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2002 Programs
Fall
2002
Friday,
September
13,
2002
New Exhibit Opening at the LBI Art Gallery:
Imprints: The Work of Diane Samuels
Ms. Samuels is the winner of the design competition for artwork to be
mounted on the main wall in the Great Hall of the Center for Jewish
History. This exhibit will feature a maquette of the prize-winning
installation as well as other examples of Ms. Samuels' work. She has
created several projects that deal with language, text and context,
using the letters of the alphabet to create alternative approaches to
communication, both between ordinary people and as a link to the Divine.
Monday,
September
30,
2002
LBI Lecture and Book Signing:
Professor Harriet
Freidenreich: "Female, Jewish and Educated"
(Indiana University Press, Fall 2002)
Until now, the lives of educated Jewish women in the interwar period
have never been systematically analyzed. Professor Freidenreich
examines the choices they made, both professional and personal, and the
influence of religion and gender on their careers. She has written a
collective biography of women who were educated beyond their time, much
to the benefit of their society and ours
Thursday,
October
10,
2002
LBI and Elysium - Between Two
Continents co-sponsor:
A literary muscial hommage
to Hans Sahl: "We are the last, ask
us, we are competent"
James Rutledge will read; John W. Simmons, Piano; Gregorij H. von
Leitis, Direction.
Sahl was a journalist, dramatist and lyricist (1902-1993) whose caustic
observations on the state of the world were both widely appreciated and
denounced during his lifetime. He fled Germany in 1933, stayed briefly
in Marseilles to help Varian Frey rescue victims of the Nazis, and
finally left on one of the last boats to New York. This presentation
will recapture some of his most creative moments.
Tuesday,
October
29,
2002
LBI Lecture and Book Signing:
Theresa Collins: "Otto
Kahn: Art, Money, and Modern Time"
(University of North Carolina Press, 2002)
German Jews have always been thought of as patrons of the arts, but
mainly in Germany, not in the US. Otto Kahn changed all that. He was a
German Jew who helped turn New York City into a world capital of
culture, championing the civic virtues of art to a public that had not
enjoyed much exposure to the finer things. This wonderful story of a
banker/philanthropist captures his place at the crossroads of
capitalism and culture, even at a time when antisemitism was still
quite fashionable.
Thursday,
November 7,
2002
LBI Lecture:
Amos Elon: "The Pity of it
All: A History of the Jews in
Germany, 1743-1933"
(Metropolitan Books, November 2002)
The internationally acclaimed historian and social critic Amos Elon
traces the development of German Jews from the mid-eighteenth century
to the eve of the Third Reich. He shows how a persecuted clan of cattle
dealers and wandering peddlers was transformed into a stunningly
successful community -- so successful that they came to be perceived as
a deadly threat to the nation. The dream of integration and tolerance
that almost came true is told by Elon through biography, geography,
cultural and social history. Despite their fate, Elon regards the
plight of the Jews in Germany as the essential, ennobling project of
modernity.
Monday,
November
18,
2002
New Exhibit at the LBI Art Gallery:
Leo Baeck: Theologian,
Scholar, Teacher
The life of Leo Baeck (1873-1956) has been documented several times
through biographies, writings, and letters. But it is in his capacity
as the last leader of a united German Jewry during the Nazi years, and
in his unswerving commitment fo serving that community's organizational
and spiritual needs, that we honor him in this exhibit.
Rabbi Baeck became a symbolic figure for German Jews -- a leader whose
moral strength remained steadfast even throughout the darkest years,
and whose "Germanness" and "Jewishness" were never at odds. When the
LBI was established in 1955, the founders named it in his honor and he
became its first president.
Wednesday,
November 20,
2002 (by invitation only)
8th Annual Leo Baeck
Institute Dinner
Harmonie Club, New York City
This year, the Leo Baeck Institute is privileged to honor Dr.
Ruth
Westheimer with the Leo Baeck
Medal. The medal will be awarded by Professor
Ismar Schorsch and Mr.
Shimon Stein, Ambassador of
Israel
to the Federal Republic of Germany.
Sunday, November
24,
2002
LBI and Hebrew Union College,
School of Sacred Music co-sponsor:
A conference and concert:
"Building Sacred Music: Celebrating
the Legacy of Erich Werner (1901-1988)
To be held at HUC. Details to be announced.
Tuesday,
December
3,
2002
Leo Baeck Memorial Lecture No. 46:
Professor Elisheva
Carlebach: "Divided Souls: Converts in the
Culture of Ashkenaz, 1500-1800"
What did it mean for a Jew to convert to Christianity in early modern
Europe? In Germany, it generally meant profound unease and discomfort.
The indeterminate status of Jews who converted, who retained elements
of their Jewishness while not accepted as true Christians, resulted in
a figure that was often considered, at least from the Christian
perspective, a counterfeit human being. The collective historical
influence of the converts was complex and enduring since they did not
simply disappear within the majority. Rather, they became the first
German Jews to experience the consequences of a dual identity, and the
first to demonstrate that leaving Judaism for Christianity was never a
simple transformation. Christians accepted them as baptized but not
truly converted
Thursday,
January
9,
2003
Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg and
Professor Ernestine Schlant Bradley
This evening will offer an animated conversation between Rabbi
Hertzberg, author of the brand new "A Jew in America" (Harper Collins,
2002), and Professor Bradley, who brings a quite different perspective
to American Jewry as a German-born not-Jewish scholar of postwar
Holocaust literature.
Rabbi Hertzberg has a long and illustrious career as a scholar,
policymaker, rabbi, and activist. The constant in his many roles is his
commitment to his religion and principles, which he was able to
maintain without any ambivalence about patriotism for his country.
Professor Bradley's incisive observation as an "outsider" will add a
dimension of inquiry not possible from a simple lecture, even by such a
provocative speaker as Dr. Hertzberg.
Wednesday,
January 22,
2003
LBI Lecture:
Professor James Young
Professor Young is the chairman of the Department of Judaic and Near
Eastern Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. The most
recent of his books "At Memory's Edge" tell the highly complex and
controversial story of designing the Holocaust memorial for Germany. He
looks into the moral and esthetic questions surrounding artistic
representations of the Holocaust, especially by young artists who did
not experience it. Primarily, Young examines the nature and meaning of
memory -- what it includes, how it is used, what it represents.
Spring
2002
Tuesday,
January
8,
2002
Lawrence
Douglas,
professor in the department of law, jurisprudence, and social thought
at Amherst College, will speak on his book, The
Memory of
Judgment: Making Law and History in the Trials of the Holocaust,
a fascinating analysis of how the law responded to crimes committed
during the Holocaust. His study explores five exemplary cases--the
Nuremburg trial of the major war criminals, the Israeli trials of Adolf
Eichmann and John Demjanjuk, the French trial of Klaus Barbie, and the
trial of Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel in Canada. After World War II,
prosecutors and jurors alike were confronted with the enormous task of
submitting unprecedented war crimes to legal judgment. Professor
Douglas demonstrates the difficulties in balancing the interests of
both justice and history, and shows how these trials changed our
understanding of the Holocaust as well as of the legal process.
Thursday,
January
17,
2002
Martin
Goldsmith,
music producer and director, and former host of NPR's 'Performance
Today,' will speak on his book, The
Inextinguishable Symphony: A
True Story of Music and Love in Nazi Germany,
which tells the
little-known story of the Juedische
Kulturbund (Jewish Culture
Association), founded in 1933 after thousands of Jewish artists lost
their positions in cultural institutions throughout Germany. Its
mission was to organize lectures, concerts, operas, and other artistic
productions for Jews, who were excluded from attending regular artistic
perfomances. While creating employment for countless artists, the Kulturbund also provided the Nazis with a propaganda tool to illustrate to the
world how well Jews were being treated under the Third Reich. The
Inextinguishable Symphony also
tells the story of Goldsmith's
parents, Gunther and Rosemarie, musicians who fell in love after
working in the Frankfurt Kulturbund orchestra. Their tale
attests to the resilience of the human spirit in the face of terror and
persecution--a story of the power of music and love.
Thursday,
February 21,
2002
The Leo
Baeck
Institute and Elysium--Between
Two Continents present
Hatikwo-Hoffnung-Nadeje-Speranza-Hope:
Viktor Ullmann's Legacy from Theresienstadt
"We
did not sit
weeping by the rivers of Babylon; our passion for the arts was as
strong as our will to live." The composer Viktor Ullmann wrote these
words in Theresienstadt in 1943. He was determined to be creative
despite degrading living conditions, despite hunger, pain, terror, and
death.
This
concert
presents
songs for soprano and piano by Viktor Ullmann and Pavel Haas, as well
as "The Lay of Love and Death of the Cornet Christoph Rilke" for
recitation and piano, Ullmann's last work.
Introduction,
"Music
from Theresienstadt": Michael Lahr
Soprano: Jeannie Im
Recitation: Gregorij H. von Lëitnis
Piano: John W. Simmons
Tickets
are
necessary: $20 general
admission; $15 for members, students, and
senior citizens
For advance sales call the Center for Jewish History's Box Office:
917-606-8200
Monday,
March 11,
2002
The Leo
Baeck
Institute and Elysium--Between
Two Continents present Resistance
of the Heart,
a performance of Nathan Stoltzfus's acclaimed book, Resistance
of
the Heart: Intermarriage and the Rosenstrasse Protest in Nazi Germany (New York: W.W. Norton, 1996). Presented for the first time in America,
after a highly successful run in Europe, the performance will feature
an introduction to the story by Elysium's
Michael Lahr, a
dramatic reading from the book, and a discussion and question period
with the author.
Wednesday,
April
10
An Era of Ambiguity: Jewish Involvement in Weimar Culture
LBI Conference at LBI Archives, Jewish Museum Berlin
This day-long LBI seminar will offer insights into Jewish involvement
in the arts and science, religion, culture and politics - and consider
the extent to which this participation was always more marginal than it
seemed. Among the speakers will be Fritz Stern, Ernst Cramer, David
Clay Large and Ismar Schorsch.
Tuesday,
April 16
The History of Reparations
Menachem Rosensaft, director and editor-in chief of the Holocaust
Survivors’ Memoirs project under the aegis of the World
Jewish
Congress.
This is the most recent serious analysis of the origin of reparations,
whereby Germany acknowledged its responsibility for Nazism against the
Jewish people. Menachem Rosensaft is a highly respected lawyer and a
well known activist in protecting the interests of survivors and their
children. His father was one of the key figures in the dialogue leading
to reparations.
Wednesday, April
24
Shellshock, Memory and
Identity in the First World War
Jay Winter, Professor of History, Yale University
The title of Dr. Winter’s talk is taken from George
Mosse’s
last writing, where he attempted to show how European thoughts on
madness were transformed as a result of the Great War. For most of the
rest of the 20th century, the debate on the nature and treatment of
mental illness has continued to rage on, unresolved.
Professor Winter is another star protégé of Dr.
Mosse,
having distinguished himself as one of the foremost scholars on World
War I. His analysis of this profoundly significant aspect of the
fighting is vintage Mosse.
Wednesday,
May 8
Hitler’s Jewish Soldiers
Bryan Mark Rigg, Professor of History, American Military University,
Manassas, Virginia
Bryan Mark reveals that a startlingly large number of German military
men were classified by the Nazis as Jews or "partial-Jews"
(Mischlinge), in the wake of racial laws first enacted in the
mid-1930s. Rigg demonstrates that the actual number was much higher
than previously thought.
Wednesday,
May 15
Annual Conference of the
Martin Buber Forum, co-sponsored
by
the Leo Baeck Institute, will analyze the endlessly fascinating aspects
of Buber’s philosophy and his life. The conference will
feature
study groups where each “circle” will center on a
topic
moderated by an expert, and end with a panel discussion by the group
leaders.
Thursday,
May 23
Persecuting Grandfathers, Interviewing Grandsons?
Austrian Gedenkdienst in New York
This
exhibition
is
co-sponsored by the Jewish Museum, Vienna, and the Leo Baeck Institute,
NY. This exhibit will focus on the Jewish émigrés in Greater New York who were formerly citizens of pre-war Austria.
Wednesday,
June 19
Sheila Isenberg, journalist and
author of numerous books, will
speak on her most recent publication, "A
Hero of Our Own: The Story
of Varian Fry" (Random House,
2001). In 1940, this young
Harvard-educated American arrived in Marseille with a list of artists
and intellectuals who had fled Nazi Germany and were trapped in the
southern, still unoccupied, part of France. With his Emergency Rescue
Committee, Fry rescued Marc Chagall, Max Ernst, Hannah Arendt, and
others, many of them Jews, whom the Nazis labeled as 'degenerate'. During one year
in wartime France
he literally saved hundreds of lives.
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