Violence in Israel and Gaza– What’s Going On?
In October, 2023, a panel of scholars from Ohio State participated in a webinar for undergraduate students that offered background and perspectives on the conflict in Israel and Gaza. The scholars introduced a range of regional and international context from their different disciplinary perspectives:
Dorothy Noyes
Director, Mershon Center for International Security Studies: Session Moderator
Peter Hahn
Professor, History: State-level Historical and Diplomatic Background; What is Hamas?
Ori Yehudai
Associate Professor, History: Ground-level Coexistence since Establishment of the State of Israel
Joy McCorriston
Professor, Anthropology and Director, Middle East Studies Center: Ground-level Palestinian Experience since 1948
Johanna Sellman
Associate Professor, Near Eastern and South Asian Languages and Cultures: Arab Regional and Diasporic Views Seen Through Culture
Christopher Gelpi
Professor, Political Science: Western and Israeli Public Opinion
Peter Mansoor
Professor, History: Military Perspective and Prospects
Kelly Garrett
Professor, Communication: Information, Misinformation, and Disinformation in Wartime
The recording of the webinar is available to view at go.osu.edu/violence-in-israel-webinar-october-2023
The Counterfeit Countess: The Jewish Woman Who Rescued Thousands of Poles During the Holocaust
On International Holocaust Remembrance Day in January, Gramercy Books welcomed noted historians Dr. Elizabeth B. White and Dr. Joanna Sliwa, co-authors of The Counterfeit Countess: The Jewish Woman Who Rescued Thousands of Poles During the Holocaust, the astonishing story of the Jewish mathematician Dr. Josephine Janina. White and Sliwa were in conversation with Ohio State’s Holocaust expert, Robin Judd.
The program was co-sponsored by the Melton Center, the Jewish Community Center, Ohio State’s Department of History and Temple Israel.
Exodus 91
The Melton Center co-sponsored the showing of Exodus 91 at the Columbus Jewish Film Festival in November. Exodus 91 is a docu-narrative film that tells the story of Asher Naim, an Israeli diplomat caught between worlds and facing a crisis of faith in himself and his country. Exodus 91 takes viewers behind the scenes of Operation Solomon, the diplomatic and military mission to bring thousands of Ethiopian Jews to Israel amid Ethiopia’s civil war in 1991.
The Deborah Panel in the Huqoq Synagogue
In January, the Department of History presented a talk with Professor Ra’anan Boustan from the Department of Judaic Studies at Princeton University. Professor Boustan is an international expert in late ancient Jewish culture, religion and art including popular expressions of quotidian Jewish piety and community. He discussed his current research on a series of newly discovered mosaics in a fifth-century synagogue located in a small Galilean village called Huqoq.
The talk was co-sponsored by the Melton Center for Jewish Studies and the Department of Germanic Literatures and Languages.
Book Launch Program: Between Two Worlds: Jewish War Brides After the Holocaust
In December, Gramercy Books presented Professor Robin Judd in conversation with Professor Theodora Dragostinova (History, Ohio State) about Professor Judd’s new award-winning book Between Two Worlds: Jewish War Brides After the Holocaust. The program was held at the Columbus JCC.
The program was co-sponsored by the Melton Center, JewishColumbus’s Women’s Philanthropy, Columbus JCC, The Ohio State University Hillel and the Department of History at Ohio State.
Why We Dance
The documentary Why We Dance had its Columbus premiere on March 18 at the Wexner Center for the Arts. Part of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s long-running series The Nature of Things, Why We Dance explores the evolution of dance and how all living things express themselves through movement and rhythm. The film is based on Dr. Kimerer L. LaMothe’s book Why We Dance: A Philosophy of Bodily Becoming (2015, Columbia University Press). She spoke at the screening during her week-long residency at Ohio State. Dr. LaMothe is a dancer, author, playwright and philosopher of religion and was a visiting scholar in the spring with Ohio State’s Center for the Study of Religion. Why We Dance is a compelling documentary which proposes that we are all dancers and dance connects us to each other, our environment, and makes us human.
The program was co-sponsored by the Wexner Center for the Arts, Department of Dance, Center for the Study of Religion and the Melton Center.
