Israeli Women
Filmmakers
In cooperation with the Consulate of
Israel, Jewish Studies will host two
contemporary women filmmakers from Israel
and their recent films. Thanks to Ellen Rothfeld for
arranging these events.
On Wednesday, March 23, Elona Ariel will show and lead
discussion about her film,
It's About Time,
at 7:00 pm in 1345
Engineering. Israeli-born, Elona Ariel co-leads the production
company Karuna Films.
It's About Time
is about time in Israel.
Four jazz musicians accompany the story of the improvised
management of time since the birth of the Israeli state. A mosaic
of dialogues--with a little girl, a psychiatrist, an Olympic
swimmer, a news editor, a lifeguard, a stand-up comic, and
others--explores time in a nation
where Eastern and Western time
coexist and religious time rubs
shoulders with secular time. Best
Documentary, Japan Grand Prize
(2002); Wolgin Award Best
Documentary, Jerusalem Film
Festival (2001).
On Monday, March 28, Yael
Katzir will show and lead discussion about her film,
Shivah for
My Mother--Seven Days of Mourning
at 7:00 pm, 147
Communication Arts and Sciences. Israeli-born, Yael Katzir was
an officer in the IDF until 1962. She is an accomplished producer,
director, scriptwriter, and lecturer on film and history. Her film,
Company Jasmine,
about a Women's Field Officer School in the
IDF, has won special praise.
Her newest film is about the
mourning period following her
mother's death and examines
the political and emotional
relationships between three
generations of Israelis.
Jewish Studies Faculty Seminar
"Once every few decades, a book forces a reevaluation of basic assumptions in a field,"
writes David Biale. Yuri Slezkine's
The Jewish Century
is a "passionately argued, original,
and bold essay" on Jewish history, observes Benjamin Harshav.
"The Modern Age is the Jewish Age--and we are all, to varying degrees, Jews," Slezkine
writes provocatively. In an argument that places Jews as part of a special category of
"service nomads," outsider groups specializing in offering services to more settled
majorities, part of a division of human labor between Mercurians (entrepreneurial
minorities) and Apollonians (food-producing, warrior majorities),
Slezkine argues that--amidst modernity, which has meant the rise of
the Mercurians--Jews are, and have become, model moderns.
Jewish Studies is sponsoring a two-part seminar on
The Jewish
Century
to meet Thursday, January 20, 3:00-4:30 pm, and Friday,
January 28
th
, 12:00-1:30 pm in 321 Linton Hall. Participants may
pick up a copy from Jewish Studies. We will discuss chapters 1 and 2
on the 20
th
; we will skim chapter 3 and discuss chapter 4, "Jews in
Three Promised Lands," on the 28
th
.
Women and Family Purity
Jane Rothstein, lecturer in Jewish Studies at the Brite Divinity School at
Texas Christian University will offer a brown bag on
"Jewish Family Purity:
American Jews, Menstruation, and Eugenics, 1910-1939,"
Friday, Feb. 18,
in 321 Linton Hall. Rothstein is a Ph.D. candidate in History and Hebrew
and Judaic Studies at New York University and is exploring issues of family
purity, sexuality, medicine, and modernity in American Jewish life 1900-
1945.
Finding a Place for Women
in American Jewish History
Karla Goldman, who will visit East Lansing as the Scholar-in-Residence of
Congregation Shaarey Zedek February 11-13, will offer a brown bag dis-
cussion on
"Finding a Place for Women in 350 Years of American Jewish
History,"
Friday, February 11, 12:00-1:30 pm, in 321 Linton Hall.
Goldman is Historian-in-Residence at the Jewish Women's Archive in
Brookline, MA. A graduate of Yale and Harvard, she is author of
Beyond
the Synagogue Gallery: Finding a Place for Women in American Judaism
(2000).
Jewish Studies Enrollments
Interest in Jewish Studies courses is up this spring. More than 350 students
are enrolled in courses spanning Hebrew language study, the American
Jewish experience, European Jewish history, the Middle East, Jews and
anti-Semitism, and the Holocaust.
·
55 students are enrolled in Hebrew.
·
50 students are studying American Jewish history.
·
21 students are registered in a Jewish Studies freshman seminar.
·
30 students are taking a short course on the Zionist Idea and
Contemporary Israeli Voices with visiting scholar David
Mendelsson of Hebrew University.
·
28 students are studying European Jewish history.
·
87 students are enrolled in Jews and Anti-Semitism and the
Holocaust.
The addition of new courses in Judaism and American Jewish literature
next year should continue growth in enrollments. This year 655 students
enrolled in formal classes. Additional students completed field internships
with Jewish agencies (e.g., Israeli Consulate in Chicago, Metropolitan
Jewish Federation of Detroit) and on Jewish subject matter through
independent study. Interest in the Jewish Studies specialization is also up.
Year-End Donations and
New Funding Opportunities
Thank you to the more than 125 donors who
contributed more than $57,000 in gifts and
pledges through the Jewish Studies' "end-of-year"
solicitation. Nearly $20,000 in gifts and pledges
was raised for Jewish Studies programmatic needs.
In addition, more than $37,000 in gifts and
pledges have bolstered the Michael and Elaine
Serling and Friends Endowed Chair in Israel
Studies.
Jewish Studies is seeking donors to create named
endowed funds in Jewish Arts and Music, Israel
Studies, and Israel Culture Programming to add to
its existing funds. A named fund can be created
with a pledge of $30,000 contributed over a five-
year period. To learn more about establishing a
named endowment fund, please contact Rebecca
Surian, Director of Development in Arts & Letters,
at 517-353-4725 or surian@msu.edu