Program for Jewish Civilization

Audio Library

Additional past events:

November 19, 2009
"We Are Not Mizrahi, We Are Indian Jews"
This talk is based on Dr. Maina Singh's book 'Being Indian, Being Israeli: Migration, Ethnicity and Gender in the Jewish Homeland'(2009). Dr. Singh presents a deeply researched analysis, examining for the first time, all three Jewish communities from India holistically as 'Indian-Israelis'-- with shared histories of migration, displacement, acculturation and identity in the Jewish Homeland. Based on extensive fieldwork and ethnographic research conducted among Indian Jews across Israel between 2005-8, the book draws upon over 150 interviews and reflects the author's own deep engagement and familiarity with Israeli society and the complexities of ethnicity and class that underlie the cleavages within Israeli Jewish society.

November 17, 2009
Making Pro Sports Kosher: Sports-World Christianity and Its Implications for Religious Minorities
The infusion of evangelical Christianity in sports comes at a scarcely examined cost to the religiously diverse communities that support major league franchises, particularly Jewish (and other religious minority) populations. Tom Krattenmaker, the author of the new book 'Onward Christian Athletes,' will explore the ways that Jewish concerns and rights have been too often ignored--indeed, violated--by evangelical activity in pro sports, and will begin a long-overdue discussion of measures to ensure a more consistently respectful, pluralistic, and unifying form of faith in the game.

November 10, 2009
Human Rights, Antisemitism, and International Politics
Professor Robert Solomon Wistrich discusses the historical and international dimensions of antisemitism.

November 4, 2009

Missing from the Map: Feminist Theory and the Omission of Jewish Woman  (word file, not audio)
Jennifer Roskies is a Ph.D. candidate in Gender Studies at Bar Ilan University in Israel. Her doctoral dissertation, tentatively titled 'In Their Own Voices,' is a qualitative research study of Jewish women in North America and Israel who are senior members of faculty in academic institutions of their respective countries. The study examines the intersection of their multiple identities – as women, Jews, feminists and in their academic fields – shedding light on how they manage conflictedness or dissonance between them. She is conducting research related to this topic with the Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Antisemitism.

October 28, 2009

Obama, Israel, and the Middle East
A lecture with Professor Robert J. Lieber. The American-Israeli special relationship is one of longstanding, but the coming to office of President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has seen friction develop between the two leaders and their governments. Despite these differences, fundamental continuities in the relationship remain in place. The problems that have emerged in the relationship are more a function of differences in operational style and of assumptions about the ultimate sources of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the means to resolve it.

October 14, 2009

Jewish Morality at a Crossroad; Who Speaks for Ethics in Israel?
Professor Yossi Shain, the founding director of the Program for Jewish Civilization and Professor at the Department of Government, discusses his new book on the moral dilemmas facing Israel in the domestic and international arenas. He will introduce the new ‘‘players’’ in the Israeli moral discourse in an attempt to understand the changing nature of Israel’s political culture.

October 13, 2009

BADDIES - Between Image and Text
David Stromberg is a writer, artist and journalist. His publications include three collections of single-panel cartoons—Saddies, Confusies, and Desperaddies—and he has written on art and culture for The Believer, Nextbook, St. Petersburg Times, Jerusalem Post, and Ha’aretz. His fiction has appeared in the UK’s Ambit. Born in Ashdod, Israel, to ex-Soviet parents, Stromberg grew up in urban Los Angeles and currently resides in Jerusalem.

September 30, 2009

Can Terrorism Ever Be Justified?
Professor Tamar Meisels calls for a strict and consistent definition of “terrorism” as a particular form of political violence, and for its unequivocal condemnation by liberals – left and right.

September 16, 2009
Personal Identity and the Modern State: Jewish Tales from Russia, France, and Israel
State-ascribed cultural and political norms have transformed the most personal and intimate ways in which we see, define, and present ourselves. The Jewish paradigm, while interesting in its own right, will also anchor more general reflections about the contemporary politics of multiculturalism in Europe and the US. A lecture by Professor Sarah Fainberg

April 16, 2009

A. B. Yehoshua: An Interview with the Author
A.B. Yehoshua, Israeli novelist, essayist, and playwriter, is interviewed by Jacques Berlinblau of the Program for Jewish Civilization


September, 10  2008

Times in the Military History of the Middle East
Michael Oren, former PJC Professor and current Israeli ambassador to the United States, talks about the military history of the Middle East

February 26, 2008

GLBT Jews in the Jewish World
David Shneer, Associate Professor of History and Judaic Studies at the University of Denver, talks about GLBT Jews in the Jewish World

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