Join the Institute on Thursday, November 14th, at 12:00 PM for a hybrid lecture with Benjamin Berman-Gladstone, the Warren and Susan Stern Postdoctoral Fellow in Jewish Thought at Columbia University. You may attend in-person at 617 Kent Hall or virtually via Zoom. Register using the appropriate link below. Please note that registration for in-person attendance will close on Wednesday, November 13 at 3:00 p.m.

“Zionism” is often defined in a vacuum, sometimes (especially by its advocates) as a national liberation movement, and sometimes (especially by its opponents) as a colonial plot. In this lecture, Dr. Gladstone will argue for a history of Zionism not as an abstraction but as a social and intellectual movement embedded in myriad cultural and political contexts across Southwest Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas. Zionist thought has rarely been reducible to a concrete/static set of principles. Rather, it has operated as a network of overlapping institutions and initiatives or as a space of contestation over issues like labor, gender, culture, and colonialism. By understanding the fragmented and complex development of Zionism across the Jewish world before and since 1948, we can better understand not only its roles in Jewish history but also its manifestations inside and outside Israeli society today.

Benjamin Berman-Gladstone (B.A. Brown University; Ph.D. New York University) is the Warren and Susan Stern Postdoctoral Fellow in Jewish Thought at Columbia University. He was previously a Fulbright Research Fellow in Israel and a Wexner Graduate Fellow. He specializes in Middle Eastern Zionist thought, Middle Eastern Jewish migration history, and Adeni history. His dissertation, completed in 2024, focused on colonialism and resistance in the Aden protectorates, Adeni Jewish political activism and migration from Aden and Yemen to Israel, and enslavement and the slave trade in the Eastern Aden Protectorate (in its Red Sea and Indian Ocean contexts) in the 1930s and 1940s.

This event was made possible by the generosity of Warren and Susan Stern and the Kaye family.

While all IIJS events are free and open to the public, we do encourage a suggested donation of $10.

Join the Institute virtually on Zoom on Thursday, September 12, at 12:00 PM for a webinar with Fabio Fantuzzi, Marie Skłodowska Curie Fellow at Columbia University and Ca’ Foscari University. Dr. Fantuzzi’s lecture is titled “Norman Raeben: The Wandering Art, A cultural and artistic itinerary from Sholem Aleichem to Bob Dylan.”

Many scholars have underscored the great relevance of artist Norman Raeben’s figure, particularly for his influence on Stella Adler and Bob Dylan’s careers. Yet, due to the scarcity of studies about his oeuvre, his profound impact on prominent Jewish artists and cultural circles in the United States remains largely unknown. Even forty-six years after his death, most of the works and writings of Sholem Aleichem’s last son have yet to be unveiled to the public. The EU-funded POYESIS project, a joint postdoctoral research fellowship between Ca’ Foscari University and Columbia University, is set to illuminate his art, ideas, and legacy, creating a retrospective exhibition of his works, which will open at the Jewish Museum in Venice on November 10, 2024, and providing the first comprehensive catalog of his works. 

In this seminar, Marie Skłodowska Curie Fellow Fabio Fantuzzi will discuss the project’s findings with Professor Jeremy Dauber, commenting on various never-before-seen materials. They will also delve into how Raeben’s art and teaching activity impacted first-, second-, and third-generation Jewish American artists like Stella Adler, Bob Dylan, and Roz Jacobs, offering a unique opportunity to gain deeper insights into the careers of these leading artists and intellectuals.

Fabio Fantuzzi is a Marie Skłodowska Curie Fellow at Columbia University and Ca’ Foscari University, working on the EU-funded MSC project POYESIS (Perspectives on Yiddish Cultural Evolution and Its Legacy: Visual Arts, Theatre, and Songwriting Between Assimilation and Identity. A Case Study).

He holds a Ph.D. in Anglo-American Literature, Culture, and Language, and his primary research interests are the intersections between poetry, music, and visual arts in the American Jewish and Italian American literary and artistic traditions. He has published articles and essays in several academic journals, edited the volume Tales of Unfulfilled Times (Ca’ Foscari University Press, 2017), and co-edited the book Bob Dylan and the Arts: Songs, Film, Painting, and Sculpture in Dylan’s Universe (Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2020). His current research studies the work and teachings of artist Norman Raeben and his influence on various leading artists as a case to examine the evolution of Yiddish culture and art in New York in the 20th century. As part of this research, he is curating a retrospective exhibition of Norman Raeben’s works, which will open at the Jewish Museum in Venice on November 10, 2024, and is editing the catalog of his works.

As a multi-instrumentalist and a songwriter, together with the band Le Ombre di Rosso, he has published the albums “Momenti di lucidità” (2016) and “Da Sponda a Sponda” (2021), which puts to music Luciano Cecchinel’s homonymous collection of poems, which was awarded the 2020 Viareggio-Repaci Prize for Poetry.

Supported by the generosity of the Appel and Kaye families.

While all IIJS events are free and open to the public, we do encourage a suggested donation of $10.

The IIJS Summer Film Series begins this year with “Matchmaking,” the Israeli hit from director and co-writer Erez Tadmor. Join us online on Monday, June 17, at 12:00 PM for a virtual Q&A with the filmmaker and IIJS Film Series Coordinator Stuart Weinstock.

A box office hit in Israel and on the Jewish film festival circuit, Matchmaking tells the comic story of Moti Bernstein, the ideal yeshiva bucher and the perfect match for any Haredi Orthodox bride-to-be. While Moti seems to be on a path towards marriage with an exceptional match, his Ashkenazi world is thrown into turmoil when he falls in love with Nechama, a Mizrahi girl. When the matchmakers of his Haredi community refuse to pair him with Nechama, Moti seeks an unconventional solution to bridge the social gap between them.  (98 minutes; Hebrew with English subtitles)

Please register for the event below. You will receive an email with a link to watch the film at home on Friday, June 14th. This link will only be available until Monday, June 17th at 11:59pm EDT.

We will be hosting a Zoom Q&A session on Monday, June 17th at 12:00pm EDT with director and co-writer Erez Tadmor. You will receive a separate email with the Zoom link for the Q&A before the event.

Please email iijs@columbia.edu with any questions.

Erez Tadmor is an Israeli-born filmmaker working across genre lines with diverse short and feature-length films. His internationally-acclaimed films include: A Matter of Size (2009), Magic Men (2014), the Ophir-Award-winning Wounded Land (2015), The Art of Waiting (2019), and Children of Nobody (2022). His 2004 short film, Strangers, won the Audience Award for Short Films at the Sundance Film Festival.

Supported by the generosity of the Appel and Kaye families.

While all IIJS events are free and open to the public, we do encourage a suggested donation of $10.