Events
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Upcoming Events
Photo Credit: Anat Geva-Sharon
October 23, 2025
7-9 pm | Rapaporte Treasure Hall, Brandeis University | In person
Cosponsored by the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies
Prosecution of conflict related sexual violence (CRSV) is always challenging. The October 7 attack epitomizes these difficulties, considering the lack of survivors who are able to provide testimony, and the lack of primary physical forensic evidence. Halperin-Kaddari, an expert on family law and international women's rights, will present the The Dinah Project's book, A Quest for Justice - October 7 and Beyond, which provides a comprehensive assessment of sexual violence during the October 7 attack and in captivity, develops a pioneering structured evidentiary framework, and creates a legal framework for joint criminal responsibility in mass atrocities.
Prof. Halperin-Kaddari is the Founding Director of the Rackman Center for the Advancement of the Status of Women at Bar-Ilan University Law Faculty in Israel, where she serves as a full Professor, and Dinah Project founding member. In December 2018 she completed three terms on the UN Committee on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), on which she served twice as Vice-Chair of the Committee and as the first Chair of the Working Group on Inquiries. A graduate of Yale Law School (LLM.; JSD), she is a renowned speaker in academic as well as professional forums and has published extensively.
October 26, 2025
11 am–2 pm | In person
Schwartz Hall - Room 112 | 415 South Street Waltham, MA
Join Brandeis Hillel for an intimate conversation with Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, Senior Rabbi of Central Synagogue in New York City and the first Asian American to be ordained as a rabbi or a cantor in the U.S. Rabbi Buchdahl will be discussing her memoir, Heart of the Stranger: An Unlikely Rabbi's Story of Faith, Identity, and Belonging, and signed copies of the book will be for sale after the event.
This event is open to the public and is co-sponsored by the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute, the Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies, the Department of East Asian Studies, the Hornstein Jewish Professional Leadership Program, and Brandeis University Alumni, Friends, and Families.
Register to join. Tickets are limited.
October 30, 2025
12:30 pm EDT | Online
Sandra Seltzer Silberman HBI Conversations Series
A Tale of Two Surrogates explores the complicated emotional, medical, legal, and ethical issues surrounding assisted reproduction. Based on more than a decade of ethnographic research conducted by anthropologist Elly Teman, PhD, and sociologist Zsuzsa Berend, PhD, this book presents, in an accessible and entertaining graphic novel format, the intertwined stories of two fictional women who decide to become gestational surrogates. The experiences of the two composite characters, Jenn, from California, and Dana, from Tel Aviv, highlight various paths, interpretations, and experiences that are common in surrogacy.
HBI is delighted to have supported Teman's and Berend's work with a Research Award, dedicated to the memory of Frances Leder Kornmehl, in 2022, and that Teman continued her research and writing while an HBI Research Associate. After receiving the award, Teman and Berend shared with HBI how their work came together.
Elly Teman, PhD, is an associate professor of medical anthropology in the Dept. of Behavioral Sciences at Ruppin Academic Center, Israel. She is the author of an ethnography on gestational surrogacy in Israel entitled Birthing a Mother: The Surrogate Body and the Pregnant Self which won three book prizes from the American Anthropological Association.
Zsuzsa Berend, PhD, teaches courses on economic sociology and the sociology departmental honors thesis seminar at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her book, The Online World of Surrogacy, was published by Berghahn Books in 2016.
A Tale of Two Surrogates is available at Penn State University Press and Amazon.
November 11, 2025
1:30 - 3 pm EST | Hybrid: In-Person at HBI | Liberman-Miller Lecture Hall and Online
Seminar: 1:30 - 2:30 pm EST | Refreshments: 2:30-3 (dietary laws will be observed)
HBI Seminar Series
On the hideous terrorist attack of October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorists abducted 253 people, including women civilians of various ages. Cases of captive women civilians, especially older women and young mothers, are rare in modern history. Accordingly, understanding of their experiences in captivity is minimal, yet crucial for developing interventions to assist them in adapting to routine life after release. Spector-Mersel will present findings from her analysis with military health expert Dr. Leah Shelef of Hebrew University that can inform the rehabilitation process of released captives, especially civilian women.
Gabriela Spector-Mersel, MSW, PhD, is an Associate Professor and the chairperson of the aging branch in the Sadot Resilience and Growth Center at the School of Social Work at Sapir College, Israel. She also serves as the chairperson of the interest groups in Qualitative Research and advisor of the Narrative Research interest group at Mofet Institute. Her research interests include aging and trauma, with a focus on aging under terror threats, gender in later life, and narrative theory, methodology and pedagogy. She has published papers, chapters and books in these fields.
Photo Credit: Anna Roberts
November 18, 2025
11:30 am EST | Online
Sandra Seltzer Silberman HBI Conversations Series
As the daughter of a rabbi raised in an Orthodox Jewish community, Fletcher struggled to conform to the strict expectations placed upon her and her siblings. As she grew older, these restrictions intensified and her questions for G-d hung heavier than ever. Repeatedly let down by those who were supposed to protect her and pushed on to a path that seemed to take her further away from who she really was, she began to yearn for a life where she could embrace all facets of herself. When Fletcher’s sexuality came in conflict with the expectations of her family and community, she was confronted with either losing the faith she loved or losing herself. Fletcher made a daring decision: she decided to stay.
Yehudis Fletcher is the co-founder of Nahamu, a think tank that counters extremism in the Jewish community. She is an author, scholar and activist within her Charedi community. She has written for The Times, Haaretz, The Forward, the Jewish News and the Jewish Chronicle. She has just finished a masters degree in religion and theology at the University of Manchester and is beginning a PhD in the same at the University of Durham. She lives and loves in the heart of Manchester's Charedi community.
Chutzpah! is available at Penguin, Blackwell's, Amazon (UK), and other booksellers.
December 8, 2025
HBI Seminar Series
Dotan Brom, PhD candidate at Tel Aviv University's School of Historical Studies, HBI Scholar in Residence
12-1:30 pm EST | Hybrid: In-Person at HBI | Liberman-Miller Lecture Hall and Online
12 pm: brown bag lunch at HBI | 12:30-1:30 pm EST: lecture
This talk will explore the formative years of lesbian-feminist activism in Israel, tracing the influence of American and other English-speaking feminists on the creation of the country's first lesbian organizations and spaces. At the center of the story is Marcia Freedman, an American Jewish feminist who immigrated to Israel and became a pivotal figure in both the Women's Liberation Movement and in establishing lesbian-feminist institutions such as ALEPH and Kol HaIsha.
Drawing on archival sources - including Freedman's papers held at Brandeis University's Robert D. Farber University Archives and Special Collections, as well as personal testimonies, the presentation will highlight how immigrant women, particularly from the United States, helped shape Israeli feminist and lesbian politics, and how transnational networks of knowledge transmission and activism connected local struggles with broader global feminist movements.