Upcoming Events
A Kniznick Gallery visitor with Bhen Alan’s Cuesta, 2024. A Gathering: Gardens, Portals, Protests in Brandeis Women’s Studies Research Center’s Kniznick Gallery. Elizabeth Ellenwood Photography.
August 19, 2025
Tuesday, August 19, 6 - 8 pm | Kniznick Gallery
Join us for an Artist Led Exhibition Tour and Dance Performance by Adriane Brayton and Nora Stephens
Join A Gathering: Gardens, Portals, Protests artists Dara Benno, Liza Bingham, Marisa Finos, Damien Hoar de Galvan, Kate Holcomb Hale, Lavaughan Jenkins, Destiny Palmer, Orli Swergold, Eva Zasloff for a tour of the exhibition, beginning at 6 pm, followed by a site-responsive dance performance by Adriane Brayton and Nora Stephens, and a reception with Rancatore's ice cream.
Photo Credit: Becky Behar, L'Dor V'Dor, (From Generation to Generation), Archival pigment print.
September 4, 2025
September 4 to September 18, 2025 | Kniznick Gallery
The Women's Studies Research Center and the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute are pleased to present photographer and WSRC Scholar Becky Behar's Tu Ke Bivas in the Kniznick Gallery, an immersive presentation in which Behar traces Sephardic traditions enacted by her mother and daughter.
"Tu Ke Bivas is part of a Sephardic blessing my parents often invoked: ‘May you live, grow, and thrive like a little fish in freshwater.’ I am a Sephardic Jew, part of the diasporic population expelled from Spain during the Inquisition in the late 15th century. My family’s migrations have taken us from Turkey to Colombia to the United States. Throughout, we have maintained our Ladino language, Jewish religion, and Sephardic customs.
My photographs explore how my mother and daughter continue to enact these traditions and rituals today. As I contemplate their different ways of preserving and celebrating our history, I consider my own relationship to this heritage and what interpretations my daughter will carry forward." - Becky Behar
September 10, 2025
4-5:30 pm EDT
Hybrid: In-Person at HBI/WSRC | Liberman-Miller Lecture Hall and Online
Join the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute and the Women’s Studies Research Center at Brandeis University to welcome back Shulamit Reinharz, founding director of both, for an event celebrating her latest book, Hiding in Holland: A Resistance Memoir, a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award.
Hiding in Holland is a memoir detailing her father, Max Rothschild’s experiences in the Holocaust as a Jewish man who saved his life repeatedly during the Holocaust, eventually being hidden by Dutch Righteous Gentiles for three years. Reinharz introduces historical contexts that challenge the exaggerated stereotypes of the valorous Dutch. Together, this inner and outer perspective helps explain why the Netherlands had the worst record of Jewish annihilation of all Western European countries. Only now are Dutch government leaders acknowledging the truth.
Reinharz will be in conversation with Lisa Fishbayn Joffe, the Shulamit Reinharz Director of HBI.
Cosponsored by the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute and the Women’s Studies Research Center at Brandeis University.
September 16, 2025
Celebrate Gender Justice & Reproductive Health Week with ENACT
when 2:30 - 4:00pm
where Liberman Miller Lecture Hall, Women's Studies Research Center in Epstein, 515 South Street, Waltham MA 02453 (across from the train tracks)
The Bad Old Days Posse is an engaging storytelling collective of activists who fought for abortion access before Roe v. Wade. With honesty and urgency, they’ll share personal stories from the front lines of the fight for reproductive freedom—reminding us what’s at stake and why the struggle continues.
This is more than a history lesson—it’s a call to action. Come listen, learn, and be inspired by these fierce trailblazers as they challenge us to build a more just and liberated future.
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