Tauber Institute Events

Recent Events

book cover of "The Soviet Jewish Bookshelf: Jewish Culture and Identity Between the Lines" by Marat Grinberg featuring the hammer and sickle emblem in the upper left background and book spines of different colors in the foreground, alongside photos of author Marat Grinberg and ChaeRan Freeze
"The Soviet Jewish Bookshelf: Jewish Culture and Identity Between the Lines" Author Marat Grinberg in conversation with Prof. ChaeRan Freeze

April 27, 2023

"The Soviet Jewish Bookshelf: Jewish Culture and Identity Between the Lines" author Marat Grinberg discussed his book over Zoom with Prof. ChaeRan Freeze. 

"Here is the untold story of [Soviet Jews'] ongoing, multigenerational struggle for self-determination as told by a native son with great clarity, thoroughness, and empathy. Were this not enough, Marat Grinberg has also redefined Jewish literature as that which a living polity has rescued through conscious acts of creative rereading." — David G. Roskies, Sol & Evelyn Henkind Emeritus Professor of Yiddish Literature and Culture, The Jewish Theological Seminary

Purchase from Brandeis University Press.

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Sven-Erik Rose in front of a background of green trees

April 25, 2023

The Tauber Institute welcomed Sven-Erik Rose from the University of California, Davis, for the final installment of the Jewish Studies Colloquium of this academic year. He presented his paper "Making and Unmaking Literature in Nazi Ghettos in Poland." The event was exclusively streamed live on Zoom at 12:45 p.m. on Tuesday, April 25, 2023. 

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Michael Rosenthal wearing a blue shirt and glasses, smiling with his head in his hand
Spinoza & Revolution

April 18, 2023

 Prof. Eugene Sheppard's class "Spinoza Now" (NEJS 157A) featured Michael Rosenthal of the University of Toronto as he gave a talk entitled "Spinoza & Revolution." The event was scheduled for 11:10am in Schwartz 103 on the Brandeis campus.

The event was sponsored by the Tauber Institute, with the Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies, the Center for German and European Studies, and the History of Ideas Program

Jordan Katz seated with her arms folded outside with a house in the background
Jordan Katz — Jewish Studies Colloquium

March 14, 2023

The Tauber Institute's Jewish Studies Colloquium hosted Jordan Katz of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, as she presented her paper "Registers of Belonging, Registers of Difference: Early Modern Jewish Midwives and their Records." The event was held on Zoom on Tuesday, March 14, 2023.

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Susan Neiman seated on a leather sofa with her hands folded
The 59th Annual Simon Rawidowicz Memorial Lecture

March 9, 2023

Susan Neiman delivered the 59th Annual Simon Rawidowicz Memorial Lecture, "Racism, Antisemitism, and Rethinking Historical Reckoning," on Thursday, March 9, 2023, in Rapaporte Treasure Hall, Brandeis University. 

Susan Neiman is an American philosopher and writer, and the director of the Einstein Forum in Potsdam, Germany. She has written extensively on the Enlightenment, moral philosophy, metaphysics, and politics.

The Simon Rawidowicz Memorial Lecture is named for Simon Rawidowicz (1896–1957), one of the most innovative Jewish thinkers of the twentieth century and a founding member of the Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies at Brandeis University.

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Elias Sacks headshot seated at a desk with books in a bookcase in the background.
Elias Sacks — Jewish Studies Colloquium

February 14, 2023

Elias Sacks, director of the Jewish Publication Society, presented the paper "Do Citizens Need to be Philosophers? Nachman Krochmal's Diasporic Jewish Politics" at the Jewish Studies Colloquium

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Joshua Picard in front of stone building
Joshua Picard — Jewish Studies Colloquium

January 24, 2023

Joshua Picard of Princeton University presented the paper "The Precedents and Origin of Djerba's Or Torah Fund," at the Jewish Studies Colloquium

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Book cover of Gilad Sharvit's book "Dynamic Repetition".
Book Launch of Gilad Sharvit's "Dynamic Repetition"

December 5, 2022

For the launch of "Dynamic Repetition: History and Messianism in Modern Jewish Thought"—the newest title in the Tauber Institute Series for the Study of European Jewry at Brandeis University Press—author Gilad Sharvit was in conversation with Professor Eugene Sheppard, discussing the book described by Martin Jay as "[a]nalytically rigorous, boldly imaginative, and lucidly written" that "demonstrates how that most improbable of hopes is itself a revenant that refuses to die."

 Purchase from Brandeis University Press.  

Elisabeth Gallas with a city sidewalk in the background
Elisabeth Gallas — Jewish Studies Colloquium

November 4, 2022

Elisabeth Gallas of the Leibniz Institute for Jewish History and Culture-Simon Dubnow, and fellow at the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, presented the paper, "A Jewish Bill of Indictment: The New York Black Book of 1946," at the Jewish Studies Colloquium

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Michal Bar-Asher Siegal photo with trees in the background
Michal Bar-Asher Siegal — Jewish Studies Colloquium

October 25, 2022

Michal Bar-Asher Siegal, associate professor in the Goldstein-Goren Department of Jewish Thought at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, presented the paper, "Ifra Hormiz: Talmudic Stories of the Persian Queen Mother and the Bavli's Redaction," at the Jewish Studies Colloquium. 

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Profile picture of Na'ama Rokem
Na'ama Rokem — Jewish Studies Colloquium

September 13, 2022

Na'ama Rokem, associate professor of Modern Hebrew Literatureand& Comparative Literature at the University of Chicago, presented the paper, "Pedagogy, Language, and Labor Politics in Kafka's Hebrew Notebooks," at the Jewish Studies Colloquium

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Black and white film still from "Memories of the Eichmann Trial" showing an older man in a hat and coat standing in a kitchen and a woman sitting at the table behind him smoking a cigarette
"Memories of the Eichmann Trial": Film Screening and Panel Discussion

April 12, 2022

The Tauber Institute co-sponsored a free screening of the new digital restoration of Memories of the Eichmann Trial (Dir. David Perlov, 1979, Hebrew & Polish w/ English subtitles) at the Wasserman Cinematheque at Brandeis University. The event was presented by the National Center for Jewish Film.

The screening was followed by a panel discussion featuring filmmaker Yael Perlov, Professor Laura Jockusch, and NCJF Executive Director Sharon Pucker Rivo, introduced by Professor Jonathan Sarna.

David Perlov’s 1979 documentary, "Memories of the Eichmann Trial," reveals the trial’s pivotal role in Israeli society through intimate interviews with Holocaust survivors, Israelis of the second generation, and others directly involved in the case. Broadcast only once on Israeli television, the film was rediscovered and restored by the Perlov family in partnership with the Yad Vashem Visual Center, with support from the Forum for the Preservation of Audio-Visual Memory in Israel.

Profile photo of Kim Wünschmann against a blue background
Kim Wünschmann — Jewish Studies Colloquium

April 12, 2022

Kim Wünschmann, director of the Institute for the History of the German Jews, Hamburg, presented the paper, "How to Draw German-Jewish History? The Graphic History Project 'Oberbrechen: A German Village Confronts its Nazi Past," at the Jewish Studies Colloquium

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Annette Yoshiko Reed
58th Annual Simon Rawidowicz Memorial Lecture

April 7, 2022

The 58th Annual Simon Rawidowicz Memorial Lecture featured Annette Yoshiko Reed of New York University presenting "Forgetting Second Temple Judaism: History, Memory, and the Dead Sea Scrolls." The event streamed live on Zoom. The recording will be posted on the Tauber Institute website.

Reed is a professor in the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies and Department of Religious Studies at New York University. Her research spans Second Temple Judaism, early Christianity, and Jewish/Christian relations in Late Antiquity, with a special concern for retheorizing religion, identity, and difference. Her books include "Fallen Angels and the History of Judaism and Christianity" (Cambridge 2005), "Jewish-Christianity and the History of Judaism" (Mohr Siebeck, 2018), "Enoch from Antiquity to the Middle Ages" (with John Reeves; Oxford 2018), and "Demons, Angels, and Writing in Ancient Judaism" (Cambridge 2020). 

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Shira Billet
Shira Billet — Jewish Studies Colloquium

March 15, 2022

Shira Billet of Yale University presented the paper "Hermann Cohen's Virtue Ethics: Power and Agency within the Experience of Marginalization" at the Jewish Studies Colloquium

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Daniella Farah in front of flowering shrubs
Daniella Farah — Jewish Studies Colloquium

February 15, 2022

Daniella Farah of Rice University presented the paper, "From the 'Wretched' to the 'Bourgeoisie': Jews in Modern Iran," at the Jewish Studies Colloquium.

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David Shyovitz
David Shyovitz — Jewish Studies Colloquium

January 18, 2022

David Shyovitz of Northwestern University presented the paper, "Soul Food and Salvation in Medieval Ashkenaz: the Ambrosian Bible's 'Heavenly Banquet' Revisited," at the Jewish Studies Colloquium

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