Endowed Lectures - Center for Jewish Studies - University of California, Berkeley

Public lectures enrich Jewish Studies and the larger UC Berkeley community. The lectures provide the opportunity to bring to campus world renowned scholars, authors, and artists to engage with the Jewish community. Alumni and friends have endowed the following lectures, which are just a few of the events offered in conjunction with the Center for Jewish Studies. For a complete list of events, please see the calendar.

THE HELEN DILLER FAMILY VISITING ISRAELI SCHOLAR LECTURE

The Helen Diller Family Program in Jewish Studies was created to ensure the excellence of Jewish Studies at UC Berkeley. Each year the Helen Diller Annual Lecture brings to campus a distinguished scholar in Jewish Studies to give a public lecture about his or her research and work.

Spring 2013
Yahil Zaban, Hebrew University, “The Jewish Mother”

Spring 2016
Gilad Sharvit, Hebrew University, “Freud, Politics and Anti-Semitism”

Spring 2018
Rabbi Jeffrey A. Summit, Tufts University, “Singing God’s Words: Religious Experience, Chant & Sacred Text in Contemporary Judaism”

Spring 2019
Steve Weitzman, “How the Story of the Jews Begin: Recent Debates on Origins and Ancestry”

Spring 2020
Tomer Persico, “Neo-Hasidism and Neo-Kabbalah – Privatised Uses of Traditional Lore”

JOSEPH AND EDA PELL ENDOWED LECTURE

The Joseph and Eda Pell Endowed Lecture is funded by the Joseph and Eda Pell Endowed Fund for Jewish Studies. Established in 1997, one of the fund’s main objectives is to support research and teaching on the Holocaust — with the intention to understand the events that preceded it, with a view toward learning what can be done to prevent such an atrocity from occurring again. The Pell Lecture offers a public forum for disseminating this work.

Spring 1999
Omer Bertov, “Fields of Glory: War, Genocide, and the Glorification of Violence”

Spring 2002
Benjamin Harshav, Yale University, “The Modern Jewish Renaissance Language, Literature, and History”

Fall 2002
Istvan Deak, Columbia University, “Shattering an Ethnic Mosaic: Central and Eastern Europe During the Last Years of World War II” [The Holocaust in the Context of 150 Years of Ethnic Cleansing; The Siege of Budapest and Europe’s Only Major Surviving Ghetto, November 1944-February 1945; Retribution in Central and Eastern Europe During and After World War II]

Spring 2004
Sam Kassow, Trinity College, “Vilna as a Jewish Society”, “Prewar Warsaw: Poland’s Jewish Metropolis”, “History and Catastrophe: The Case of Emanuel Ringelblum”

Fall 2004
Steven Aschheim, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, “Beyond Borders: The German-Jewish Legacy Abroad”

Fall 2005
Elena Makarova, Heyendaal Institute of Radboud University- Nijmegan, “Culture Against Destruction” [University Over the Abyss: The Story Behind 20 Lecturers and 2,430 Lectures in the Terezin Ghetto between 1942-1944; Live for Art: Friedl Dicker-Brandeis (1898-1944); Any Genre But Tragedy: Theatre and Cabaret in Terezin]

Fall 2007
Saul Friedländer, University of California, Los Angeles, “The Years of Extermination- Towards an Integrated History of the Holocaust”

Spring 2008
Robert Alter, University of California, Berkeley, “The Child in the Holocaust: A Symposium” [Panel presenters: Paula Fass, Margaret Byrne, UC Berkeley; Diane Wolfe, UC Davis; Jeffrey Shandler, Rutgers University]

Winter 2011
Michael Brenner, University of Munich, “Back ‘Home’? The Return of Jewish Intellectuals to Germany after the Holocaust.”

Spring 2011
Carla Shapreau, University of California, Berkeley School of Law, “When the Music Stopped: The Spoliation of Europe’s Musical Property, 1933-1945, and 21st Century Concerns,”

Spring 2012
Aron Rodrigue, Stanford University, “From the Ottoman Empire to the Holocaust, The Jews of Rhodes and the End of the Sephardi Levant, 1900-1944,”

Fall 2012
Jonathan Goldstein, University of West Georgia, “Wartime Shanghai: A Microcosm of Eurasian Jewish Diversity”

Spring 2013
Lisa Gossels, documentary filmmaker, in discussion about the film “The Children of Chabannes”

Spring 2014
Jan Gross, Princeton University, “At the Periphery of the Holocaust: Opportunistic Killings and Plunder of Jews by their Neighbors”

Spring 2015
International Conference,”Reflections on the Legacy of Nuremberg: The 70th Anniversary of the Nuremberg Trials”

Göran Rosenberg, “A Brief Stop On The Road From Auschwitz”

Fall 2015
Conference, “Revisiting Freud and Moses: Heroism, History, and Religion”

Spring 2016
Stephanie Satie, A One Woman Play “Silent Witnesses”

Anna Bikont, “The Poles, The Jews, and the Town of Jedwabne: What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About The Holocaust”

Ivan Jablonka, “Family Stories Are Also History: Two Stories in The Time of Stalin and Hitler”

Fall 2016
Anna Shternshis and Psoy Korolenko, “Last Yiddish Heroes: Lost and Found Songs of Soviet Jews during World War II”

Fall 2017
Lisa M. Leff, American University, “The Archive Thief: The Man Who Salvaged French Jewish History in the Wake of the Holocaust”

Natan Meir, Portland State University, “Stepchildren of the Shtetl: The Destitute, Disabled, and Demented of Jewish Eastern Europe”

Spring 2018
Jeffrey Shandler, “Tales Retold: Holocaust Survivors on Schindler’s List”

HERMAN P. AND SOPHIA TAUBMAN LECTURE

The Herman P. and Sophia Taubman Lecture is funded by the Herman P. and Sophia Taubman Chair in Jewish Studies. The Taubman endowment was established in 1974 by Milton Taubman for the pursuit of Jewish studies at Berkeley. Over the years, the Taubman Lectures have become major campus events.

1979
Zvi Ankori, Tel Aviv University

1980
Dan Pagis, Hebrew University, Jerusalem

1981
Moshe Greenberg, Hebrew University, Jerusalem

1982
Bernard Blumenkranz, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris

1983
Zeev Falk, Hebrew University, Jerusalem

1984
Shlomo Morag, Hebrew University, Jerusalem

1985
Menachem Friedman, Bar Ilan University
Yonathan Shapiro, Tel Aviv University

1986
David Hartman, Hebrew University, Jerusalem

1987
Matitiahu Tsevat, Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati

1988
Hayim Tadmor, Hebrew University, Jerusalem

1989
Moshe Weinfeld, Hebrew University, Jerusalem

1991
Jacob R. Sussmann, Hebrew University, Jerusalem
Nurith Gertz, Open University, Tel Aviv