This month, the Institute had the pleasure of welcoming two different speakers to present talks attended by both students and members of the public.
Pamela Nadell, author of America’s Jewish Women: A History from Colonial Times to Today, spoke on Monday, September 23, about the history of Jewish women in America and their involvement in shaping modern notions of Jewish culture and in fighting for suffrage, trade unions, civil rights, and Jewish rights. Nadell highlighted the lives of particularly historically significant Jewish women over the course of America’s history, and how their Jewishness affected their lives--including poet Emma Lazarus, and justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg.
On Tuesday, September 24, the Institute hosted The Political Economy of the News Media in Israel, led by Israeli journalist and clinical professor at the University of Chicago, Guy Rolnik. Rolnik expounded on the relationship between elected politicians and the news media in Israel--and how deals are struck to give specific papers and websites an edge over their competition in exchange for positive media coverage of certain politicians. Rolnik also met with Undergraduate Israel Fellows to discuss the intersection between the economy and media in Israel.
The Institute also hosted its first Young Alumni Dinner. Prof. Rebecca Kobrin gave a lecture titled 'Forging 'The American Jewish Lobby:' Jews and the Politics of US Immigration, 1898-1965.'