2023 Events
December 11, 2023
Deeply Rooted: Faith in Reproductive Justice artists Dell Marie Hamilton and Roya Amigh share their practices and join Guest Curator Caron Tabb in conversation.
Artist, writer and curator, Dell Marie Hamilton makes work that examines the diasporic, fragmented, and syncretic nature of the human condition at the intersection of race, gender, power, language, memory, and identity. Using fragmentation to encourage viewers to reflect on the body and its most intimate parts, Iranian artist Roya Amigh raises questions about identity and social history through the lens of gender and sexuality.
Supported by grants from Combined Jewish Philanthropies/CJP and the Mass Cultural Council.
December 7, 2023
Jewish women and Jewish clergy have played an important role in the struggle for reproductive rights, both before and after Roe and Dobbs. Moderated by HBI Director Lisa Fishbayn Joffe and joined by Becca Rausch, Massachusetts State Senator, Melissa Klapper, historian and current HBI Scholar in Residence, Daphne Lazar Price, Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance (JOFA) Executive Director, and Lara Crawford, National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW) MA, we explored the history of Jewish women's activism for reproductive rights and the various forms advocacy is taking in the present moment including a look at the recent rupture in coalition-building caused by the failure of many sister feminist groups and national and global women’s and children’s advocacy groups to condemn Hamas' massacre of Israelis and others in Southern Israel on October 7th.
Supported by grants from Combined Jewish Philanthropies/CJP and the Mass Cultural Council.
November 29, 2023
Andi Arnovitz and Caron Tabb discussed HBI’s art exhibition Deeply Rooted Faith in Reproductive Justice, the current war in Israel, antisemitism, and attacks on women’s rights.
Israeli artist Andi Arnovitz, whose work is featured in Deeply Rooted: Faith in Reproductive Justice, and who has two sons and three sons-in-law currently serving in the IDF, one who was injured, discussed her work in Deeply Rooted, work related to war, and the experience of being a mother and an artist in Israel during these extremely challenging times. Caron Tabb is the curator of Deeply Rooted: Faith in Reproductive Justice and a contributing artist. Born in apartheid South Africa and raised in Israel, Tabb (Boston, MA) is an artist and curator with an extensive background in nonprofit leadership. Her work focuses on social justice and has been exhibited in museums and galleries across the U.S.
Sponsored by HBI, with support from JArts, the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies at Brandeis, the Vilna Shul, and CJP/Combined Jewish Philanthropies.
November 28, 2023
British artist Zoë Buckman is known for her multidisciplinary practice, which incorporates sculpture, textiles, ceramics, photography, and large-scale installations through an explicitly feminist lens. Her art explores themes of identity, trauma, and gendered violence, subverting preconceived notions of vulnerability and strength. Buckman was in conversation with Caron Tabb, artist and curator of HBI's 21-artist exhibition, Deeply Rooted: Faith in Reproductive Justice. Co-presented by HBI and the Rose Art Museum, Buckman discussed her artistic practice and her 2019 work, According to Grandma, acquired by the Rose Art Museum in 2023 and included in the HBI's exhibition, Deeply Rooted, on view in the Kniznick Gallery until December 14, 2023.
Supported by grants from Combined Jewish Philanthropies/CJP and the Mass Cultural Council.
November 28, 2023
November 27, 2023
Melissa Klapper, Rowan University
HBI Scholar in Residence / HBI Seminar Series
November 16, 2023
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, HBI Research Associate Dr. Celene Ibrahim, Rev. Dr. Elizabeth Kaeton, Rabbi Lila Kagedan, and HBI Director Lisa Fishbayn Joffe discussed the ways in which religious traditions offer alternate ways of framing debates about abortion. Read about our panelists.
November 13, 2023
Allegra Goodman, writer, independent
HBI Scholar in Residence / HBI Seminar Series
watch hereNovember 8, 2023
A wonderful afternoon learning about art on view at Brandeis with a cross-campus tour from the Rose Art Museum and the Kniznick Gallery. The tour featured highlights from re: collections, Six Decades at the Rose Art Museum and HBI's Deeply Rooted: Faith in Reproductive Justice, twenty-one artists working over five decades, four continents, and numerous traditions as they examine abortion and reproductive justice through the lens of faith and culture.
Supported by grants from Combined Jewish Philanthropies/CJP and the Mass Cultural Council.
November 7, 2023
A presentation by visiting artist Claudia Bernardi, followed by a discussion between Bernardi and Professor Toni Shapiro-Phim about the power of art. Bernardi focused 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.
Due to the sensitivity of some of Bernardi's slides, we cannot share the video of the event. Instead, you may view Bernardi's sharable slides.
Supported by grants from Combined Jewish Philanthropies/CJP and the Mass Cultural Council.
November 6, 2023
Siri Suh, Brandeis University
HBI Seminar Series
November 2, 2023
5:30-8:30 p.m. / In Person / Welcoming remarks, including from Sapna Khatri, director of the newly launched Reproductive Justice Unit of the Massachusetts Attorney General's office, along with an opportunity to meet the artists.
Kniznick Gallery, Epstein Building, 515 South Street, Waltham
Supported by grants from Combined Jewish Philanthropies/CJP and the Mass Cultural Council.
October 18, 2023
October 17, 2023
HBI Book Launch in the HBI Series on Jewish Women
The Weavers of Trautenau: Jewish Female Forced Labor in the Holocaust by Janine Holc
Paired with Lives Eliminated, Dreams Illuminated in which 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, Professor Holc discussed the over 3,000 JJewish girls and young women who found themselves in forced labor camps and how gender played an important role in the way they experienced the Holocaust.
October 11, 2023
The Holocaust Research Study Group
Six members of the HBI Holocaust Research Study Group (HRSG), Ornit Barkai, Debra Kaufman, Laurel Leff, Rachel Rapperport Munn, Karin Rosenthal, and Sarah Silberstein Swartz, discussed aspects of their own work that intersect with the themes of the HBI art exhibition Lives Eliminated, Dreams Illuminated.
September 13, 2023
The Sandra Seltzer Silberman HBI Conversations Series
HBI is a network member of the Jewish Book Council.
September 12, 2023
How can art help us better understand the Holocaust and discuss its implications for today? U.S. State Department Special Envoy for Holocaust Issues Ellen Germain, Professor Barbara Wallace Grossman, Author Rachel Kadish, and HBI Director Lisa Fishbayn Joffe discuss these questions and more.
May 3, 2023
The Sandra Seltzer Silberman HBI Conversations Series
HBI is honored to have supported Elizabeth Graver’s writing during this project through a residency at HBI.
April 19, 2023
Professor Yofi Tirosh, Tel Aviv University Faculty of Law
What is the role of gender in the rise of populist illiberal regimes? The case of Israel provides a timely opportunity to examine this question.
More information about the Diane Markowicz Memorial Lecture on Gender and Human Rights
April 18, 2023
An Annual Virtual Public Event for Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day
How do we engage with the memory of Holocaust history and understand its relevance for succeeding generations?
More on the Holocaust Research Study Group and this presentation.
Co-sponsored by the Brandeis University Women's Studies Research Center and the Brandeis University Center for German and European Studies.
April 3, 2023
Edith Pick, HBI Research Associate
HBI Seminar Series
March 30, 2023
Painter Zoya Cherkassky in conversation with Gannit Ankori, Henry and Lois Foster Director and Chief Curator of the Rose Art Museum.
Painter Zoya Cherkassky was born in Ukraine in 1976 and immigrated to Israel in 1991. Her works have been shown in premier Israeli art museums and galleries for over a decade, as well as throughout Europe and North America. Her works bring together languages stemming from ‘high’ and ‘low’ cultures, pop and computer aesthetics. As an immigrant from the former USSR to Israel, Cherkassky deals with issues of identity and alienation as well as the different conflicts that rise in the clash between the cultures.
Discover more of Zoya Cherkassky's work.
March 29, 2023
Artist Marisa J. Futernick
March 28, 2023
Rachel B. Gross, San Francisco State University, HBI Scholar in Residence
HBI Seminar Series
March 22, 2023
In this panel discussion, six Israel experts, including HBI Director Lisa Fishbayn Joffe, take us on a deep dive into the social and political implications of the proposed reforms with a global and comparative perspective.
March 15, 2023
The Sandra Seltzer Silberman HBI Conversations Series
A publication of the HBI Series on Jewish Women
March 14, 2023
Jordan Katz, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
In collaboration with The Tauber Institute for the Study of European Jewry.
March 13, 2023
Samantha Pickette, University of Texas at Austin
Pickette's "Peak TV’s Unapologetic Jewish Woman" analyzes the ways in which contemporary American television—with its unprecedented choice, diversity and authenticity — is establishing a new version of the Jewish woman and a new take on American Jewish female identity that challenges the stereotypes of Jewish femininity proliferated on television since its inception.
Dr. Pickette was in conversation with Dr. Rachel Greenblatt, Brandeis University Judaica Librarian & Historian.
March 8, 2023
Moderated by HBI Director Lisa Fishbayn Joffe
"The 8th" traces Ireland’s campaign to remove the 8th Amendment — a constitutional ban on abortion.
This event was held in conjunction with the Women’s Studies Research Center at Brandeis University.
March 6, 2023
Sivan Rajuan Shtang, Sapir Academic College and Shenkar Academic College, Israel, HBI Scholar in Residence
HBI Seminar Series
March 5, 2023
Artist Talk with Marisa J. Futernick
HBI Arts Program: Virtual Opening & Artist Talk
Marisa J. Futernick’s lush, poster-size prints combine old family photographs with invented text to look at the Jewish Catskill resorts of the 1960s.
February 27, 2023
Shula Mola, HBI Scholar in Residence
HBI Seminar Series
February 15, 2023
February 9, 2023
Visual Artist Gil Yefman in conversation with Shayna Weiss, Associate Director Schusterman Center for Israel Studies at Brandeis University.
A trans-disciplinary conceptual artist, Gil transforms canonized familiar myths from varied beliefs and traditions in order to undermine the structured definitions and portrayal of the other. Collaborative projects fuse memory, trauma and the body, with transgenerational multilayered relations where soft materials dissolve hard subject matters.
Discover more of Gil Yefman's work.
January 25, 2023
The Sandra Seltzer Silberman HBI Conversations Series
HBI is honored to have supported Joy Ladin’s writing during this project.
January 23, 2023
Rachel Barenbaum, writer
HBI Seminar Series