Past Events

Contemporary Israeli theater is a vibrant world of intense creative activity. Using readings from selected scenes and screening clips from outstanding theatrical performances, this talk aims to expose the audience to…

As part of our Distinguished Fellowship in Jewish Manuscript Studies program, the University of Pennsylvania’s Schoenberg Institute and Herbert D. Katz Center, in partnership with the Jewish Studies Program,…

Beginning with the focal point of October 7, 2023, this lecture will address the challenges associated with the memory of difficult past events, especially when the aftermath is ongoing. Examining efforts to…

The Dreyfus Affair transformed French society at the end of the nineteenth century. It also transformed the nature of Jewish identity, changing how Jews saw their place in the world and their relation to other Jews.…

Tea Arciszewska’s play Miryeml was heralded as a powerful memorial to the million children murdered in the Holocaust. In this talk, Sonia Gollance will discuss her translation of this nearly-forgotten…

Even before COVID-19, major rethinking was already underway about the causes, timing, and geographic spread of what is still considered the world’s worst pandemic, the Black Death of the late medieval period. Since…

What strategies can we use to recover lives and artworks nearly lost to history—especially when there is little archival material available? This talk focuses on the process of rediscovering Rahel Szalit (1888–1942…

The persecution and expulsion of Jews from Spain – or Sepharad – played a pivotal role in Jewish history and collective memory. In the modern era, the historical legacy of…

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,…