On the afternoon of December 4, 2017, Professor Jonathan Klawans (BU Department of Religion) spoke at the fall semester’s BUJS Research Forum. Elie Wiesel Center Director Michael Zank introduced Professor Klawans to a large and engaged audience of scholars and students. Klawans presented his sabbatical research on Mordecai Kaplan and Jewish antiquity with his talk “Judaism was a Civilization: Towards a Reconstruction of Ancient Jewish Peoplehood.”

Klawans spoke not just on how we think about Jewish antiquity, but also the particular frames that scholars use to shape that thinking. By using the work of Mordecai Kaplan, who wrote about American Jewish identity as well as Jews of the Second Temple period in the 19^th century, Klawans argues that we should embrace anachronism. The terms we use to study ancient people did not exist when those ancient people were alive, he argues, and that defining Judaism as solely a “religion” in a Protestant sense (absent from race or ethnicity) ignores the nuance in how Jews have identified themselves. Kaplan encouraged the use of the term “peoplehood” in order to understand Jewish identity as a “social heritage.” Klawans argues that this utilitarian term allows us to study Jewish history with a flexible way of categorizing.

This terminology opens up the usefulness of primary sources when looking at early periods of Jewish life, and the context of folk art and traditions that have been associated with certain groups of Jews. The study of Jewish peoplehood releases the baggage, Klawans claims, of terms like “nation” or “religion.”

The event concluded with a Q&A session about Klawans’ research and how he plans to expand these definitions in his upcoming book.

Our community participation continues this week, with more messages about Elie Wiesel's impact in the lives of so many.

#1 Sonari Glinton, Business Desk Correspondent at NPR West, penned this thoughtful and moving piece about his professor Elie Wiesel following his passing. Read his NPR piece here: http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2016/07/14/484558040/forgetting-isnt-healing-lessons-from-elie-wiesel

#2 Ariel Burger served as Professor Wiesel's teaching fellow here at BU from 2003 to 2008. Upon hearing of his passing Burger wrote a moving tribute to Wiesel and spoke of their last meeting together. Read his piece here: http://forward.com/opinion/344194/my-last-meeting-with-elie-wiesel/

#3 Prem Krishna Gongaju, Student Life Advisor at the Louisiana School for Math, Science, and the Arts and former student of Wiesel. "Professor Elie Wiesel was my teacher, my mentor during my 3-year study at Boston University School of Theology. I sat at his feet in his Literature of Memory classes, learning to take baby steps upon the ashes and embers of Auschwitz stoked by the searing memory of this man, the Lazarus of our history and humanity; I sat at his soot-stained feet overwhelmed by the stench of human depravity, and I was overjoyed by the bouquet of extraordinary hope exuding from his Hasidic soul. He was gentle, he was kind, he was caring. And a sage. His sublime words nudged the slumbering students to a slow awakening to the past, what's happening at present, and an informed glimpse into what is to come in this world of human/inhuman affairs. His voice was soothing and reassuring. His delivery of message was achieved effortlessly, without strain in his voice and constraint of his conscience. His was a small, still voice, a sort of suspiration from among the reeds stirred by the flaming flurry of recollection by the riverbed of memory. He taught us to keep the river of memory from turning into the Lethe by man's apathy and indifference. His face. The whole world knows his face: a face furrowed by the claws of man's cruelty to man, a face smeared with sadness and sorrow, and yet a face capable of beaming hopes against hope upon the upturned faces of his students. And to the world. But I never saw him laugh in the classroom. Professor Wiesel occasionally called on me in our Literature of Memory class, which was conducted in a somewhat seminar-like fashion, especially when his deep-set eye noticed me in a quandary due to some conflicting nature of the topic in question, putting me in an enviable position among my fellow classmates, for to be called upon by Prof. Wiesel was considered a mark of honor. On one such rare occasion, I had to coach my statement against the accepted political norm of the State of Israel, on the delicate issue of Palestinian homeland. Thus I coached my question in answer to the question of the lesson of the day, as logically and succinctly as I could at the time: How couldn't there be a Palestine for the Palestinian? For I am a Nepali because there is Nepal, my homeland. Suddenly, a hush fell over the entire class, and I experienced what perhaps might have been one of the most uncomfortable moments of my life during those milliseconds of silence. Then Prof. Wiesel put me and the entire class at ease by not taking me to task for what might have sounded to my younger classmates as an impudent remark. He was sagacious and kind to address the issue in question by delineating the principle of separating the Jewish and Palestinian humanity from the school of prevailing political thoughts as well as the Israeli Government's stance. To my mind, he thus bore witness to the suffering of the Palestinians sans Palestine. One occasion in particular stands out from among the rest of my teacher-student relatedness with Prof. Wiesel. I had given a satchel full of his books to be made holy by his autograph to his then secretary, Ms. Martha. After a few days she had me make an appointment with Prof. Wiesel for retrieving the said books from his office, and also for a brief tete-a-tete, which he occasioned in order to get to know his students, individually.
Our visit went swimmingly well at first. Handing me back my satchel, he offered to gift me any and all of his books in the future, with a gentle wave of his hand toward the two towering bookcases bulging with his tomes. My joy knew no bounds at his generous offer, for I loved books more than bread. Then I remembered something. During the course of his sharing an anecdote, both poignant and humorous, with the students, he touched on his lean days as a roving reporter. This event occurred in one of the airports in India. He and this Indian gentleman happened to strike up a conversation while waiting to catch their respective flights. At the end of a long confabulation, the Indian gentleman handed him a card with a personal note, who, as luck would have it, turned out to be none other than a big executive officer of a certain airline corporation. Because of the telling instruction on the note, Prof. Wiesel noted with a muted but rare chuckle, he could fly in and out of India on that airline anytime--free of charge. However, in his very next breath he added, "But I flew only when I was hungry." And I was happy to know later that he got to see Kathmandu, my hometown, on one of his famished flights. Then he touched on something to the class, a salient point of which had been stuck in my craw ever since, but which would remain unsaid in public for the rest of my life. It’s strictly between a teacher and his pupil. After I revealed what was on my mind, Prof. Wiesel got up and so did I. We both slowly fell into each other's embrace. And we sobbed. Elie Wiesel's name is writ upon the linings of my lungs. I will remember my teacher as long as I live. And I will never forget his teachings: "The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference." And "To forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time."

#4 Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. “Elie Wiesel led by example, both in words and in deeds. When he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize, he “swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation,” that “we must always take sides” when faced with injustice, and that “neutrality helps the oppressor” and “silence encourages the tormentor.” Professor Wiesel taught us that we must unequivocally stand up to racism, bigotry, and hate because they are an assault on our collective humanity. He emerged from the pain and suffering that he endured during the Holocaust to inspire us to choose hope over fear, action over indifference, and unity over division. I reflected on the life and work of Elie Wiesel when I visited Yad Vashem, where I wept as I looked up at the faces of the victims of the Holocaust. That powerful moment underscored the need to vigorously combat anti-Semitism. Today, we must be true to Professor Wiesel’s memory and never abandon our responsibility to confront hate in all its forms. Elie Wiesel’s legacy commands us to work tirelessly to bridge our divides and to bring people together, and I will forever be humbled by his extraordinary work and teachings.”

#5 Dr. Menachem Rosensaft, Columbia University Law professor and founding chairman of the International Network of Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors, grew up with Professor Wiesel as a friend and mentor. Read his tribute to him here: http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/206702/remembering-elie-wiesel-a-tribute-from-a-friend-and-disciple

Our final week of the retrospective includes more messages from those impacted by the work of Elie Wiesel, including words from Mayor Marty Walsh and former President Barack Obama.

#1 Professor Stephen Esposito, Associate Professor of Classical Studies and First Semester Core Curriculum Coordinator at Boston University. "Some 60 years ago, Elie Wiesel, at the age of 28, wrote the following 115 words, which were to become the most renowned and powerful passage in all of Holocaust literature. “Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, that turned my life into one long night seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the small faces of the children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky. Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget the nocturnal silence that deprived me for all eternity of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments that butchered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes. Never shall I forget those things, even were I condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never.” (Night, p. 34, trans. Marion Wiesel, 2006) That haunting seven-fold refrain, “Never shall I forget…” was to become the motto of Prof. Wiesel’s life. And so in honor of the dead and the living Elie bore witness. More than anyone in the past generation Wiesel spoke truth to power, and he did so with astonishing results -- from Auschwitz and Buchenwald to the Soviet Jews, from the Cambodian Boat People to the victims of violence in Dafur, Rwanda, Ethiopia, South Africa, and Argentina. I met Prof. Wiesel some 22 years ago and over time we became friends. For over a decade he invited me to teach in his classes and together we studied numerous Greek tragedies that he loved – Antigone, Oedipus, Prometheus Bound. Team-teaching with Elie Wiesel was by far the greatest privilege and joy of my B.U. career. Those classes together also turned out to be the most intellectually stimulating experiences of my life. For over 20 years Prof. Wiesel lectured to students in Boston University’s Core Curriculum –on Genesis, on Exodus, on Job. And then, of course, he held court to thousands of listeners in those remarkable presentations every Fall in the Metcalf Auditorium. Students were always at the center of his world. He loved to question students and to be questioned by them. Somehow I felt especially at home with Professor Wiesel when he invited me to speak to his students about my own specialty, Greek tragedy. Those plays often focus on themes that permeated Wiesel’s life: memory and mystery, suffering and solitude, friendship and ferocity.. In his presence I often felt as if I were being transported to the sacred center of the world, to a place where fierce Nobility and benevolent Blessing stood side by side. The students, too, felt it, especially in those last years—their teacher’s voice ever softer and more oracular, the wisdom of eight decades carved into his face ever more deeply, the wizened eyebrows highlighting the sunken eyes that had seen the unseeable—and survived. Like the ancient figure of Oedipus, whom Sophocles wrote so beautifully about 2,500 years ago, Professor Wiesel spent his life daring to pry open the clenched fist of the past, daring to reveal the wrath, the rage and somehow, through his relentless questioning, to summon forth redemption. Thank you, Elie, for the fierce courage in the face of despair, for the never-ending fight to find the words to tell THE story. Thank you for not surrendering, for remembering your sister, your mother, your father, and your people. Thank you for carrying the torch so bravely, for holding such a steadfast beacon to the smoke-filled darkness of night, for helping us to keep our souls on fire, for teaching us what our children and our children’s children must not forget."

#2 Mayor Marty Walsh of Boston. "Early in his life, Elie Wiesel experienced the worst of humanity. But through his perseverance, he showed the resilience of the human spirit. I remember reading his powerful memoir, Night, when I was a young student in Boston. Today, I am still moved by his strength and compassion. Elie was a man who dedicated his life to improving the lives of oppressed people all over the world. Between his time spent teaching about the horrors of the Holocaust as a professor at Boston University, and his work campaigning for victims of oppression in places like South Africa, Nicaragua and Sudan, Elie remained steadfast in his commitment to the human rights and freedoms deserved by everyone. I’m proud that Boston was the welcoming home of this great man. As a City and nation founded by immigrants, Boston must continue its work to embody the ideals of compassion and stewardship so well represented in the work of Elie. We continue to strive to match the ideals and virtues modeled by Elie, and I am grateful for he brought, and what he taught, to Boston."

#3 An excerpt from former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power’s foreword to the commemorative edition of Elie Wiesel’s Night to be published this month by Hill and Wang. “Arguably no single work did so much to lift the silence that had enveloped survivors, and bring what happened in the ‘Kingdom of Night’ out into the light, for all to see. And yet. Injustice was still rampant. Genocide denial against the Armenians, the horrors of his lifetime — Pol Pot, Bosnia, Rwanda, Darfur, Syria in his later years. He lived to see more and more people bear witness to unspeakable atrocities, but he also saw that indifference remained too widespread. Amid all the pain and disappointment of Elie’s remarkable life, how is it that the darkness did not envelop him, or shield him from the sun? How is it that the light in Elie Wiesel’s gaze was every bit as defining as his life’s experiences? ‘What is abnormal,’ Elie once told Oprah Winfrey, ‘is that I am normal. I survived the Holocaust and went on to love beautiful girls, to talk, to write, to have toast and tea and live my life — that is what is abnormal.’ Elie raged against indifference to injustice, to be sure, but he also savored the gifts of life with ferocious zeal. ‘We know that every moment is a moment of grace,’ he once said, ‘every hour is an offering; not to share them would mean to betray them.’ Maybe it was because Elie had such a strong sense of purpose on his journey—to help those who could still be helped. A duty to his neighbor. To the stranger, the stranger that he once was. He called it his 11th commandment: ‘Thou shalt not stand idly by…. You must speak up. You must defend. You must tell the victims,... ‘“You are not alone, somebody cares.’” ….As our nation goes through difficult days, Night is a book that is firmly ingrained in that small canon of literature that kids and young adults read when they are growing up in America. Alongside Atticus Finch and Scout, one of the narrators that will have an early shot at shaping our children’s moral universe is 16-year-old Elie. So, while the void is enormous — above all, for Marion, Elisha, and the rest of the family — and the void is enormous for our world, I too am filled with profound joy knowing that my 7-year-old boy and my 4-year-old girl — like Elie’s grandkids, and their children after them — will wade into big questions for the first time with Elie Wiesel as their guide. That they will be less alone for having Elie with them. That Night will be one of the works that lay the scaffolding for their moral architecture. All because Elie Wiesel was optimistic enough to keep going — and to find the strength to shine his light on us all.”

#4 Professor Abigail Gillman, Associate Professor of German and Hebrew, and last year’s Interim Director of the EWCJS. “What I miss now are the ‘Three Encounters with Elie Wiesel,’ the trio of lectures that I attended at the 92nd Street Y in New York City long before hearing them in Metcalf Hall. What we experienced on those evenings was not studying, but learning: the restless ‘turn it and turn it’ described in the Mishnah.  Each lecture wove together scholarship, wisdom, memory. Professor Wiesel managed to present the Torah and the Talmud as Great Books with universal relevance.  His words drew us into the Jewish textual universe as to a place he had actually visited, whether through anamnesis, or by the power of his imagination; the insights we left with were psychological, ethical, humanistic.  I miss listening to his voice—the musicality, the familiar cadences; the parentheses, humble thank-you’s to his students and to the police officers; the never-ending questions and what ifs; the irrepressible joie de vivre. The good news is that the lectures were recorded. The video recordings can be found on both the 92nd St. Y and the BU Howard Gotlieb Center websites, for anyone to study—and to learn from.”

#5

Judaism Was a Civilization

December 17, 2017

Boston University Department of Religion Professor of Religion Jonathan Klawans presented on “Judaism as a civilization.,” taking the cue from Mordecai Kaplan who proposed that Judaism should be studied as “peoplehood,” which looks at Judaism beyond solely a religious or ethnic group. This frame allows for scholars to examine Jewish antiquity as a civilization in order to understand what it meant to be a Jew centuries ago.

Anti-Semitism and Zionism: Ideologies or Emotions?

January 29, 2018

Professor Derek Penslar (University of Toronto and Harvard) presented on a work in progress dealing with different Zionist responses to anti-Semitism from the perspective of affect theory. Primary cases for this examination were Theodor Herzl and Chaim Weizmann who attached different affective qualities to anti-Semitism while using the fact of anti-Semitism differently for their respective Zionist advocacy under very different historical circumstances. Professor Simon Rabinovitch offered a finely-honed response to Prof. Penslar’s paper. Prof. Penslar, who is about to take a permanent position at Harvard University, returned to campus again later as a respondent for one of the workshop papers of the Modern Mediterranean Identities series, directed by Prof. Arkin.

Biblical Exegesis as Political Critique

October 3, 2018

Post-doctoral research fellow Dr. Alexandra Zirkle (PhD University of Chicago, 2016) presented about her current work examining nineteenth-century German-Jewish biblical exegesis as an expression of political self-assertion in the age of romantic nationalism. The talk was held from 2:30 to 4pm at the Elie Wiesel Center library. Prof. Susannah Heschel (Dartmouth College) responded to the lecture.

Auschwitz as a “Teachable Moment”? The Holocaust in German Civic Education in Multicultural Context

January 30, 2019

This Research Forum featured the research of Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies Visiting Scholar Sultan Doughan. Dr. Doughan just completed her PhD in anthropology at UC Berkeley where she was a student of the late Sabba Mahmood. She was joined by respondent Jeremy Menchik, Assistant Professor of International Relations at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies.

Dr. Doughan discussed her work with Berlin educational institutions that use the Holocaust to educate migrants of Muslim backgrounds in German humanistic and civic values. At the core of this talk was the experience of an educational “trip for humanity” to Auschwitz. The presentation illustrated how tolerance educators in Berlin convey the meaning of “humanity” through personal engagement with the Holocaust. Dr. Doughan described the tension between the operative conception of humanity and notions of citizenship and race, complicating the notion of a common humanity in contemporary German ways of conceptualizing Jewish and Muslim identities.

About A Putative Life of Hannah Arendt, Exhibit and Symposium

[L]anguage, the only medium through which mental activities can be manifest not only to the outside world but also to the mental ego itself, is by no means as evidently adequate for the thinking activity as vision is for its business of seeing. 
[Hannah Arendt, “Language and Metaphor” in The Life of the Mind, Volume One: Thinking, Ch. II Mental Activities in a World of Appearances]

Je mehr Dokumente, je fragwürdiger wird alles.
[Hannah Arendt, Denktagebücher, Heft XXIV Nr. 2]

Miriam Shenitzer’s Putative Lives explore the affective qualities we associate with a certain past, a certain personage, and a certain lost world. The ostensible subjects of her drawings are identified by costume, hairstyle and situations that are both generic and particular. Marked by anecdotal captions and faux-authentic objects, the central figures are represented as the relics of a bygone era. Shenitzer uses the auratic quality of names, such as Hannah Arendt, to allow for a play of the imagination. She recreates what might have been and potentially was.

The childhood scenes, encounters, and objects put before us are seemingly innocuous fragments of memory—the artist’s own and that of others, now part of her own imagination. She invites the viewers to piece together a distant life, while at the same time denying access to it. The images create the impression of a paradoxical trompe l’oeil that foregrounds inauthenticity and hence denies the very identification that the captions playfully suggest.

The May 27 symposium offered conversation on artistic practice, about our attachment to auratic names, and about the work of the imagination in conjuring fragmented and resistant pasts. Panelists discussed how we construct the lives of great thinkers, in word and image.

Invited scholars, artists, and c. 60 guests discussed how we represent actual lives and actual pasts. What are the limits of representation? Why this life, and this past? What can we learn from Shenitzer’s take on memory and forgetting, representation and distortion, knowledge and invention? How does the artist achieve particularization, individuation? What is the difference between academic research and artistic research?

The exhibition will be on view until August 25, by appointment only. If you are interested to see the artwork, please write to Dr. Theresa Cooney, The Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies, Boston, MA 02215 (ewcjs@bu.edu), or call 617.353.8096, to make an appointment.

Miriam Shenitzer (artist/educator)

Miriam Shenitzer is an artist who uses line and language. She is interested in how we see each other and the past, and has been creating imaginary worlds since she was a child. Shenitzer's work is in the collections of the National Museum of Women in the Arts, the Fogg Museum, and Yale University among others, and has appeared in the New Yorker and the New York Times. For more information, see miriamshenitzer.com and http://www.bcaonline.org/miriam-shenitzer.html.

Joni Doherty (philosopher/public scholar)

A program officer at the Kettering Foundation, Joni Doherty holds a PhD in philosophy and art theory from the Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts in Portland, Maine. She directs research on the deliberative framing of historical issues, and she leads exchanges with libraries and humanities groups. Doherty has a longstanding interest in discourse ethics and the ways in which the arts and humanities can foster democratic practices. For more information: https://www.kettering.org/people/joni-doherty-program-officer

Jennifer Hall (artist/philosopher)

With a PhD in Neurophilosophy and Embodied Aesthetics (Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts, Portsmouth/Maine), a Masters of Science in Visual Studies (MIT), and a BFA in sculpture (Kansas City Art Institute), Jenn Hall serves as professor of art education at the Mass College of Art and Design and a graduate mentor for SymbioticA Lab, University of Western Australia. For more information: http://www.jenhall.org/

Thomas Meyer (philosopher; intellectual biographer; Arendt scholar)

Thomas Meyer holds a doctorate in philosophy from LMU, Munich. He has taught and held fellowships at the University of Graz, the ETH Zurich, the University of Chicago, Vanderbilt University, Wake Forest University, Boston University, Erlangen University, and the University of Hamburg. His most recent publications include an edition of Alexander Altmann’s Schriften 1927–1939 (2018 ), Hannah Arendt’s Politik und Freiheit (2017) and Wir Flüchtlinge (2017). For more, see https://www.maimonides-centre.uni-hamburg.de/en/research/projects/2017-2018/meyer.html

On Thursday, March 31, 2022, Dr. David Lehrer, the Israel Institute Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow at the Elie Wiesel Center, moderated the Arava Institute Alumni Panel titled “Nature Knows No Borders: Israelis and Palestinians Living and Working Together to Protect the Environment" in person at the Elie Wiesel Center, where he was joined virtually on Zoom by two Arava Institute Alumni Odeliya Matter and Mohammad Azraq, who shared stories of how the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has personally affected them and how their perspective shifted and empathy for ‘the other’ grew. In their conversation with Dr. Lehrer, both Odeliya and Mohammad shared what they learned about cooperation around mutual goals while studying at the Arava Institute, including the importance of open, respectful, and transformative dialogue. 

The Arava Institute for Environmental Studies brings Jewish, Arab, and international students together to study the region’s environment and build trust. Students also participate in the Institute’s internationally acclaimed Peace-building Leadership Seminar, which teaches them consensus-building skills, models of conflict transformation, and how to listen to and engage with other narratives thoughtfully. The Dialogue Project held this year at the Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies aims to bring this message of peace to college campuses and communities in the U.S. and provides, in the process, college students with a rare insight into the Middle East and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

To learn more about the Institute’s work, you can visit The Arava Institute for Environmental Studies’ website or contact the CEO of Friends of the Arava Institute, Miriam May, at miriam@friendsofarava.org.

You can also watch the recording of the entire conversation in the video linked below or by visiting our Youtube channel.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9EFNk-7abY&t=5s 

On Thursday, April 7, 2022, the Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies welcomed Steve Greenberg, a record producer, two-time Grammy Award winner, and Founder/CEO of S-Curve Music, who discussed the history of Israeli popular music. In his talk, Greenberg shared excerpts of popular songs throughout Israel's history and examined how Israel's music has reflected and affected Israeli society's evolution. 

To learn more about Steve Greenberg and his work, you could visit S-Curve Record's website or listen to his music history podcast Speed of Sound, produced by iHeartMedia. 

If you missed Greenberg’s talk, you could now watch the live stream recording on our Youtube channel or HERE. 

This event was held virtually on Zoom and in-person at the Elie Wiesel Center’s library and was co-sponsored by the Consulate General of Israel to New England. 

Monday, May 23rd, 2022

Theoretical Problems in Religion of Reason

Tuesday, May 24th, 2022

Nineteenth-Century Contexts

Ethics, Virtue Theory, and Messianism

Wednesday, May 25th, 2022

Students and Readers

Wednesday, October 19th, 6 pm

At BU Hillel.

More details soon

In her talk titled “We Belong to Each Other: a Jewish Framework for a Just Society,” Rabbi Sharon Brous spoke on October 6, 2021, about the foundation of the Jewish commitment to human rights in the Torah. She argued that the story of the Exodus from Egypt, a source of hope in the darkest hours of the Jewish people, is not just about a one-time event, nor limited to the Jews alone, but an eternal story that applies to all people. Brous explained how the Exodus story could serve as a powerful narrative that provides a frame of reference for past, present, and future struggles for freedom and dignity. The Exodus narrative attests to the possibility of freedom over slavery, dignity over degradation, and self-determination over systematized oppression. It has the power to plant the seed of hope, allowing us to dream of something different and better. In her address, Brous also argued that the Exodus narrative is a testament to the possibility of change and the inextinguishable yearning for freedom and justice in a world of systemic oppression and injustice. According to Brous, the Exodus story is an eternal reminder that we all have a role to play in realizing the dream of a more just society.

The transcript of Rabbi Sharon’s lecture is available on our website. 

About the Speaker: Rabbi Sharon Brous is co-founder of IKAR, an inclusive Jewish community in Los Angeles launched to reinvigorate Jewish practice and inspire people of faith to reclaim their moral and prophetic voice. As senior rabbi at IKAR, Rabbi Sharon Brous works to develop a spiritual roadmap for a soulful, justice-driven, multi-faith ethos in Los Angeles and around the country. 

On October 26, 2022, the Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies partnered with the Center for the Study of Europe to host Professor Timothy Snyder for his lecture, “The War in Ukraine and the Question of Genocide,” moderated by Alexis Perri. This was the first Elie Wiesel Memorial Lecture of the semester and inaugurated the new Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights Studies major. Professor Snyder discussed the genocidal language and actions involved in Russia’s invasion, especially in the context of genocidal terminology throughout history. He powerfully explained that even if Russia cannot be prosecuted, it’s important to label these actions genocide because “you can’t remember what you never saw in the first place.”

About the Speaker: Professor Timothy Snyder is a professor of history at Yale University with expertise in eastern Europe and the Second World War. He is the author of renowned books, including Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, Bloodlands, and The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America.

The Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies was honored to host Professor Irene Kacandes, who delivered the second lecture of the 2022 Elie Wiesel Memorial Lecture Series titled “Co-Witnessing and Social Justice: Our Response to Humanitarian Crises” on November 9, 2022. 

Professor Kacandes coined “co-witnessing” to describe how people who were not targets of oppression can support those directly impacted by respectfully hearing and sharing their stories. During her talk, she explained the importance of telling someone’s stories in their own words, without appropriating their pain or focusing on the personal process of learning their story, in order to respect a person’s original experiences. She highlighted that naming certain people as victims or survivors shows who we, as a society, choose to care about.

For the final lecture of the Fall 2022 semester, “Jerusalem: City of Change,” the Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies partnered with the Department of Religion and Program in Archaeology to invite six experts to talk about Jerusalem throughout its long history. Their talks explored Jerusalem across time and disciplines, from its rise as a colonial capital to its status as a center of commerce and religious life, to the environmental laws governing ancient sites today.

Professor Yuval Gadot, head of the Alkow Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Cultures at Tel-Aviv University, started the forum with a lecture on the appropriation and resistance trends within Jerusalem’s elite during the Assyrian takeover of the 7th and 8th centuries BCE. He explained that although kings who cooperated with Assyrians were often condemned as “evil” and received no credit for architectural innovation, their maneuvering allowed them to encourage the empire’s construction efforts for Jerusalem.

Dr. Yiftah Shalev, a senior research archaeologist at the Israel Antiquities Authority and co-director of the Giv’ati Parking Lot excavations, spoke about the difference between the impressive biblical descriptions of Persian-era Jerusalem and the scant found remains. He explained how archaeological evidence shows that even after the city's destruction, people returned to live within the usable sections of original houses and how the economy started to grow again into the early Hellenistic period.  

Tehillah Lieberman, a Ph.D. candidate at Bar Ilan University who has worked with the Israel Antiquities Authority for over a decade, recounted how the Hasmonean king Alexander Jannaeus helped shape Jerusalem both physically and symbolically into the central city within Judea. She explored how water distribution structures and residential buildings reflected a busy economy and investment into the city as both a living space and a religious center. 

Dr. Yana Tchekhanovets, archaeologist and senior lecturer at the Ben Gurion University of the Negev, presented on Jerusalem during the Byzantine era when it became a global religious destination. Remains of monasteries, hostels, and souvenirs show that not only were people coming to Jerusalem with their beliefs and faiths, but those who returned home brought images of Jerusalem as a holy city out into the world. 

Bethany Walker, professor of Islamic Archaeology at the University of Bonn and co-director of the Khirbet Beit Loya excavations, next spoke on the Mamluk amir Tankiz al-Nasiri, Governor of Syria. She showed that after his quick rise into the political elite, Tankiz invested in Jerusalem's commercial building and urban infrastructure, including markets, water systems, and the opening of new farmland, which brought great returns to the cities in the years afterward. 

Tamara Lotner-Lev explained the legal framework managing Jerusalem and illustrated lessons from environmental law on how to (and how not to) reconcile opposing interests, such as conservation and development. She discussed the creation of the Jerusalem Wall National Park and the importance of bringing all diverse stakeholders together to discuss the park's management since that approach usually leads to the most protection for an area. 

In her lecture titled “Voice, Audience, and Gender in the Israeli Lullaby: Notes Towards an Alternative History,” Dr. Lachman, an Israel Institute fellow and visiting scholar at the Elie Wiesel Center of Jewish Studies, discussed her research project that began with the anthology of lullabies titled Yavo Gdi Zahav (“A golden lamb shall come”) published in 2015. Dr. Lachman explored in this talk how the modern Hebrew lullaby—after centuries of silence—evolved as a subversive translingual strain of minor literature, a hybrid genre that turned away from both Zionist folk songs and the purisms of Israeli modernism.

For our third BUJS Forum of the year, Dr. Gilah Kletenik, a Postdoctoral Associate at the Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies, spoke about Spinoza and the “denaturalization of sovereignty,” the subject of her current book project Sovereignty Disrupted: Spinoza and the Disparity of Reality. In her talk, titled “Serves No Purpose: Spinoza’s Denaturalization of Sovereignty,” Dr. Kletenik revisited Spinoza’s acclaimed critique of anthropocentrism and teleology by considering it within the context of his broader ontology, which affirms reality as infinite and therefore also immanent. 

Sharaka Organization Delegation at BU: Israeli, Emiratis, Bahrainis, and Moroccans Discuss the New Middle East

The Abraham Accords between Israel, the UAE, and Bahrain opened the door to a new era of cooperation and friendship. Sharaka, which means ‘partnership,’ was founded by young leaders from Israel and the Gulf to turn the vision of people-to-people peace into a reality. 

On March 29, 2022, the Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies was pleased to host members of the Sharaka Delegation from the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, and Israel at Boston University to discuss "The New Middle East." During this event, members of the Delegation, Dan Feferman, Chama Mechtaly, Fatema Al Harbi, and Yahya Mahamid, shared information about the work Sharaka does and how they got involved, and the importance of the historic Abraham Accords agreement in advancing peace and stability in the region. 

This event was organized in partnership with BU Students for Israel, Hillel, and the Consulate General of Israel to New England.

To celebrate the start of the 2023 spring semester, the Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies is hosting an Open House on January 26, 2023, from 12 to 2 PM. 

This event will offer a unique opportunity for new and continuing students to meet faculty and staff members and ask any questions they have about the courses, certificates, and the various funding opportunities and resources available to them through the Center. 

The Open House will include a short talk by Professor Deeana Klepper, Associate Professor of Religion and History, and food will be provided. 

Please use this link to register; we hope to see many of you there!