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Celebrating Our 25th Year - 1984-2009
Thursday, October 8 4:15 p.m., Room 102, Maginnes Hall CANCELLED DUE TO ILLNESS --Professor Elaine Safer "Philip Roth and the Jewish Comic: While examining the ramification of the comic in the works of several Jewish writers, Professor Safer's talk will focus on Philip Roth, the author best known for the caustic humor with which he mocks our age, the Jewish community and himself. Sometimes Roth's criticism takes shape as offensive humor exaggerating the foibles and weaknesses of the Jewish community, but it also can be self-lacerating, focusing on his own psychological frailties. Roth's sense of the comic as an inherent part of American Jewish identity has been a powerful influence on the work of American Jewish writers, comedians and film directors. “Through the comic mode,” Safer says, “Roth makes us aware that we live in a bizarre cartoon world where the ludicrous and the calamitous merge, a world in which dark humor keeps reappearing and we do n't know whether to laugh or to cry.” Professor Safer is the author of Mocking the Age: The Later Novels of Philip Roth and is currently working on a new book, The Comic Imagination in Contemporary Jewish American Fiction. Sponsored by the Berman Center and the Paul Levy Fund for Jewish Studies Thursday, October 29, 7:00 p.m. Filmmaker Ari Folman introduces and discusses his film The Philip and Muriel Berman Center for Jewish Studies will screen the award-winning film Waltz with Bashir on Thursday, October 29, at 7:00 p.m. in the Main Gallery of the Zoellner Arts Center at Lehigh. The program will feature a special guest appearance by Ari Folman, who directed and produced the film, and will discuss it.
Sponsored by the Berman Center , LU Art Galleries, and the Humanities Center  Tuesday, November 10 Lecture by AMOS GIL "Mapping Jerusalem: Amos Gil, former Executive Director and founding member of Ir-Amim (“City of Peoples, City of Nations”) will conduct a virtual tour of Jerusalem, a city of two peoples and three religions, discussing its complex structure and explaining its pivotal role in achieving a political agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. Gil was the first Executive Director of Ir Amim (City of Nations or City of Peoples), an Israeli non-partisan organization focused on Jerusalem in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and working for an equitable and stable Jerusalem with an agreed-upon political future. Gil also served as the Executive Director of Congregation Beth Simchat Torah in New York City, Northeast Regional Director of Americans for Peace Now, and Executive Dirctor of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel.
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Waltz with Bashir is a provocative look at war and its effects on individuals and nations. Nominated for the 2009 Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, the film was awarded a Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Folman recounts the story of his quest to recover his repressed memories of the 1982 war, including the massacre of Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila camps by Christian Phalangists within the sight of Israeli forces. Combining dream sequences with real life events, the film imaginatively puts into question the boundaries separating illusion from reality.