Event

How will people in the future understand our times as the present becomes the past?

The recollection and memory of historians and the public alike depends on the careful work of recording, collection, and preservation that allow those who come after us to make sense of this moment.  

The creation of an archive is therefore a powerful responsibility. Important in ordinary times, it becomes more urgent in moments of crisis. How, during critical historical junctures, are decisions made about what will be important for that critical work in the near and distant futures?

In this session, two scholars discuss their activities over the past year in building collections that document events in Israel and the United States since the deadly October 7th attacks on Israel, during the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, and in the turmoil on American college campuses.

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SPEAKERS:

Dr. Ari Y Kelman

Professor Ari Y Kelman is the Jim Joseph Professor of Education and Jewish Studies in the Stanford Graduate School of Education.  Kelman's research focuses on the forms and practices of religious knowledge transmission, and he is an expert in the social scientific study of American Jewry.  He is the author, editor, or co-author of a number of books, most recently, “Jewish Education,” in Rutgers University Press’ Keywords in Jewish Studies series. In 2022, Professor Kelman led the Task Force on the Jewish Experience at Stanford which surfaced evidence of antisemitism in Stanford Admissions during the 1950s.  He is a co-editor of Jewish Social Studies and the chairperson of the Network for Research in Jewish Education. He is also the director of the Berman Archive at Stanford University.

Dr. Raquel Ukeles

Raquel Ukeles, PhD, is the Head of Collections of the National Library of Israel; from 2010-2020, she was Curator of the Islam and Middle East Collection. Ukeles is responsible for the overall development of all the Library's collections and for digital, cultural and educational initiatives based on the NLI collections as well as in partnership with other institutions. She is the chief editor of the book, 101 Treasures from the National Library of Israel (2023). Since October 7th, Ukeles has spearheaded "Bearing Witness," the NLI's long-term project to collect, preserve, and open access to a wide array of documentation materials related to October 7th and its aftermath both in Israel and abroad.  A New York native, Ukeles received her BA from Princeton (1993) and MA and PhD from Harvard University in 2006, all in comparative Islamic and Jewish studies. She also studied Jewish law in Jerusalem and New York, and Islamic law and Arabic in Egypt, Morocco and the Netherlands. She has published and taught on a wide array of subjects related to Jewish intellectual history, Arab culture in Israeli society, Jewish and Islamic traditions, and the role of national libraries today. She currently lives in Jerusalem with her husband and three children. 

Co-sponsored by the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies.

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