Schusterman Center for Israel Studies

January 26 | February 23 | March 5 | April 16 | May 12
12:30-2 PM ET on Zoom

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This annual lecture series presents different experiences of Sephardi modernization across place and time. The 2026 series explores the concept of diaspora as a lens for understanding the modern and contemporary Sephardi world.  We will address the diversity of modern Sephardi Jewish experiences by considering diaspora as shaped by histories of migration and return, continuity and rupture, belonging and exclusion.

We will engage with the histories and experiences of Sephardi communities across imperial, colonial, and post-colonial landscapes in order to examine questions of multiple belongings, identity formation, and cultural transmission.

Organized by Angy Cohen (Spanish National Research Council) and Yuval Evri (Brandeis University). Sponsored by the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies at Brandeis University and the Calgary Institute for the Humanities at the University of Calgary.

Tuesday, January 27
International Holocaust Remembrance Day
5 - 7:30 PM, Kniznick Gallery
Light kosher refreshments will be served

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Who Will Draw Our History? Women’s Graphic Narratives of the Holocaust, 1944-1949
January 27 to April 30, 2026
Kniznick Gallery

Guest Curated by Rachel E. Perry, PhD

Olivia Baldwin, Rosalie and Jim Shane Curator & Arts Coordinator, Kniznick Gallery

Between 1944 and 1949, scores of survivors created graphic narratives of their personal and collective experiences under Nazi persecution. Who Will Draw Our History? introduces ten Jewish women who survived Majdanek, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Ravensbrück, and outside the Warsaw ghetto under “Aryan” papers and then, days after their liberation, began recording their memories in images and words. Lacking photographs of what they witnessed and endured, they turned to visual storytelling to represent Jewish suffering during the Holocaust, particularly as it affected women.

This exhibition showcases their little-known “books of memories”: wordless novels, handmade albums, pictorial diaries, illustrated books and portfolios. Culled from private collections and museum archives around the world, these works contribute vital evidentiary material about the Holocaust, but they also reveal how the “return to life” was experienced and represented. In so doing, they radically transform how we understand the role and reach of art in early survivor publications, exhibitions, and community building.

Arriving at a crucial moment, as we near an age “after testimony,” Who Will Draw Our History? brings together these works of early Holocaust memory for the first time, placing them within their historical and cultural context.

The exhibition and opening reception are cosponsored by the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies. View the full list of cosponsors and supporters.

Learn more about the exhibition

Wednesday, January 28

12:30-1:30 PM In Person: 
Open to the Brandeis community. Free pizza lunch. Please register by January 23. 

Register by 1/23 to attend in person

and

12:30-1 PM ET Online:
Open to all.

Register to attend via Zoom

Please join us in conversation with Alexandra Mandelbaum Kupeev. The talk will focus on the Na-Nach movement within Breslov Hasidism and on the messianic aspects that intensified within it in relation to the State of Israel. By examining the ideological and theological framework underlying this Hasidic sub-stream, we will explore how twentieth-century events shaped and sharpened its ideological tendencies and triggered an eruption of messianic ideas. Precisely because of its decentralized nature and the perception of the Na-Nach stream as “marginal,” the followers of Rabbi Yisroel Dov Odesser came to see themselves as bearers of a redemptive message.

Brandeis community members are invited to attend in person and to stay after the presentation for a discussion. A kosher pizza lunch will be provided - please register by January 23. 

Alexandra Mandelbaum Kupeev is a Stroock Postdoctoral Fellow in the Center for Jewish Studies at Harvard University. She received her PhD from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, where she wrote her dissertation on the development of Breslov Hasidism in the 19th century. Her current research explores the revival and transformation of Breslov Hasidism in 20th- and 21st-century Israeli culture, with particular attention to questions of dissemination, esotericism, and messianism. In addition to her work on Hasidism, she writes and researches on Jewish identity among post-Soviet immigrants. She teaches courses on Kabbalah and Hasidic thought in both academic institutions and broader public study frameworks.

Image: A Na-Nach Breslover hasid stands beside van emblazoned with images of Rabbi Yisroel Ber Odesser and the "Na Nach Nachma Nachman Meuman" mantra in downtown Jerusalem.