We look forward to welcoming Dr. Melissa Weininger to Beth Am as our Scholar in Residence this November 15th - 17th.
Join us for Kabbalat Shabbat Services and dinner, followed by Dr. Weininger’s first lecture, The New New Hebrew: Contemporary Trends in Israeli Culture.
Israeli culture was built on the Zionist image of the “New Hebrew”: a new type of Jew untainted by diaspora Jewish life and committed to Hebrew as the national language. But in the 21st century, with the rise of globalization and transnational cultural influences, contemporary Israeli culture reflects not only the specific history of Hebrew and of Israel but also many influences that challenge the image of the “New Hebrew,” who was envisioned as Ashkenazi, white, male, and secular. This talk will focus on some of the contemporary trends in Israeli literature, art, and music that reflect these challenges.
Dr. Weininger will give the d’var torah during Shabbat Morning Services. Following Kiddush lunch, stay for her second lecture, Demons and the Divine: A Brief History of Jewish Monsters.
Long before the advent of horror movies, Judaism had developed its own roster of magical and monstrous beings, from Talmudic demons to medieval dybbuks and beyond. Jews have also often been characterized as monstrous in antisemitic caricature, and mythical creatures such as the vampire have been rooted in anti-Jewish stereotypes. In the modern period, Jewish monsters were often adopted by writers to explore the dilemmas of modernity, and in the era of screens, new varieties of magical and monstrous Jewish beings have been introduced to contend with these histories. This talk will explore some of the ways that Jewish writers, artists, and filmmakers have used both specifically Jewish monsters as well as elements of international horror tropes to explore the things that trouble and scare us most.
Don’t miss Dr. Weininger’s final lecture, Beyond the Land: Diaspora Israeli Culture in the 21st Century.
Historically, the Jewish diaspora has been presented as the binary opposite to Jewish homeland and the state of Israel. This rhetorical opposition has been made more explicit in the year since the October 7 attacks and Israel’s war with Hamas. But a growing body of work by contemporary Israeli writers and artists that Weininger calls “diaspora Israeli culture” reconsiders this binary opposition between homeland and diaspora, taking into account the existence of the state of Israel and its implications for diaspora Jewish identity as well as the implications for Zionism of diasporic conceptions of Israel. Drawing from her new book, this talk will consider how this dynamic understanding of both an Israeli and a Jewish diaspora works to envision a non-hegemonic Jewish nationalism that can negotiate both political imagination and reality.
*Join us for bagels and coffee from 9:30 AM before this lecture.
Registration for each program will be available after the High Holy Days.
