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

Dr. Noa Lea Cohn
February 24, 2025
12 pm EST | Hybrid: In-Person at HBI | Liberman-Miller Lecture Hall and Online
HBI Seminar Series
Dr. Noa Lea Cohn, Efrata College, HBI Scholar in Residence
Dr. Noa Lea Cohn explores how Orthodox Jewish women in Israel represent and perceive themselves through contemporary art. These works navigate the boundaries of tradition and modernity, reflecting personal and communal identities and contributing to the broader field of Jewish art. From visual arts, video art to comics, these artists employ cultural critique, visual storytelling, and humor to challenge convention.
Dr. Cohn specializes in creative education for women at Efrata college in Jerusalem and is a postdoctoral researcher at the Mofet Institute. Her work focuses on the use of visual art by Ultra-Orthodox women teachers and their roles as community leaders and agents of change. Dr. Cohn earned her doctorate from Bar-Ilan University, supported by a President’s Fellowship. She currently serves as the manager of ArtShelterGallery, the first gallery established in an Ultra-Orthodox neighborhood. At HBI, Cohn is investigating the cultural and religious tensions among Orthodox and Ultra-Orthodox women comic artists. This pioneering work addresses an understudied area in the art world, contributing new scholarship in this burgeoning field.
Register to join in person. Brown bag lunch. Light snacks and drinks will be provided.

Tova Mirvis
February 26, 2025
4 pm EST Hybrid: In-Person at HBI/Liberman-Miller Lecture Hall and Online
Sandra Seltzer Silberman HBI Conversations Series
Inspired by a true story, We Would Never is a gripping mystery, an intimate family drama, and a provocative exploration of loyalty, betrayal, and the blurred line between protecting and forsaking the ones we love most.
“We Would Never is utterly spellbinding. Mirvis has written a knockout exploration of the ways people shape and misshape their lives through anger, and the lines people never believe they'll cross until they do.”—Rachel Kadish, author of The Weight of Ink
Tova Mirvis, a former HBI Scholar in Residence, is the author of the memoir The Book of Separation as well as three novels, Visible City, The Outside World and The Ladies Auxiliary, which was a national bestseller.
We Would Never is available at many booksellers. For those attending at HBI, books will be available for purchase and signing at the event or bring yours to the event for signing.
This event will be recorded and shared with registrants.

(l-r, from top) Tanya Zion-Waldoks, Ronit Irshai, Lisa Fishbayn Joffe, Alex Kaye, Celene Ibrahim, Rev. Laura Everett
March 3, 2025
4 pm | In-Person at HBI | Liberman-Miller Lecture Hall
Winner of the 74th National Jewish Book Award in Women’s Studies (Barbara Dobkin Award)
Join us to celebrate the launch of Holy Rebellion: Religious Feminism and the Transformation of Judaism and Women's Rights in Israel with a panel about feminisms across Abrahamic traditions. We will be joined by panelists who will speak both personally and from a scholarly perspective about the Jewish, Muslim, and Christian communities in Israel and the United States.
Panelists: Alex Kaye, Celene Ibrahim, and Rev. Laura Everett in conversation with Holy Rebellion authors Ronit Irshai and Tanya Zion-Waldoks
Moderator: Lisa Fishbayn Joffe
Holy Rebellion is a Brandeis University Press publication in the Brandeis Series on Gender, Culture, Religion, and Law. Created under the auspices of HBI in conjunction with its Project on Gender, Culture, Religion, and the Law, this series emphasizes cross-cultural and interdisciplinary scholarship concerning Judaism, Islam, Christianity, and other religious traditions.
Holy Rebellion is available from the Brandeis University Press, Amazon, and your local bookseller.
This event is co-sponsored by the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute and the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies.

Dr. Jordan Katz
March 4, 2025
Please note the new date.
12 pm EST | Hybrid: In-Person at HBI | Liberman-Miller Lecture Hall and Online
HBI Seminar Series
Dr. Jordan Katz, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, HBI Scholar in Residence
Jordan Katz’s current project examines the delivery records kept by Jewish midwives in eighteenth-century Europe. In this lecture she will explore the paths that midwives took to pursue training and licensure, the populations they served, and the larger urban contexts in which they worked. By keeping records and engaging in municipal business, Jewish midwives became part of larger recordkeeping efforts as well. Katz's work reflects on what we can learn from these records about the diverse Jewish communities that populated 18th-century Europe.
Katz is Assistant Professor of Judaic Studies at University of Massachusetts Amherst. She received her Ph.D. in History from Columbia University in 2020. Katz has received fellowships from the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture; the Consortium for History of Science, Technology and Medicine; the Center for Jewish History, and the Women's Studies in Religion Program at Harvard Divinity School. Her work has been published in Jewish Quarterly Review, Jewish Social Studies, and in Be Fruitful! The Etrog in Jewish Art, Culture, and History.
As a scholar in residence at HBI, Katz is completing her current book project, Delivering Knowledge: Jewish Midwives and Hidden Healing in Early Modern Europe.
Register to join in person. Lunch will be provided. Dietary laws will be observed.

Hannah Altman, Yad (You), 2023, Archival pigment print, 25 x 20 inches, Courtesy of the artist.
March 6, 2025
12-2 pm
Kniznick Gallery, Epstein Building
Join us for an inspiring afternoon of art and exploration across Brandeis University! Begin your journey at the Kniznick Gallery with an artist-guided tour of Hannah Altman’s As It Were, Suspended in Midair. Drawing from Yiddish literature and Jewish mystical texts, Altman situates her female protagonists in lush landscapes and fraught interiors where sunlit gestures and ritual objects foreshadow abundance and danger. Her evocative photographs recast and transform Jewish folklore toward the world ahead.
From there, we’ll walk together to the Rose Art Museum to experience the complex and visionary work of Leonora Carrington (1917–2011). Leonora Carrington: Dream Weaver, the artist’s first-ever museum exhibition in New England, brings together over 30 works of art, some rarely seen, that span over six decades of Carrington’s prolific art-making career. Carrington’s compositions and imagery—inspired by biography, folklore, mysticism, religions, myths, and the occult—take us on multidimensional journeys that seek to unravel the world’s most profound mysteries.
Visit HBI Arts Programs for more information and additional events.

Dr. Samira K. Mehta
March 9, 2025
7-8:30 pm EDT (note the start of daylight savings time)
Hybrid: In-person at HBI | Liberman-Miller Lecture Hall and live streamed
Reception to follow
Diane Markowicz Memorial Lecture on Gender and Human Rights
In observance of International Women's Day, HBI is honored to host Dr. Samira K. Mehta as the 2025 Diane Markowicz Memorial Lecture on Gender and Human Rights guest speaker. Dr. Mehta is Associate Professor of Women and Gender Studies and Jewish Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder, where she currently serves as the Director of Jewish Studies. Her research and teaching focus on the intersections of religion, culture, and gender, including the politics of family life and reproduction in the United States. Read more about Dr. Samira K. Mehta.
In the middle of the 20th century, Protestants, Jews, and even some Catholics were in an alliance to expand birth control access to American women. Religious leaders joined medical authorities to make birth control respectable. Yet these efforts to expand access sometimes found these same leaders distancing themselves from the birth control movement’s feminist underpinnings. In this talk, Professor Mehta shows how the mainstreaming of birth control in the middle of the 20th century has more in common than one might expect with the family values rhetoric that would limit reproductive rights in the late 20th and early 21st century.
The Diane Markowicz Memorial Lecture Series was created by Project on Gender, Culture, Religion and the Law founder Sylvia Neil and her husband Dan Fischel in memory of Sylvia’s late sister, Diane Markowicz, to honor her commitment to gender equality and social justice. The Lecture Series features internationally renowned scholars, judges and activists discussing ways of negotiating the tensions between gender equality and religious or cultural norms.

(l) Dr. Ronit Irshai, (r) Dr. Tanya Zion-Waldoks
March 12, 2025
12:30 pm EDT | Online
Sandra Seltzer Silberman HBI Conversations Series
Winner of the 74th National Jewish Book Award in Women’s Studies (Barbara Dobkin Award)
Holy Rebellion: Religious Feminism and the Transformation of Judaism and Women's Rights in Israel tells the story of the impact of orthodox feminism in modern day Israel and offers incisive analysis of the possibilities for change in the future. It is a ray of hope as Israel faces a new and complex set of challenges.
Dr. Ronit Irshai is Associate Professor and the head of the gender studies department at Bar Ilan University, a research fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, a member in the board of the Rackman Center for the Advancement of Women’s Status, Faculty of Law, Bar-Ilan University, and a member of “Kolech” – a religious feminist forum.
Dr. Tanya Zion-Waldoks, Assistant Professor at the Seymour Fox School of Education at Hebrew University, is a gender scholar, feminist activist and mother of four. Zion-Waldoks is fascinated by the intersection of religion, gender, and politics, with a focus on education and social change. Her current research explores feminist activism and women’s political subjectivities in religious communities or traditional contexts in Israel, examined through qualitative studies with a comparative lens.
Holy Rebellion is a Brandeis University Press publication in the Brandeis Series on Gender, Culture, Religion, and Law. Created under the auspices of HBI in conjunction with its Project on Gender, Culture, Religion, and the Law, this series emphasizes cross-cultural and interdisciplinary scholarship concerning Judaism, Islam, Christianity, and other religious traditions.
Holy Rebellion is available from the Brandeis University Press, Amazon, and your local bookseller.

Rabbi Vanessa Ochs, Ph.D.
March 17, 2025
12-1 pm EDT | online
Last year, Hebrew Union College provided new diplomas of ordination and graduation because the ones originally issued were now considered seriously problematic either because they had been signed by abusive faculty members or were written in gendered language. The college provided ceremonies and created liturgies for the decommissioning of the old document and receiving the new one. Inspired by this recent practice, and in light of accumulated Jewish feminist wisdom, how might couples address the traditional (and often beautiful) ketubot signed at the time of their weddings if these documents are now considered (from any number of perspectives) problematic?
Rabbi Vanessa Ochs, Ph.D., an ethnographer of Jewish practice and material culture, is Professor Emeritus in the UVA Department of Religious Studies and Jewish Studies Program. In '23-'24, she was the Rabbi Sally Priesand Visiting Professor at the HUC/JIR Rabbinical Schools. Her recent books include The Passover Haggadah: A Biography, Inventing Jewish Ritual (winner of a National Jewish Book Award) and Sarah Laughed.

(l) Hannah Altman (r) Mark Alice Durant
March 20, 2025
6:30-8 pm (EDT) | Hybrid: At the Kniznick Gallery and online
Join artist Hannah Altman for an artist talk and book launch celebrating her solo exhibition in the Kniznick Gallery, As It Were, Suspended in Midair, and the March 2025 release of her book, We Will Return to You (Saint Lucy Books). Altman will be joined in conversation by photographer and scholar Mark Alice Durant, publisher and editor of Saint Lucy Books. Visit HBI Arts Programs for more information and additional events.
A book signing and reception will follow the artist talk and conversation.

Dr. Nehama HaCohen
March 24, 2025
12 pm EDT | Hybrid: In-Person at HBI | Liberman-Miller Lecture Hall and Online
HBI Seminar Series
Dr. Nehama HaCohen, Achva Academic College, HBI Helen Gartner Hammer Scholar in Residence
Nehama HaCohen's talk will explore the intersection of language, cultural norms, and psychological frameworks within Ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities. It will address the unique challenges in identifying and addressing cases of sexual abuse, where the language of ḥeseḏ (kindness) and the language of passion are often conflated. Through her research, HaCohen examines how this misidentification can hinder appropriate responses and explore culturally sensitive approaches to therapy and intervention.
Dr. HaCohen is a clinical psychologist specializing in the treatment of sexual trauma and culturally sensitive psychotherapy. She is a faculty member at Achva Academic College in Israel where she leads a research lab focused on multicultural identities. HaCohen also lectures in the psychology program at Bar-Ilan University.

Dr. Adrienne Krone
March 31, 2025
12 pm EDT | Online
HBI Seminar Series
Dr. Adrienne Krone, Allegheny College, HBI Scholar in Residence
The pollinator population in Ontario, Canada has been subject to degradation and Colony Collapse Disorder in recent years due to industrial pesticide use, invasive pests, wild habitat loss, and climate change. The women-led staff at Shoresh Jewish Environmental Programs in Toronto strives to protect and cultivate this vulnerable bee population through an effort that they call “Community Supported Beekeeping.”
In this talk, Dr. Krone will use the Shoresh beekeeping program to demonstrate the innovative blending of Jewish ethical teachings and sustainable practices that the Shoresh staff use to address the challenge of an environmental crisis. She will also analyze this Jewish pollinator repopulation program as an example of the tendency of women-led Jewish community farming organizations to prioritize sustainability and community engagement in their Jewish environmental work.
Dr. Adrienne Krone is Associate Professor of Environmental Science and Sustainability and Religious Studies at Allegheny College. She has a Ph.D. in American religion from Duke University, and her research focuses on religious food justice movements in North America.

(l) Hannah Altman (r) Miriam Anzovin
March 31, 2025
7 pm in the Kniznick Gallery
Moderated by Maia Lefferman, Brandeis ‘25
In the spirit of Passover and the contemporary retelling of Jewish stories, join photographer Hannah Altman and online storytelling sensation Miriam Anzovin in conversation, as they share their processes of harnessing the power of narrative using their unique voices. Anzovin will use Altman's photographs as Jewish “text” to encounter as she guides us on a tour of some images in the exhibit highlighting lesser known female stories she finds within.
Cosponsored by Brandeis Hillel, Brandeis JFAB, CJP, and JArts
Visit HBI Arts Programs for more information.

(top) Dr. Melissa R. Klapper, (bottom) Dr. Dianne Ashton
April 3, 2025
7-8:30 pm | In-Person at The Jewish Library of Baltimore, 5700 Park Heights Avenue, Baltimore, Jewish Community Center, 1st floor
Sandra Seltzer Silberman HBI Conversations Series in partnership with The Jewish Library of Baltimore
The Civil War Diary of Emma Mordecai, written from 1864-1865 in the antebellum South, charts Mordecai’s daily life and her evolving perspective on Confederate nationalism and Southern identity, Jewishness, women’s roles in wartime, gendered domestic roles in slave-owning households, and more. While never losing sight of the racist social and political structures that shaped Emma Mordecai’s world, The Civil War Diary provides a vivid look at the wartime experiences of a Jewish woman in the Confederate South.
Dr. Dianne Ashton was Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and World Religions at Rowan University. She is the author and editor of a number of books, including Hanukkah in America: A History and Rebecca Gratz: Women and Judaism in Antebellum America.
Dr. Melissa R. Klapper is Professor of History and the Coordinator of the Women's and Gender Studies Program at Rowan University. She is the author of five books, including Ballots, Babies, and Banners of Peace: American Jewish Women’s Activism, 1890-1940, which won the National Jewish Book Award in Women’s Studies. Klapper is a past HBI Scholar in Residence (2007, 2023) and the recipient of two HBI Research Awards. She completed this book during her residency in 2023.
Colleagues at Rowan, Ashton was a mentor to Klapper long before they ended up at the same university. When Ashton passed away during the writing of this book in 2022, Klapper decided to finish the project. Read 'The Civil War Diary of Emma Mordecai': Rowan historian completes late colleague’s book focusing on Jewish life in the South (Dec. 2024).
Books will be available for purchase and signing at the event and are also available at Bookshop, Amazon, and your local bookseller.
Registration to attend is recommended. Register here.

Book jacket art: Israeli artist Andi Arnovitz's "Coat of the Agunot" (2010), a composition of hundreds of shredded marriage certificates. Image: Dr. Noa Shashar
May 14, 2025
12:30 pm EDT | Online
Sandra Seltzer Silberman HBI Conversations Series
Cosponsored by The Tauber Institute for the Study of European Jewry at Brandeis University
The Marital Knot, Agunot in the Ashkenazi Realm, 1648-1850 tells the family stories of men and women who lived hundreds of years ago. Focusing on agunot, literally “chained women,” who were often considered a marginal group, it sheds light on Jewish family life in the early modern era and on the activity of poskim, rabbis who gave Jewish legal rulings related to agunot.
Dr. Noa Shashar earned her M.A. and Ph.D. in Jewish History from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and an M.A. in Jewish and Gender Studies from the Jewish Theological Seminary. Shashar is a lecturer at the Sapir Academic College and the author of several volumes including Not on Bread Alone: The Krell Murachovski Family Histories.
The Marital Knot is a Brandeis University Press publication in the Brandeis Series on Gender, Culture, Religion, and Law, created under the auspices of HBI in conjunction with its Project on Gender, Culture, Religion, and the Law, and The Tauber Institute Series for the Study of European Jewry.
The Marital Knot is available from the Brandeis University Press, Amazon, Bookshop, and your local bookseller.