Palaces of Time: Jewish Calendar and Culture in Early Modern Europe
Elisheva Carlebach
Wednesday, March 14, 2012, 7:15 pm
LeFrak Concert Hall
Free and open to the public

Elisheva Carlebach is Baron Professor of Jewish History, Culture,
and Society at Columbia University. Prior to this appointment, she was a Professor of
History at the Graduate Center, CUNY, and Queens College. In addition to her
latest book, Palaces of Time (2011), Dr. Carlebach’s publications include
The Pursuit of Heresy (1990), which was awarded the National Jewish Book
Award, and Divided Souls: Converts from Judaism in Early Modern Germany (2000).

She was a Fellow at the New York Public Library Center for Scholars
and Writers in 2003, and in 2010-11 she served as a Tikvah Fellow at the NYU
Law School. She is co-editor of the Association for Jewish Studies Review
and Vice President of the American Academy for Jewish Research.

Dr. Carlebach will present an illustrated lecture about her discovery
of a new genre: Jewish Books of Time. The calendar was a complex and
living system constantly evolving with the ever-changing cultures in which
Jews lived, and these books provide a magnificent reflection of those cultures.

This program is sponsored by Marc and Kenneth Rowin in memory of their mother, Miriam Rowin.

Islamic Society and the Development of Judaism
Arnold Franklin
Tuesday, April 3, 2012, 7:15 pm
LeFrak Concert Hall
Free and open to the public

Arnold Franklin is an Assistant Professor in the History Department
at Queens College. His research focuses on Jewish culture and society in Islamic lands
during the Middle Ages. His forthcoming book, This Noble House: Jewish Descendants
of King David in the Islamic East (UPenn Press), examines the way Jews
in Arabic-speaking lands came to think of the family of King David as a Jewish
counterpart to the family of Muhammad. For much of the Middle Ages, the
most vibrant centers of Jewish intellectual and literary activity were to be
found in the Islamic world.

This lecture will explore the dynamic interaction between Judaism and Islam that served
as a backdrop to that formative period in Jewish history. It will examine how
currents within Islamic society had a decisive impact on Jewish religious and
literary culture, shaping, among other things, the way Jews thought about God,
the Torah, and Jewish law.

This program has been made possible by the Ernest and Marta Schwarcz Endowment Fund.

The Racialization of “Jewish Blood”: Portuguese Jews in the Early Modern Caribbean
Hilit Surowitz Israel
Tuesday, April 17, 2012, 7:15 pm
LeFrak Concert Hall
Free and open to the public

Hilit Surowitz Israel, an Assistant Instructor at Rutgers University, is a PhD candidate in the
Department of Religion at the University of Florida, where she is completing her dissertation, “‘Nacao’: Reconstructing
Religious Identity in the Early Modern Atlantic World.” She is the recipient of numerous awards, including a Fulbright
Fellowship, as well as fellowships from Brown University, Harvard University, and the Center for Jewish History.
Ms. Israel’s research interests include religion in the Americas, the Jewish communities of the Atlantic World, and
Diaspora theory. She is particularly interested in the transatlantic social and religious networks maintained by
Portuguese Jews and New Christians during the 16th–18th centuries, Currently she is working on “Religious
Authority: An Americas Perspective,” for The Portuguese Jews of Caribbean Jewry (ed. Jane S. Gerber, Littman
Library of Jewish Civilization, June 2013), and “Portuguese Jews of the Caribbean and the Question of
Early Modern Secularization” for a forthcoming edited volume.

Ms. Israel will discuss the racialization of “Jewish blood” in the Americas during the early modern
period, with a focus on the Jews in the Caribbean basin and what led them to redefine their religious identity in
the racialized social structure they encountered there.

This program is made possible through the Ungar Professorship Endowment.

Screening of Undzere Kinder (Our Children)
Gabriel Finder
Wednesday, May 2, 2012, 7:15 pm
Rosenthal Library, Room 230
Free and open to the public

Gabriel Finder is Associate Professor in the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures
and the Ida and Nathan Kolodiz Director of Jewish Studies at the University of Virginia.
He has a PhD from the University of Chicago and a JD from the University of Pennsylvania.
His research interests lie in Central and East European Jewish history and culture,
the Holocaust, trials ensuing from the Holocaust, the memory of the Holocaust, the reconstruction of Jewish life after 1945,
and postwar relations between Jews and non-Jews in Central and Eastern Europe,with an emphasis on Poland. Dr. Finder’s
publications in these areas include “The Place of Child Survivors in Jewish Collective Memory after the Holocaust”
and “The Case of Undzere Kinder,” which also appeared in German.

He is contributing coeditor of volume 20 of Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry (2008),
devoted to the making of Holocaust memory in Poland, and is working on a
book entitled A Tangled Web: Jews, Poles and Holocaust Memory, 1945-1980,
on the construction and entanglement of Jewish and Polish memories of the
Second World War and the Holocaust in communist Poland and Israel.
Dr. Finder has introduced Undzere Kinder to audiences in London, Munich, Salzburg, and Jerusalem.
Produced in 1948-1949, the film was the last Yiddish language feature made in Poland.
It portrays the encounter between two Jewish comedians and the children in a Jewish orphanage
who recount their experiences during the Holocaust to the comedians.
The film, now considered a classic, is an artful blend of poignancy and humor. While the comedians were
professional actors, the children were all amateur actors who were survivors of the Holocaust.

This program is endowed by Marvin and Celina Zborowski.

National Yiddish Theatre
Folksbiene

Soul to Soul
Yiddish and African American Music Meet in Celebration of Two Cultures
Conceived by Zalmen Mlotek, international authority on Yiddish folk and
theatre music and Artistic Director of Folksbiene since 1998 Returns to Queens College
Wednesday, April 4, 2012, 7 pm
Colden Auditorium

Featuring some of the most exciting performers from the New York stage in a
multicultural extravaganza, Soul to Soul weaves together the shared struggles
and victories of the Jewish and African American communities through music
and voice in Yiddish and English.

Lisa Fishman, singer, actress, and songwriter of U.S. and European fame,
has performed with many of the greatest artists in Jewish music,
including Mike Burstyn in On Second Avenue. Ms. Fishman has also played
Fanny Brice in Tintypes and has made recordings with Chicago’s Maxwell
Street Klezmer Band and the Modern Klezmer Quartet.
In her original musical act The Lisa Fishman
Jewish Experience, she performs updated versions of Jewish standards.

Elmore James, baritone and veteran of five Broadway
shows, has been mesmerizing audiences since his
debut singing in Yiddish at Town Hall’s Yiddish in America: A Gala
Concert Celebrating the Centennial of the Workman’s Circle.
In that performance he led a cast that included Bruce Adler,
Theodore Bikel, Tovah Feldshuh, Lainie Kazan, Mandy Patinkin,
Sheldon Harnick, and the New Yiddish Chorale in a rousing rendition of the
Ode to Joy from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. One of Broadway’s most versatile artists,
Mr James has also appeared at the Metropolitan Opera House, Carnegie Hall,
Avery Fisher Hall, and opera houses in Paris, Vienna, Munich, Berlin, Rome, Sweden, and Norway.

Tony Perry, a singer and songwriter, originated the role he performed in
the Folksbiene’s premiere production of Murray Schisgal’s Shpiel! Shpiel! Shpiel! He
was also featured in 74 Georgia Avenue, which was performed in English and
Yiddish, and appeared in The Last Word, the New York theatrical premiere
of Cross that River, and A Shelter in Our Car. Among his favorite roles are
Big Moe in Five Guys Named Moe, Ken in Ain’t Misbehavin’, Riff Raff in The
Rocky Horror Show, Parchester in Me and My Girl, Victor in Smokey Joe’s
Café, and Jim in Big River.

Zalmen Mlotek, artistic director, has been behind the Folksbiene’s
revitalization for 12 years, introducing many innovations, including supertitles
(in Russian and English) for all performances. An internationally
recognized authority on Yiddish folk and theatre music who has been
nominated for two Tony Awards, Mr. Mlotek has brought Yiddish-Klezmer
music to Broadway and Off-Broadway stages and venues worldwide. His
formal musical training was as a conductor at the Juilliard School and
Tanglewood under Leonard Bernstein.

This program has been made possible by
the Ruth and Sidney Schindler Memorial Lecture, endowed by the Schindler and
Stolar Families, Lillian Taynor and Family, and Arthur and Carole Anderman