions offer alternate ways of framing debates about abortion.

Details to come.

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Words in bright blue and yellow: ArtWorks: How Organizers and Artists are Creating a Better World Together
ArtWorks: How Organizers and Artists are Creating a Better World Together

November 19, 2023

4-5:30 pm ET / Hybrid

In person at the Liberman-Miller Lecture Hall, Kniznick Gallery* and online.

5:30-6:15 pm / Refreshments, gallery visits, book sales and signing by Ken Grossinger

* Kniznick Gallery extended hours until 6 pm 

Ken Grossinger’s new book, ArtWorks: How Organizers and Artists are Creating a Better World shows that when artists and organizers combine forces, new forms of political mobilization follow which shape lasting social change. The panel will discuss this concept as illustrated through two exhibitions, Deeply Rooted: Faith in Reproductive Justice at HBI’s Kniznick Gallery between Nov. 2 and Dec. 14 and Be the Change, on display through October at the corner of Kilmarnock and Van Ness in the Fenway, Boston. 

Co-sponsored with JArts: Jewish Arts Collaborative

Moderator: Ruth Messenger

Panelists: Ken Grossinger, Caron Tabb, Cecily Carew

Concluding remarks: Laura Mandel, Executive Director of JArts, Olivia Baldwin, curator of the HBI’s Kniznick Gallery. 

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Image of Melissa Klapper, a White woman with blond hair wearing a black top
HBI Seminar Series

November 27, 2023

12:00 pm ET / Hybrid

In-Person at the Liberman-Miller Lecture Hall, Kniznick Gallery and online.

 Melissa Klapper, Rowan University

At Home in the World:  American Jewish Women Abroad, 1860-1920

Dr. Melissa R. Klapper is Professor of History and Director of Women's & Gender Studies at Rowan University. At HBI, Klapper will be working on At Home in the World:  American Jewish Women Abroad, 1860-1920. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the democratization of travel meant that going abroad became an increasingly common experience for American girls and women from a range of social strata, including Jewish girls and women. This book will explore the experiences of American Jewish girls and women as an illustration of broader trends in the rise of mass tourism and the turn-of-the-century challenges to gender norms while also attending to the specific American, Jewish, and gender identities that animated their travel for the purposes of education, sightseeing, work, activism, and family heritage.

Please note this program will not be recorded as this is work in progress.

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On the left: an image of the book cover which is blue with white and blue beads in a wave pattern; on the right: the author is a woman with long black hair, wearing a red beret and a black top.

November 28, 2023

11:00 am ET (online)

Anthropologist Lea Taragin-Zeller joins HBI Director Lisa Fishbayn Joffe in conversation about Taragin-Zeller's work, The State of Desire: Religion and Reproductive Politics in the Promised Land. In this groundbreaking anthropological approach to the study of religion and reproduction, Taragin-Zeller investigates the impact of recent Israeli state policies attempting to dissuade Orthodox Jews from creating large families. Utilizing interviews to provide an intimate account of the delicate balance between personal desires and those of the state, Taragin-Zeller takes the reader beyond Orthodox taboos, capturing how cracks in religious convictions engender a painful process of re-orientating desires to reproduce amidst shrinking public support, feminism, and new ideals of romance, intimacy and parenting. 

Lea Taragin-Zeller (she/her) is a cultural anthropologist with expertise in religion, medicine, gender, and reproductive politics. She is an Assistant Professor of Cultural Studies and Public Policy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a member of the HBI Academic Advisory Committee.

The State of Desire is available at Amazon, Bookshop, and your local bookseller.

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