Podcast, Screen & Talk discussion

Jewish Studies. Cathy Gelbin and Katja Stuerzenhofecker co-organized the online streaming and panel discussion of The Commissar (Soviet Union 1967) on 7 April 2022 under the auspices of the Centre for Jewish Studies. A recording of the discussion with international experts is now available. Watch on YouTube.

Doctoral and ECR training workshop

For UK-based Jewish Studies research postgraduates. The Centre for Jewish Studies at Manchester University is pleased to announce the sixth doctoral and early career research training event of the Northern UK and Dublin Jewish Studies Partnership. Advanced PhD students and post-doctoral researchers from Partnership institutions and other UK Universities can apply to participate in a range of online sessions taking place on 13-14 June 2022. Applications from outside the UK will be considered. The event will include sessions on interviewing for lectureships from an interviewer’s point of view, academics working in university/research administration, the role of research question/methodology in publications and funding applications, as well as current trends in the academic treatment of the Jewish Muslim Encounter and Filmic Representations of Jews in Post-1990s Europe. There will also be an event engaging with PGR/ECR researchers in Ukraine. Participants will be able to meet experienced staff for informal, one-to-one advice on any aspect of their research, career planning or publication priorities. For programme and further information, see http://www.manchesterjewishstudies.org/n-uk-js-partnership/.

Register for this free event by submitting the online form https://forms.office.com/r/6ecGGvH0C7 by 20 May 2022.

New post: Language Tutor in Modern Hebrew (part time)

Language Experience for All Programme (LEAP). "You must possess near-native command of both Hebrew and English; demonstrate excellent language-teaching skills; and have an educational background appropriate to the delivery of the specified duties. Experience of teaching and assessing advanced Hebrew language skills at tertiary level, in person and online, are essential. Experience teaching in UK higher education and a track record in curriculum development are highly desirable..." Deadline: 13 May 2022. Further information.

Conference paper report, EABS

Biblical Studies. PhD student Sherry Ashworth was amongst those contributing to the EABS' Graduate Symposium in Prague, with a paper entitled 'It's complicated: The relationship between Esther and Mordecai in the Book of Esther, mediated by Charles Dickens' novel, Bleak House' (30 March 2022). She reports: "At the very end of March I presented a paper at the European Association of Biblical Studies’ Graduate Symposium. The Symposium is intended for PhD candidates who might not have presented before (like me!) and is a very supportive, while scholarly rigorous, event. It was fascinating to meet other biblical scholars from all over Europe, and as ever, I was impressed at how excellent everyone’s English is, and was keenly aware that many students were presenting in a second language. I was struck by the diversity of methodologies, given that the Bible is such a small text – it’s a bit like the Tardis in there! The conference organisers took us for a tour of Jewish Prague, led by the Jewish Museum director. This is an emotionally gruelling experience, as the devastation caused by the Holocaust is very immediate and tends to drown out the other aspects of Jewish history, such as the ancient cemetery with the grave of the Maharal of Prague, AKA Rabbi Loew, the inventor of the legend of the Golem. The tour ended with a visit to the beautiful Spanish Synagogue, which is used by the progressive Jewish community of Prague, and so plays host to bat mitzvahs, thus looking toward an egalitarian Jewish future in the city."

Conference, Paris

Holocaust studies. Jean-Marc Dreyfus was part of the scientific committee for a conference on 'The spoliation of musical instruments in Europe. 1933-1945'. Jennifer Verson (University of Warwick) presented a paper, "Musical Scores in the archives of the Jewish Museum of Prague". 7-9 April 2022. Further information.

Public lectures online, Jewish and Muslim studies

Jewish and Muslim Studies. CJS Hon. Research Fellow Michael Hilton announces the coming programme for the course 'Judaism and Islam: A shared history' that he is leading with Dr Harith Ramli. 10 May: 'Why we love Jerusalem.' Jewish and Muslim traditions and teachings about the holy city. 14 June: 'The Jewish Orientalists.' The little-known story of the leading Western scholars of, and enthusiasts for Islam, who came from Jewish backgrounds. This lecture, the culmination of the course, is the Rabbi Dr David J. Goldberg Memorial Lecture. On Zoom and in-person. Liberal Jewish Synagogue. Booking and further details from Debi Penhey.

Ehrhardt Seminar, Centre for Biblical Studies

Esther and Dickens. Sherry Ashworth, University of Manchester, ‘It's complicated: the relationship between Esther and Mordecai, mediated by Charles Dickens' Bleak House.’ 14:00 - 15:30 05 May 2022. The Centre for Biblical Studies weekly seminar series. Sessions will take place in a hybrid format - attendance is possible in person or online via Zoom. To register to attend online, please email siobhan.jolley@manchester.ac.uk.

Seminars, Yad Vashem

Holocaust Education. Seminars available for Jewish educators at Yad Vashem, Jerusalem 2022. Further information.

Online Conference

Jewish Studies. Moshe Behar opened the Edge Hill University conference 'Duel' Obligation? Palestine in the Mandate Years on 29 March 2022. A recording of the presentation can be found here.

New publication

Dead Sea Scrolls. Hon research fellow Helen R. Jacobus, "Science Fiction in the Dead Sea Scrolls: The Case of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and the Nephilim," in Fountains of Wisdom. In Conversation with James H. Charlesworth, eds. Gerbern S. Oegema, Henry W. Morisada, and Loren T. Stuckenbruck (London: T & T Clark, 2022), 455-466. She presented a paper of the same title at the Festschrift Conference for James Charlesworth, the McGill-Munich-Grinnell Conference on 40 Years of Pseudepigrapha Research, in Montreal, on April 3-5, 2022. Further information.

Research paper, Hebrew University

Dead Sea Scrolls. PhD student John Darby gave a paper entitled 'Singing, performing and Textuality in the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice', chaired by George Brooke. Zoom, 6 April 2022. Further information.

Screen and Talk

Jewish Studies. The Centre for Jewish Studies and the Department of Drama at Manchester University are pleased to announce that the next Screen & Talk event will be the streaming of ‘The Commissar’ Aleksandr Askoldov’s topical Soviet film The Commissar (1967) tells the story of a pregnant Red Army commissar, who stays with a Jewish family to give birth during the Russian civil war in Ukraine. Co-written by the Ukrainian Jewish writer Vassiliy Grossman, the film was among the rare productions of its era that featured Jewish protagonists and referenced the Holocaust in ways that subtly undermined the Soviet-state narrative of revolutionary heroism. The film and its director were immediately banned after completion and Commissar premiered internationally only at the 1988 Berlin Film Festival, when late Soviet Glasnost policies had finally enabled the film’s release. 7 April 2022, 5.45pm BST, online, register here. Further information.

MA fees bursary in Jewish Studies

Masters degree studies at the University of Manchester, 2022-23. This is a home/EU fees bursary for MA students who make Jewish Studies topics their main study focus in their MA in Religions and Theology. One bursary will be awarded on a competitive basis. There are no eligibility criteria based on nationality, but please note that the bursary is restricted to the maximum cost of UK fees. Applications to this fee bursary will be considered from the beginning of March 2022 onwards, with applications encouraged as soon as possible, and no later than 5pm on 2 May 2022. The competition involves an online application to the Religions and Theology MA programme and the MA Funding Application Form. Further information.

Old publication

Jewish Studies. Bill Williams, "Displaced Scholars: Refugees at the University of Manchester" in Melilah vol.2 (2005), 1-29. "The paper explores the responses of one institution of higher learning in Britain, the University of Manchester, to those academics and students displaced by the rise of European Fascism and particularly by the discriminatory polices of the Nazi regime. Drawing on material in the Vice Chancellor’s Archive at the University it assesses the degree to which the undoubtedly liberal intentions of the University hierarchy, which found expression in the formation of a Joint Committee of Council and Senate on Assistance to Foreign Scholars (JCAFS), were complicated by its willingness to work within the restrictions on alien immigrants imposed by the British state, by considerations of self-interest and by the innate elitism of the Manchester academy..." Further information.

Podcast, Bogdanow Lectures 2022

Holocaust Studies. The 2022 Bogdanow Lectures by Prof. Marion Kaplan (New York University) on 'Refugees and gender studies: new perspectives in Holocaust studies' are now available to view online. The lectures are entitled: (1) Hitler's Jewish Refugees: Hope and Anxiety in Portugal, 1940-1945, and (2) Gender and the Holocaust. Originally presented on 8 and 9 Feb 2022. Further information.

Podcast, Screen and Talk discussion

Jewish Studies. Podcast now available for discussion of the film 'Jacob the Liar', co-hosted by the Centre for Jewish Studies and the Department of Drama at Manchester University on 2 Feb 2022. Watch the discussion on the CJS YouTube channel. Further information.

Research Seminar

German & Jewish Studies. Dr Yael Almog (Assistant Professor in German, Durham University) ‘German/Exile: On the Jewish Longing for Europe’. German & Jewish Studies Research Seminar. Hybrid Event Samuel Alexander Building, Room A116 and on zoom 9 Mar 2022 16.30 - 18.00. Further information.

Conference Paper, Erlangen-Nürnberg

Jewish Studies. Philip Alexander and Daniel Langton have co-authored a paper on origins/creation in Judaism, focusing on Gen 1-3, for an online conference on 'The Concept of Protology in Judaism, Christianity and Islam'. Bavarian Research Center for Interreligious Discourses, Friedrich Alexander University, Erlangen-Nürnberg. This project involves a workshop paper and a book chapter in Key Concepts in Interreligious Discourses (de Gruyter). 16-17 Feb 2022. Further information.

Public Lecture

Jewish Studies. Moshe Behar continues to co-convene the annual Lecture Series (in Hebrew) of Israel's Academia4Equality Mizrahi Perspectives on the Middle East before and after 1948. On 28 November Behar delivered the year's Opening Lecture titled “Communitarianism, Liberalism, ‘Black Pantherism’, Academism, Masortism & Feminism in the Sephardi-Mizrahi Undertaking, 1897-2020.” Further information.

Bogdanow Lectures 2022

Holocaust Studies. We are delighted to announce that the Bogdanow Lectures in Holocaust Studies 2022 will be given by Prof Marion Kaplan, Skirball Professor of Modern Jewish History at NYU on the topic 'Refugees and gender studies: new perspectives in Holocaust studies'. These will be free online lectures 6pm (GMT) on Tue 8 and Wed 9 February 2022. Further information.