1. 29 Apr


    The Reconstruction of Jewish Synagogues in Kerala, South India Dr. Shalva Weil, Hebrew University of Jerusalem Friday May 03, 2013 12:00 PM The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life, 2121 Allston Way, Berkeley   The Paradesi synagogue, constructed 1568, is the most famous synagogue in Asia. Its Chinese willow tiles have inspired Salman Rushdie to fantasize about the relations and inter-relations of different peoples in Cochin (Kochi). Today, there is not even a quorum (minyan) at the famous Paradesi synagogue. Until recently, the synagogues of the Malabar Jews (once known as the “Black” Jews) were unknown to most people. However, in 2006, the Chennamangalam synagogue in a beautiful verdant village, was reconstructed by the Kerala government and inaugurated with an exhibition on the Cochin Jews in Cochin and Israel. Today, the synagogue at Parur is being reconstructed as part of the Muziris Heritage Project, which includes a huge archaeological excavation at Pattanam. Other synagogues at Mala and in Ernakulam may follow. This illustrated lecture will document the reconstruction of Cochin Jewish synagogues in Kerala and the impact this is having on the Cochin Jews in Israel. Shalva Weil is senior researcher at the NCJW Research Institute for Innovation in Education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, specializing in Ethiopian and Indian Jews and other ethnic groups. Dr. Weil has specialized in research on the Jews of India for 40 years, including three years fieldwork with the Bene Israel Indian Jews in Israel. Her publications include 80 scientific articles on the Bene Israel, an edited volume on Cochin Jews, essays on the Baghdadi Jews, and papers on the Shinlung (“Bnei Menasseh”) in Mizoram and Manipur, and the Jews of Pakistan. She is editor (with Prof. David Shulman) of Karmic Passages: Israeli Scholarship on India (Oxford University Press, New Delhi,2009), editor of India’s Jewish Heritage: Ritual, Art, and Life-Cycle (Marg 2002; 2nd edition 2004; 3rd edition 2009), and co-editor of Indo-Judaic Studies in the Twenty-First Century: A Perspective from the Margin (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2007); she is also the author of Roots and Routes: Ethnicity and Migration in Global Perspective (Magnes Press, 1999).

    The Reconstruction of Jewish Synagogues in Kerala, South India


    Dr. Shalva Weil, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
    Friday May 03, 2013 12:00 PM
    The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life, 2121 Allston Way, Berkeley
     

    The Paradesi synagogue, constructed 1568, is the most famous synagogue in Asia. Its Chinese willow tiles have inspired Salman Rushdie to fantasize about the relations and inter-relations of different peoples in Cochin (Kochi). Today, there is not even a quorum (minyan) at the famous Paradesi synagogue. Until recently, the synagogues of the Malabar Jews (once known as the “Black” Jews) were unknown to most people. However, in 2006, the Chennamangalam synagogue in a beautiful verdant village, was reconstructed by the Kerala government and inaugurated with an exhibition on the Cochin Jews in Cochin and Israel. Today, the synagogue at Parur is being reconstructed as part of the Muziris Heritage Project, which includes a huge archaeological excavation at Pattanam. Other synagogues at Mala and in Ernakulam may follow. This illustrated lecture will document the reconstruction of Cochin Jewish synagogues in Kerala and the impact this is having on the Cochin Jews in Israel.

    Shalva Weil is senior researcher at the NCJW Research Institute for Innovation in Education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, specializing in Ethiopian and Indian Jews and other ethnic groups. Dr. Weil has specialized in research on the Jews of India for 40 years, including three years fieldwork with the Bene Israel Indian Jews in Israel. Her publications include 80 scientific articles on the Bene Israel, an edited volume on Cochin Jews, essays on the Baghdadi Jews, and papers on the Shinlung (“Bnei Menasseh”) in Mizoram and Manipur, and the Jews of Pakistan. She is editor (with Prof. David Shulman) of Karmic Passages: Israeli Scholarship on India (Oxford University Press, New Delhi,2009), editor of India’s Jewish Heritage: Ritual, Art, and Life-Cycle (Marg 2002; 2nd edition 2004; 3rd edition 2009), and co-editor of Indo-Judaic Studies in the Twenty-First Century: A Perspective from the Margin (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2007); she is also the author of Roots and Routes: Ethnicity and Migration in Global Perspective (Magnes Press, 1999).

     

  2. 18 Apr


    Ethnography and The “Cochin Jews” of Kerala: Insights from Fieldwork in India and Israel, 1972-2012 Barbara C. Johnson, Emerita Professor of Anthropology, Ithaca CollegeTuesday April 23, 2013 12:00 PM The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life, 2121 Allston Way, Berkeley After introducing the Kerala Jews, their history and culture in South India for more than a millennium, and their community life since migrating to Israel, Johnson will offer a few highlights from her research and her own ethnographic practice over the past 40 years.Topics include collaborative research, changing views of gender and caste, and the joys of research on their vernacular women’s folk songs. About Barbara Johnson, Emerita Professor of Anthropology, Ithaca College Upon completing her B.A. in history at Oberlin College, Barbara Johnson lived and taught in South India for four years duringthe 1960s, before beginning academic research on the Kerala Jews leading to her M.A. in religion (Smith College) and Ph.D.inanthropology (University of Massachusetts). Since 1972 shehas made six trips back to India and twenty to Israel (including two years of residence) for ethnographic fieldwork with their community in both places. Johnson’s publications include Oh Lovely Parrot!: Jewish Women’s Songs from Kerala (Book & CD: Jewish Music Research Center, Jersualem, 2004);Ruby of Cochin: An Indian Jewish Woman Remembers (co-authored with Ruby Daniel:Jewish Publication Society, 1995); and many scholarly articles. She is currently a Visiting Scholar in the South Asia Program at Cornell University.

    Ethnography and The “Cochin Jews” of Kerala: Insights from Fieldwork in India and Israel, 1972-2012

    Barbara C. Johnson, Emerita Professor of Anthropology, Ithaca College
    Tuesday April 23, 2013 12:00 PM 
    The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life, 2121 Allston Way, Berkeley

    After introducing the Kerala Jews, their history and culture in South India for more than a millennium, and their community life since migrating to Israel, Johnson will offer a few highlights from her research and her own ethnographic practice over the past 40 years.Topics include collaborative research, changing views of gender and caste, and the joys of research on their vernacular women’s folk songs.

    About Barbara Johnson, Emerita Professor of Anthropology, Ithaca College

    Upon completing her B.A. in history at Oberlin College, Barbara Johnson lived and taught in South India for four years duringthe 1960s, before beginning academic research on the Kerala Jews leading to her M.A. in religion (Smith College) and Ph.D.inanthropology (University of Massachusetts). Since 1972 shehas made six trips back to India and twenty to Israel (including two years of residence) for ethnographic fieldwork with their community in both places. Johnson’s publications include Oh Lovely Parrot!: Jewish Women’s Songs from Kerala (Book & CD: Jewish Music Research Center, Jersualem, 2004);Ruby of Cochin: An Indian Jewish Woman Remembers (co-authored with Ruby Daniel:Jewish Publication Society, 1995); and many scholarly articles. She is currently a Visiting Scholar in the South Asia Program at Cornell University.

     

  3. 5 Apr



    THE MOTHER TONGUE IN THE UTTERMOST WEST: YIDDISH-LANGUAGE PRINT MATERIALS IN THE MAGNES COLLECTION

    BANCROFT ROUNDTABLE

    April 18, Lewis Latimer Room, Faculty Club  12PM
    University of California, Berkeley 

    Led by Eli Rosenblatt, Ph.D. candidate in the UC Berkeley Jewish Studies Program and Curatorial Intern at The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life

    A talk exploring the collection of Yiddish-language print materials published in California that is housed at Magnes. The collection includes a wide variety of novels, poetry collections, pamphlets, literary journals, and rabbinic commentaries published by Eastern European Jews who settled on the California coast between 1881 and 1924. The modernist literature contained in the collection and the Californian Yiddish literary circles it represents help us grasp the global dimensions of Yiddish literary movements. They offer a unique vantage point from which to discuss the circulation of Ashkenazi Jewish culture between its heartland in Slavic Europe and the Americas, Southern Africa, the Middle East, and Western Europe.

     

  4. 5 Apr


    SAVED BY THE BAY: Refugees from Fascist Europe at UC Berkeley UC Berkeley faculty, curators, graduate and undergraduate students and members of the community discuss the history of the intellectual migration from Europe to Berkeley in the 20th century. The program will follow the innovative unconference format: a participant-driven meeting in which the agenda is created by the attendees at the start of the event.  During the Spring Semester 2013, faculty, curators and students interviewed current and Emeriti UC Berkeley faculty and conducted research in the University Archives of The Bancroft Library, unearthing hundreds of primary sources documenting the lives of a group of intellectuals who came to Berkeley as refugees from European fascism. These individuals contributed much to the academic life of our University, becoming world-renown leaders in all fields of scholarship. The research constitutes the basis for an exhibition that will be presented at The Magnes in 2014 (the 75th anniversary of the beginning of the Second World War). THURSDAY, APRIL 25, 2013  5-8PM

    SAVED BY THE BAY: Refugees from Fascist Europe at UC Berkeley

    UC Berkeley faculty, curators, graduate and undergraduate students and members of the community discuss the history of the intellectual migration from Europe to Berkeley in the 20th century. The program will follow the innovative unconference format: a participant-driven meeting in which the agenda is created by the attendees at the start of the event. 

    During the Spring Semester 2013, faculty, curators and students interviewed current and Emeriti UC Berkeley faculty and conducted research in the University Archives of The Bancroft Library, unearthing hundreds of primary sources documenting the lives of a group of intellectuals who came to Berkeley as refugees from European fascism. These individuals contributed much to the academic life of our University, becoming world-renown leaders in all fields of scholarship. The research constitutes the basis for an exhibition that will be presented at The Magnes in 2014 (the 75th anniversary of the beginning of the Second World War).

    THURSDAY, APRIL 25, 2013  5-8PM

     

  5. 5 Apr



    Next Meeting (April 10, 2013): Exhibition Plans

    The next meeting of Townsend Center Working Group on Modern Jewish Culture is scheduled for Wednesday, April 10, from 4-6 pm at The Magnes.

    In the course of the meeting, Alla Efimova, Francesco Spagnolo and Daniel Viragh will be introducing next year’s exhibition plan, which includes three distinct projects

    • Jewish Life in Kerala (India)
    • UC Berkeley faculty that were refugees from Fascist Europe  
    • Jewish Worlds, a comprehensive collection-based exhibition (and catalog) on the relationship between Diaspora, art and material culture.

    Also, please note that there are two presentations coming up (April 18 and April 25), led by group participants Eli Rosenblatt (Jewish Studies) and Daniel Viragh (History): 

    THE MOTHER TONGUE IN THE UTTERMOST WEST: YIDDISH-LANGUAGE PRINT MATERIALS IN THE MAGNES COLLECTION
    BANCROFT ROUNDTABLE - April 18, Lewis Latimer Room, Faculty Club  12PM

    Led by Eli Rosenblatt, Ph.D. candidate in the UC Berkeley Jewish Studies Program and Curatorial Intern at The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life
    A talk exploring the collection of Yiddish-language print materials published in California that is housed at Magnes. The collection includes a wide variety of novels, poetry collections, pamphlets, literary journals, and rabbinic commentaries published by Eastern European Jews who settled on the California coast between 1881 and 1924. The modernist literature contained in the collection and the Californian Yiddish literary circles it represents help us grasp the global dimensions of Yiddish literary movements. They offer a unique vantage point from which to discuss the circulation of Ashkenazi Jewish culture between its heartland in Slavic Europe and the Americas, Southern Africa, the Middle East, and Western Europe.

    and

    SAVED BY THE BAY: Refugees from Fascist Europe at UC Berkeley
    Thursday, April 25, 5-8 PM at The Magnes

    UC Berkeley faculty, curators, graduate and undergraduate students and members of the community discuss the history of the intellectual migration from Europe to Berkeley in the 20th century. The program will follow the innovative unconference format: a participant-driven meeting in which the agenda is created by the attendees at the start of the event.
    During the Spring Semester 2013, faculty, curators and students interviewed current and Emeriti UC Berkeley faculty and conducted research in the University Archives of The Bancroft Library, unearthing hundreds of primary sources documenting the lives of a group of intellectuals who came to Berkeley as refugees from European fascism. These individuals contributed much to the academic life of our University, becoming world-renown leaders in all fields of scholarship. The research constitutes the basis for an exhibition that will be presented at The Magnes in 2014 (the 75th anniversary of the beginning of the Second World War).

     

  6. 11 Mar



    Operetta [Yiddish Theater], The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe

    Note how Grove Music Online (aka the Grove Dictionary of Music) defines “operetta”:

    Operetta

    (It.: diminutive of ‘opera’; Fr. opérette; Ger. Operette; Sp. opereta).

    A light opera with spoken dialogue, songs and dances. Emphasizing music rich in melody and based on 19th-century operatic styles, the form flourished during the second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th. During the 20th century it evolved into and was largely superseded by the Musical comedy. The term ‘operetta’ was originally applied in a more general way to describe works that were short, or otherwise less ambitious, derivatives of opera.

    […]

    As a specific artistic form, what we now regard as operetta evolved in Paris in the 1850s as an antidote to the increasingly serious and ambitious pretensions of the opéra comique and vaudeville. It was to fill this gap that various attempts were made to establish a home for short, lighthearted operatic-style works. The particular success of Jacques Offenbach and his company at the Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens, offering programmes of two or three satirical one-act sketches, was such that it led to the extension of the format into works of a whole evening’s duration and to the establishment of opéra bouffe as a separately identifiable form of full-length entertainment.

    Andrew Lamb. “Operetta.” Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press. Web. 11 Mar. 2013. <http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/20386>.

     

  7. 7 Mar



    Between Performance and Teaching: Conversation with Prof. Mark Slobin (Wed. March 13, 4-6pm)

    Following his lecture (Tuesday, March 12, 5:30 PM), Prof. Mark Slobin will be meeting with the Townsend Center Working Group on Modern Jewish Culture on Wednesday, March 13, 4-6pm.

    A professor of Music and American Studies at Wesleyan University, Mark Slobin is one of the most distinguished ethnomusicologists working today. He is author of the award-winning book Fiddler on the Move: Exploring the Klezmer World (Oxford, 2001) where he uncovers the intimate connection between style and stereotype in the representation of musical practice among Jewish immigrants.

    In the course of this meeting, Prof. Slobin will use his play, Mogulesco: A Tale of the Yiddish Theater, explaining how one can move from academic to creative work as a research and teaching method.

     

  8. 7 Mar



    A Sweet Diaspora Song. Paths of Jewish Music in America. Performance by Michael Alpert in conversation with Francesco Spagnolo

    Part of the Berkeley Seminars in Modern Jewish Culture, a performance by Michael Alpert in conversation with Francesco Spagnolo will follow Mark Slobin’s lecture at The Magnes on Tuesday, March 12, 2013.

    Presented in association with the 28th Jewish Music Festival, this performance by Michael Alpert, instrumentalist, singer, dancer, composer, songwriter and ethnographer, will thrill music lovers of all stripes.

    Alpert is one of the leading figures in the world scene of Jewish music, and in this performance-conversation with musicologist and The Magnes curator Francesco Spagnolo, he will retrace the salient moments of his musical path, including Yiddish culture in California, the rise of Klezmer music since the 1970s, the collaboration with violinist Itzhak Perlman, the immigration of Soviet Jews to America, and the resurgence of Jewish culture in Eastern Europe.

     

  9. 7 Mar



    Immigrants, Cantors, and Klezmers: Lecture by Mark Slobin

    Part of the Berkeley Seminars in Modern Jewish Culture, a lecture by Professor Mark Slobin.

    A professor of Music and American Studies at Wesleyan University, Mark Slobin is one of the most distinguished ethnomusicologists working today. He is author of the award-winning book Fiddler on the Move: Exploring the Klezmer World (Oxford, 2001) where he uncovers the intimate connection between style and stereotype in the representation of musical practice among Jewish immigrants. Closing Program for the 28th Jewish Music Festival. Free admission. Followed by reception.

     

  10. 7 Feb



    Purim: A Diaspora Story in Jewish Art and Folklore. Lecture by Prof. Shalom Sabar

    In conjunction with the opening of the exhibition, Case Study No. 3 | Sound Objects, The Magnes presents a lecture by Shalom Sabar (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem).

    Though a minor holiday in the Jewish year cycle, the Purim festival and the Book of Esther assumed unusual significance for the Jews living as a religious minority, whether in Christian Europe or the Islamic East. The amazing story of deliverance with its intricate plot and many unexpected twists has been imbued over the centuries with commentaries and deep meanings that made it extremely relevant to Jewish audiences in various parts of the Diaspora. The contemporaneous meaning and relevance of the holiday is best reflected in visual materials created especially for the holiday - illuminated Hebrew manuscripts and Esther scrolls, joyful folk customs and curious objects of material culture, and even a most dramatic and exceptional synagogue wall painting created more than 1750 years ago.

    Shalom Sabar (Zakho, Iraq, 1951) is a professor of Jewish art and folklore at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He studied art history at The Hebrew University and received his PhD from UCLA in 1987. His research combines the disciplines of art history, Jewish history, and folklore. He is the author of Ketubbah: Jewish Marriage Contracts (1990); Mazal Tov: Illuminated Jewish Marriage Contracts from the Israel Museum Collection, (1994); Jerusalem - Stone and Spirit: 3000 Years of History and Art (with Dan Bahat; 1997); The Life Cycle of the Jews in Islamic Lands (2006). Prof. Sabar serves on the editorial board of the Ben Zvi Institute in Jerusalem, which publishes the periodical Pe’amim and a 20-volume richly illustrated series both devoted to the Jewish communities in the lands of Islam.