Academic Affairs

Harry Spindel Memorial Lectureship

Established in 1977 by the gift of Rosalyne Spindel Bernstein, Honorary 1997, and Sumner Thurman Bernstein in memory of her father, Harry Spindel, as a lasting testimony to his lifelong devotion to Jewish Learning, this fund is used to support annual lectures in Judaic studies or contemporary Jewish affairs. The fund has celebrated Jewish culture and identity through lectures, music, photography, and film.

Current lecture co-chairs: David Israel & Jennifer Kosak

April 11, 2013
Becoming a Jewish Writer
Allegra Goodman, author.

7:30 p.m. Lecture:  Kresge Auditorium, Visual Arts Center

Allegra Goodman is the author of Intuition, Paradise Park, Kaaterskill Falls, The Family Markowitz, and Total Immersion. The Other Side of the Island is her first book for younger readers . Her fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Commentary, and Ploughshares, Prize Stories: the O. Henry Awards and Best American Short Stories . Her essays and reviews have appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The New Republic, The Boston Globe, and The American Scholar.

Raised in Honolulu, Goodman studied English and philosophy at Harvard and received a PhD in English literature from Stanford. She is the recipient of a Whiting Writer's Award, the Salon Award for Fiction, and a fellowship from the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced study.

April 17, 2012
The Poetry of Kabbalah, The Kabbalah of Poetry: Ruminations and a Reading
Peter Cole, visiting fellow at Yale University, Judaic Studies Program.

7:30 p.m. Lecture:  Kresge Auditorium, Visual Arts Center

Peter Cole is a poet and translator of poetry and prose from Hebrew and Arabic whose work has received much recognition, including a MacArthur Fellowship.  His familiarity with the contemporary Middle East and intimacy with medieval Hebrew come together in his recent book  (co-authored with Adina Hoffman): Sacred Trash: The Lost and Found World of the Cairo Geniza.   

March 29, 2011
That Obnoxious Order: Ulysses S. Grant and the Jews
Jonathan D. Sarna, Joseph H. and Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History, Brandeis University, and chief historian, the new National Museum of  American Jewish History
7:30 p.m. Lecture:  Kresge Auditorium, Visual Arts Center

On December 17, 1862, as the Civil War entered its second winter, General Ulysses S. Grant issued a sweeping order, General Orders #11, expelling “Jews as a class” from his war zone. It remains the most notorious anti-Jewish official order in American history. The order came back to haunt Grant in 1868 when he ran for president. Never before had Jews been so widely noticed in a presidential contest, and never before had they been confronted so publicly with the question of how to balance their “American” and “Jewish” interests. During his two terms in the White House, the memory of the “obnoxious order” shaped Grant’s relationship with the American Jewish community. Surprisingly, he did more for Jews than any other president to his time. How this happened, and why, sheds new light on one of our most enigmatic presidents, on the Jews of his day, and on America itself.

March 9, 2010
Jews as Global Citizens: Our Responsibility in the World
Ruth W. Messinger, president of American Jewish World Service (AJWS), a faith-based international human rights organization that works to alleviate poverty, hunger and disease in the developing world. In addition to its grantmaking to over 400 grassroots projects around the world, AJWS works within the American Jewish community to promote global citizenship and social justice through activism, volunteer service and education. Ms. Messinger assumed this role in 1998 following a 20-year career in public service in New York City, where she served for 12 years on the New York City Council and 8 as Manhattan borough president. She was the first woman to secure the Democratic Party’s nomination for mayor in 1997. Ms. Messinger is continuing her lifelong pursuit of social justice at AJWS, helping people around the world improve the quality of their lives and their communities.

Considered a national leader in the movement to end the genocide in Sudan, Ms. Messinger was among leading anti-genocide, peace and human rights advocates called upon to advise President Obama and the new special envoy for Sudan, General J. Scott Gration, in March 2009. In recognition of her leadership, she was recently appointed to the Obama administration’s newly formed Task Force on Global Poverty and Development. She is also involved in organizing faith-based efforts to secure human rights around the world.

7:30 PM
Kresge Auditorium,  Visual Arts Center