A review of our programs for the 2022-2023 year.
The Thomas and Diann Mann Symposium fund was established in 1997 by Mr. and Mrs. Mann to support annual symposia in which eminent scholars, along with The Ohio State University faculty, present lectures on a chosen topic in the area of Jewish
Yamma Ensemble
Yamma Ensemble, Israel’s leading world music ensemble, performed original contemporary Hebrew music at the Jewish Community Center on September 18, 2022 to a full house.
The group stays true to the character of the Middle East, the region where they were born and raised. Their soulful music was accompanied by Middle Eastern musical instruments including a kopuz, duduk and hand drums.
Yamma’s repertoire included musical traditions drawn from the various Jewish diasporas: songs tracing to historical Jewish communities from Yemen, Babylon and Sepharad, as well as Hasidic music, with the intricately unfolding forms and rhythms that have been preserved by generations of Jewish traditions.
The program was co-sponsored by the Wexner Center of the Arts and the Columbus Jewish Community Center.
Columbus Film Premiere of “Where is Anne Frank”
Israeli filmmaker Ari Folman, who is best-known for his Oscar-nominated animated documentary “Waltz with Bashir” (2008) which recounted his experiences as a soldier in the 1982 Lebanon War, introduced us to his acclaimed new animated film “Where is Anne Frank” (2021), a contemporary reimagining of Frank’s story and legacy, on November 14, 2022.
The film was shown at the Wexner Center for the Arts. The film follows Kitty, the imaginary friend to whom Frank’s diary is addressed, who comes to life from the pages of the diary in contemporary Amsterdam in the house, now a museum, where the Frank family hid from the Nazis. Kitty wanders the streets of Amsterdam, convinced that if she is still alive, Anne must be as well.
As she encounters the people of present-day Amsterdam, Kitty must reconcile the many tributes and memorials to Anne Frank all around her with the idea that many people have not internalized the lessons to be learned from her life. After the film showing, Folman joined Professor Naomi Brenner for a post-show discussion.
The program was co-sponsored by the Melton Center, the Department of Near Eastern and South Asian Languages and Cultures, the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, the Department of History, the Department of Theatre, Film, and Media Arts, the Columbus Jewish Film Festival and the Wexner Center for the Arts.
The Thomas and Diann Mann Lecture Series on Jews, America, and Israel was established in 2014 by Mr. and Mrs. Mann to support programs that focus on the special and complex relationship between Israel and America.
Blackness in Israel: Re-thinking Racial Boundaries
On November 8, 2022, the Melton Center hosted a Zoom program, Blackness in Israel, featuring Uri Dorchin from Academic College in Zefat, Israel, and Gabriella Djerrahian from Concordia University in Montreal. The program focused on how different communities and individuals in modern Israel engage with the identity and concept of Blackness. Focusing on groups such as Palestinians, Middle Eastern Jews and Ethiopian Jews, the panel shed new light on questions of race and ethnicity, as well as practices of inclusion and exclusion in Israeli history and culture.
The Pearl and Troy Feibel Lecture fund on Judaism and Law was created with support from Barbara Feibel Robins, James Feibel*, Donald Feibel*, and Robert Shamansky*.
*Of blessed memory
Lessons from the Field: A Conversation on Antisemitism and Free Speech on Campus
On March 26, 2023, the Melton Center welcomed Professors Ethan Katz (left) and Steven Davidoff Solomon (right) from the University of California, Berkeley to discuss antisemitism and free speech on college campuses. Katz, a professor of Jewish history, and Solomon, a law professor, are co-directors of Berkeley’s Antisemitism Education Initiative, where they bring together administrators, faculty and leaders of the campus Jewish community to create a sustained program to combat antisemitism.
In April 2023, with the generous sponsorship of the Melton Center for Jewish Studies, the poet, translator and activist Irena Klepfisz led a series of virtual events at Ohio State. Born in the Warsaw Ghetto, Klepfisz survived the Holocaust in Poland. After a brief stint in Sweden during the postwar period, Klepfisz moved with her mother to the United States, where she has since lived, primarily in New York. After receiving her PhD at the University of Chicago, Klepfisz has had a long career as an educator in various settings, including for many years at Barnard College. She has become especially renowned for her poetry, essayistic writing and translations, as well as for her queer activism and human rights advocacy. She has also been an eloquent and passionate defender of minority languages. While written primarily in English, many of Klepfisz’s poems and essays engage directly with the Yiddish language and with conceptions of Yidishkayt. She has also played a leading role in the recovery and translation of important Yiddish women writers, such as Fradl Shtok.
At Ohio State, Klepfisz gave a public reading in celebration of the recent publication of her collected poetry, Her Birth and Later Years (Wesleyan University Press). This event was attended by more than 70 people, including Ohio State students, faculty and participants from around the world. Klepfisz read from some of her now-classic poems that reflect on the meanings and legacies of Yiddish, including “A Few Words in the Mother Tongue.”
She also read from some of her most recent poems and reflected on her approach to memory, politics, multilingualism and multiculturalism. Later in the week, Klepfisz visited an undergraduate class on “The Holocaust in Yiddish Writing & Film,” where she reflected on her own family history, her approach to writing about the Holocaust, and answered student questions. She also visited an MFA poetry workshop where she discussed poetic approaches and techniques with graduate students, many of whom are interested in incorporating other languages into their writing. Klepfisz was incredibly open, dynamic and generous in her engagement with students at all levels. Both undergraduate and graduate students expressed their excitement about and gratitude for the opportunity to learn from her.
With the support of the Melton Center, the events with Klepfisz were organized by Matt Johnson, director of the Yiddish & Ashkenazic Studies Program in the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, and by Isaiah Back-Gaal and Hannah Nahar, two remarkable poets and MFA students in English.
The Postcard, by Ann Berest
In August, Gramercy hosted a program with Anne Berest, author of The Postcard, a poignant tale set in Paris about a Jewish family devastated by the Holocaust. Professor Robin Judd moderated the program.
Before All The World, by Moriel Rothman-Zecher
In November, 2022, Gramercy Books hosted a program with award-winning author and poet Moriel Rothman-Zecher. He is the author of Before All the World: A Novel, which is a narrative of two Jewish immigrants in the U.S. and a Black writer who translates their story from Yiddish, and Sadness is a White Bird, which tells the story of an American-Israeli teen, recently drafted and on the eve of adulthood, as he recounts the events leading up to his military incarceration and concomitant descent into a moral and emotional abyss.
The Yellow Bird Sings, by Jennifer Rosner
The Book of Lost Names, Kristin Harmel
In July, 2023, Gramercy Books hosted a program with authors Kristin Harmel, author of two novels set during World War II, Book of Lost Names and The Forest of Vanishing Stars, and Jennifer Rosner, author of many books, including The Yellow Bird Sings, which was inspired by the true stories of Jewish children hidden during World War II.
