Home » Posts tagged 'Judaism'

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  What We Talk about When We Talk about Philip Roth

  March 26, 2013 / Lectures Live

  Philip Roth is a titan of American literature with a remarkable oeuvre of more than thirty novels and countless literary accolades under his belt. On March 19th, 2013, Roth celebrated his eightieth birthday, a milestone marked by celebrations in his native Newark, New Jersey, as well as around the country. At the Program for Jewish Civilization, Director Jacques Berlinerblau, who teaches a course on the secular Jewish fiction of Philip Roth, interviewed one of the country’s foremost Roth experts, Dr. [...]

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  “What Makes a Russian Jewish American Writer?” An Interview with Author Lara Vapnyar

  December 6, 2011 / Lectures Live

  Up-and-coming author Lara Vapnyar shares selections from her writing that are amusing, poignant, and wonderfully evocative of the Russian-Jewish-American corner of Brooklyn she once called home. From the elderly Russian babushkas who stagger dramatically around New York to the single immigrants looking for love in English language classes, her characters come to life in this interview by PJC Director Jacques Berlinerblau. Lara Vapnyar emigrated from Russia to New York in 1994 and began publishing short stories in English in 2002. [...]

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  David Friedman on Campus Anti-Zionism

  August 11, 2011 / Faith Complex

  What is the obligation of universities to protect freedom of speech? In 2010, Israeli ambassador to the United States Michael Oren spoke at UC Irvine, where he was interrupted by anti-Israel protesters. Three years earlier, Columbia University hosted Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, prominent denier of the Holocaust, homosexuality in Iran, and human rights. And this year marks the seventh annual Israeli Apartheid Week, which consists of university lectures and gatherings to protest the Israeli state. David Friedman is regional director [...]

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  Rabba Sara Hurwitz on Women and Orthodox Judaism

  April 28, 2011 / Faith Complex

  Sara Hurwitz’s appointment to the position of Rabba by Rabbi Avi Weiss of the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale in 2010 touched off a storm of controversy in the Orthodox Jewish community. Rabba Hurwitz is the first such female spiritual leader to hold the newly-created title, though she argues that women have occupied comparable roles throughout Jewish history. As Rabba, she is able to fulfill many of the functions of a traditional rabbi, including speaking from the pulpit and hearing questions [...]

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  Gary Rosenblatt on Orthodoxy, Abuse, and Ethics

  December 12, 2010 / Faith Complex

  In the summer of 2000, The Jewish Week, with Gary Rosenblatt at its helm, ran an exposé on the sexual abuse of a number of Orthodox teenagers over several decades by Rabbi Baruch Lanner, who, as regional director of the Orthodox Union’s National Conference of Synagogue Youth, was a charismatic leader and prominent community member. The day after the publication of Rosenblatt’s investigation, which alleged that Lanner’s superiors knew of his proclivities but took no action to curtail them, Lanner [...]

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  Edgar Bronfman, Sr. on Cultural Judaism

  October 4, 2010 / Faith Complex

  Philanthropist Edgar M. Bronfman speaks about Jewish intermarriage, cultural Judaism, and the advice he would give Prime Minister Netanyahu. Read more about Edgar Bronfman, Sr. The Samuel Bronfman Foundation   Watch Next Rabba Hurwitz on Women and Orthodox Judaism 

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  Martin Lemelman Revisits His Jewish Boyhood in Brooklyn

  August 3, 2010 / Faith Complex

  “Martin Lemelman,” proclaims his official author biography, “grew up in the back of a candy store in Brooklyn, New York, and is the child of Holocaust survivors.” These life experiences are richly and painstakingly recorded in Lemelman’s work as a graphic memoirist. His 2006 work Mendel’s Daughter, for instance, chronicles his mother Gusta’s girlhood in and eventual escape from Nazi-era Poland. More recently, he has published Two Cents Plain: My Brooklyn Boyhood, a bittersweet reminiscence on growing up in New [...]

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