Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies

Past Events - Here are just a few wonderful examples!

Hebrew Language and Arts Festival

Every fall we offer a series of talks and events with various interesting guests to present on a variety of topics. This program is sponsored by the Hebrew Program at Brandeis University and by The Consortium for the Teaching of Hebrew Language and Culture, with support from the Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies and the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies.

Ibrahim Miari "In Between"

The Hebrew Program at Brandeis University welcomes writer and performer Ibrahim Miari "In Between" at the Wasserman Cinematheque (IBS). Performance in English, followed by Q&A

Presentation by Renen Schorr, an Israeli director and Filmmaker

Renen Schorr, the Director of the Israeli classic "Late Summer Blues," is currently filming a new personal documentary called "Rabbi Heller Blues." The hero of the film is his grandfather, a decorated hero of the War of Independence in Safed. Schorr will share his thought process in making this family saga.

Hebrew's Revival: A Lecture Series

How to Revive a Dead Language in 100 Years: a four-part series that explores this unprecedented lingual miracle being broadcast live via Zoom and Facebook live. Presentations will be given by: 

Gil Hovav- My Great Grandfather, the Prophet

Ghil'ad Zuckermann - Do Israelis really speak Hebrew?

Guy Sharett - Text and the City:  Learning Hebrew in the Street

Thamar E. Gindin - Pajamas in Paradise — The Iranian Connection

The Hebrew language was practically dead for 2,000 years. It was revived almost single-handedly by one man: Eliezer Ben Yehuda, one of the founding fathers of Zionism. Join us for this four-part series of virtual conversations and lectures to explore the unprecedented story of this lingual miracle that continues evolving and reinventing itself to this day. 

Israeli photographer Adi Nes, virtual presentation and discussion in Hebrew & English

Adi Nes is an Israeli photographer. He is notable for the series “Soldiers” in which he mixes masculinity and homoerotic sexuality, depicting Israeli soldiers in a fragile way.

Nes creates cinematic images that reference war, sexuality, life, and death with the kind of stylized polish you might expect from a photographer whose images have appeared in the pages of Vogue Hommes. His partially autobiographical work is deliberate and staged in an attempt to raise questions about sexuality, masculinity and identity in Israeli culture. “The beginning point of my art is who I am," he says. "Since I’m a man and I’m an Israeli, I deal with issues of identitywith ‘Israeliness’ and masculinity, but my photographs are multi-layered.

In 2005, Nes was chosen as an outstanding artist of theprestigious Israel Cultural Excellence Foundation. Nes lives and works in Tel Aviv.