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September 2020

The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization and the Center for Jewish History, the American Jewish Historical Society, and the American Sephardi Federation invite you to a lively discussion on “Midwives, Musicians, Soldiers, Rabbis: Whose Stories Will Become Jewish History?” Professor Deborah Dash Moore, Editor in chief of The Posen Library, will lead a discussion with Professor Elisheva Carlebach and Dr. Dara Horn on themes explored in The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, Volume 6: Confronting Modernity, 1750–1880, edited by Elisheva Carlebach. The event will include a musical performance by Itamar Borochov.

Hear voices rarely included in Jewish culture, such as that of Roza, a multilingual Jewish midwife and that of a Jewish soldier during the American Civil War. Learn about the powerful religious music inspiring artists of today. Explore passionate Jewish debates on all sides of religious and political issues, including such fundamental matters as private property and the institution of slavery.

What happens to our understanding of Jewish civilization when those who are often marginalized move to the center of the story? Discover the unexpected breadth of Jewish culture.

Deborah Dash Moore is the Frederick G. L. Huetwell Professor of History and Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan. An American Jewish historian, her work focuses on urban Jews. She is the editor in chief of The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization. She also served as co-editor of The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, Volume 10: Late Twentieth Century, 1973–2005.

Elisheva Carlebach, editor of The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, Volume 6: Confronting Modernity, 1750–1880, is Salo Wittmayer Baron Professor of Jewish History, Culture, and Society and director, Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies, Columbia University. She is the author of several books, including Palaces of Time: Jewish Calendar and Culture in Early Modern Europe.

Dara Horn is an award-winning novelist and professor of Hebrew and Yiddish. Her most recent novel is Eternal Life.

Jazz trumpeter Itamar Borochov is known for incorporating Sephardic synagogue music with modal jazz.

October 2020

The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization Series for the Laura and Alvin Siegal Lifelong Learning Program at Case Western Reserve University event on October 21 will focus on The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization Volume 10, Late Twentieth Century, 1973–2005, edited by Deborah Dash Moore and Nurith Gertz, and will feature Deborah Dash Moore.

The end of the 20th century hosted quite a few critical historical events which will be examined during this lecture. These events include the rise of feminism, the emergence of Holocaust consciousness and its permutations, Jewish Nobel prize winners for literature, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the election of Menachem Begin, and the creation of the Oslo Accords.

Deborah Dash Moore is the Frederick G. L. Huetwell Professor of History and Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan. An American Jewish historian, her work focuses on urban Jews. She is the editor in chief of The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization. She also served as co-editor of The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, Volume 10: Late Twentieth Century, 1973-2005.

The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization and The Jean & Samuel Frankel Center for Judaic Studies, University of Michigan, invite you to join Professors Todd M. Endelman and Zvi Gitelman for a discussion of some of the compelling themes in their recently published volume, The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, Volume 8: Crisis and Creativity between World Wars, 1918– 1939.

THEME:

• Jewish reactions to the rise of Nazism
• Debates over Jewish self-definition—that is, who are the Jews and what should they do?
• The language wars—Hebrew versus Yiddish

Todd M. Endelman is professor emeritus of History and Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan. He was educated at the University of California, Berkeley, and Harvard University. He is the author of many books, most recently, Leaving the Jewish Fold: Conversion and Radical Assimilation in Modern Jewish History (2015), which was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Prize.

Zvi Gitelman is professor emeritus of Political Science and Preston R. Tisch Professor Emeritus of Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan. He has written or edited eighteen books, the most recent of which is the edited volume, The New Jewish Diaspora: Russian-speaking Immigrants in the United States, Israel and Germany (Rutgers University Press, 2016).

The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization Series for the Laura and Alvin Siegal Lifelong Learning Program at Case Western Reserve University on October 28 will focus on The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, Volume 6: Confronting Modernity, 1750–1880, edited by Elisheva Carlebach and will feature Elisheva Carlebach.

Learn about a momentous period in Jewish women’s history (1750 – 1880), a time “in which every aspect of Jewish life underwent the most profound changes to have occurred since antiquity.” Representing a tumultuous era of changing borders, demographic shifts, and significant Jewish migration, this discussion will explore how Jewish women responded to the challenges with a range of responses to modernization, from welcoming to resistant. By defining Jewish cultural production inclusively, Carlebach illuminates heretofore neglected voices and Jewish choices.

Elisheva Carlebach, editor of The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, Volume 6: Confronting Modernity, 1750–1880, is Salo Wittmayer Baron Professor of Jewish History, Culture, and Society and director, Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies, Columbia University. She is the author of several books, including Palaces of Time: Jewish Calendar and Culture in Early Modern Europe.

November 2020

The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization Series for the Laura and Alvin Siegal Lifelong Learning Program at Case Western Reserve University on November 11 will feature The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, Volume 8: Crisis and Creativity between World Wars, 1918–1939, edited by Todd M. Endelman and Zvi Gitelman, and will feature both volume editors.

One conspicuous feature of the Jewish cultural and political landscape in the 1920s and 1930s was the robust health of Jewish movements that were avowedly secular in their outlook. The most prominent were Bundism, Labor Zionism, and Yiddishism. Professors Gitelman and Endelman will discuss how these secular movements confronted Jewish civilization's religious heritage.

Todd M. Endelman is professor emeritus of History and Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan. He was educated at the University of California, Berkeley, and Harvard University. He is the author of many books, most recently, Leaving the Jewish Fold: Conversion and Radical Assimilation in Modern Jewish History (2015), which was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Prize.

Zvi Gitelman is professor emeritus of Political Science and Preston R. Tisch Professor Emeritus of Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan. He has written or edited eighteen books, the most recent of which is the edited volume, The New Jewish Diaspora: Russian-speaking Immigrants in the United States, Israel and Germany (Rutgers University Press, 2016).

The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization Series for the Laura and Alvin Siegal Lifelong Learning Program at Case Western Reserve University on November 17 will feature The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, Volume 9, Catastrophe and Rebirth, 1939–1973, edited by Samuel D. Kassow and David G. Roskies which will be released in November 2020. This event will feature both volume editors.

The establishment of a Jewish State presented growing challenges to the collectivist, statist, patriotic, Zionist narrative that dominated Israel's early years. Kassow and Roskies will examine Jewish writing during the Holocaust, the Renaissance of Jewish life in America after WWII and Jewish creativity behind the iron curtain in the Soviet Union before 1973 as they tie into the foundations and formation of the Jewish State of Israel.

Samuel Kassow, Charles Northam Professor of History at Trinity College, is the author of many studies on Russian and Jewish history including Who Will Write Our History: Emanuel Ringelblum, The Warsaw Ghetto and the Oyneg Shabes Archive (Indiana University Press, 2007), which received the Orbis Prize of the AAASS and which was a finalist for a National Jewish Book Award.

David G. Roskies is a native of Montreal, Canada, and a product of its Yiddish secular schools. Roskies teaches Yiddish literature and culture and Jewish literature at the Jewish Theological Seminary and at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The author of many books, his major works include Against the Apocalypse: Responses to Catastrophe in Modern Jewish Culture (1984), which won the Ralph Waldo Emerson Prize from Phi Beta Kappa. Roskies was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2012.