Month: May 2019

Roundtable Discussion on the Materiality of Jewish Culture with Aleksandra Buncic, Nathan Mastnjack, David Sclar, and Jason Lustig

Archives, Bible, Early Modern Jewish History, History of the Book, Jewish History, Modern Jewish History, Roundtable

Listen to a roundtable discussion on the materiality of Jewish culture with B Buncic, David Sclar, Nathan Mastnjack, and Jason Lustig, who in 2018-19 have been Harry Starr Fellows in Judaica at Harvard’s Center for Jewish Studies. The theme this year has been the history of the Jewish book, and we come together to discuss why books matter in Jewish culture and why we should look at the material objects, writing platforms, and physical form in addition to the contents that they contain.

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What Does It Mean for Israel to be a “Jewish” State? Defining Israel with Simon Rabinovitch

Israel, Zionism

Simon Rabinovitch joins us to talk about Israel’s nation-state law and his volume Defining Israel: The Jewish State, Democracy and the Law—the origins, development, and ramifications of Israel’s nation-state law, how we can contextualize it, and try to understand its importance and meaning for the ongoing debates over the character of the state of Israel.

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