2019 Events
November 16, 2019
HBI proudly sponsored the film, “Flawless” at the Boston Jewish Film Festival on Nov. 9 and Nov. 16. “Flawless” is a 2018 Israeli film directed by Tal Granit and Sharon Maymon that tackles issues facing transgender youth and other marginalized communities in Israel. In this film, Eden, a trans high schooler, discovers that her two best — and only — friends are secretly planning to sell their kidneys to pay for cosmetic surgery and dresses for prom. Though dubious at first, Eden decides that joining them may be the answer to her prayers. But when their plans go awry, the girls are confronted by their own prejudices and find themselves on a journey of self-discovery, shaping these self-conscious high-schoolers into adults. “Flawless” was nominated for 12 Ophir Awards including the award for Best Picture. This was the first film in the history of Israeli cinema for which a transgender woman, Stav Strashko (Eden), was nominated for the Ophir Best Actress award.
November 13, 2019
November 6, 2019
October 23, 2019
The groundbreaking work of Project Kesher and the gift of its archives to Brandeis University was celebrated. Brandeis’s Archives & Special Collections is home to significant holdings on Jewish feminism and the Project Kesher materials are an enriching and important addition to this repository.
Founder Sallie E. Gratch was joined by Project Kesher Ukraine Director Vlada Nedak to link the history to the present work and vision of the future. A panel of academic experts provided historical context and laid out pathways for future researchers using the Project Kesher archival collection now housed at Brandeis.
October 2, 2019
In the late 1800s and early 1900s in Russia, the only escape from pogroms for thousands of girls was the prospect of a job or marriage that would take them to “America.” Unfortunately, fleeing poverty and strife, an estimated 200,000 Jewish girls and women found themselves in the clutches of Zwi Migdal, a legal traffickers’ union that operated with impunity throughout South America for 70 years. Talia Carner, author of “The Third Daughter,” revealed how the cries of these women prompted her to expose a shameful chapter in Jewish history. She discussed actions that can be taken today to abolish human enslavement.
September 25, 2019
Sivan Rajuan Shtang
September 11, 2019
Tamar Biala
September 8, 2019
Mayyim Hayyim and Kavod (a lay-led Jewish community focused on social justice) presented the 5th annual High Holiday program: Knocking at Our Hearts. The event focused on preparing your whole self — body and soul — for the holidays with the power and joy of communal song. This year, our teacher was singer/composer/scholar, Galeet Dardashti, who offered two workshops focusing on Sephardi and Mizrahi music.
Feb. 28–June 28, 2019
Hadassah-Brandeis Institute presented Ayelet Carmi and Meirav Heiman in “One Foot Planted.” Israeli artists Carmi and Heiman created ambitious video works that explored the impact that politics and conflict have on Israeli women in times of crisis. In their work, Israel is redefined as a mythical and post-apocalyptic world, which feminine and differently-abled bodies must ritually traverse through extreme physical acts. Both the ritual of processing the Israel Trail and counting the Omer become ungendered and labor-intensive sites of communication between bodies, land, machines, and the movement of time itself. In creating these spectacles and invented worlds, the artists’ combined interests in cinematography, live-action performance, group dynamics and mechanical inventions were all at play.
April 10, 2019
This is event was part of the HBI Project on Latin American Jewish & Gender Studies. Ruth Behar, a Cuban-Jewish anthropologist and the first Latina MacArthur Fellow, showed how culture is both an artifact of history and a vehicle of ongoing memory. Included was a reading of her latest book of poetry, “Everything I Kept/Todo lo que Guardé,” discussed in combination with excerpts from her award-winning novel “Lucky Broken Girl,” documentary film Adio Kerida, and photojournalism in “An Island Called Home: Returning to Jewish Cuba.”
Co-sponsored by Brandeis Alumni Association, the Brandeis International Business School, & Latin American & Latino Studies Program. This event was a part of the Leonard Bernstein Festival of the Creative Arts Program.
February 7, 2019
Joy Ladin, the first openly transgender professor in an Orthodox institution, read from her new book, “The Soul of the Stranger: Reading God and Torah From a Transgender Perspective,” Brandeis University Press/HBI Series on Jewish Women. Ladin discussed the need for this trans perspective, as well as her process and journey. She is a professor of English at Stern College/Yeshiva University.
This event was a part of ’Deis Impact.
Co-Sponsored by Near Eastern and Judaic Studies, Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Jewish Feminist Association of Brandeis, Keshet, Ruach HaYam, Jewish Women's Archive