Aug

28 2015

Jewish Federation Knosh & Knowledge "Anti-Semitism in France"

10:45AM - 12:00PM  

This Federation program will be heald at Hevreh of Southern Berkshire 270 State Road
Great Barrington, MA 01230
413-528-6378
http://www.hevreh.org

Contact Nancy Maurice Rogers
413-442-4360 x 15
jfb.programs@verizon.net
http://www.jewishberkshires.org

The Jewish Federation of the Berkshires presents Knosh & Knowledge with Steven J. Rubin, professor emeritus of international studies and former dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Adelphi University, as he speaks about “Anti-Semitism in France from the Dreyfus Affair to the Present.”

The first Jews arrived on the shores of southern France with the Romans in the second century B.C.E. and have been a presence ever since. Their long history is marked by endurance and accomplishment, but it is also replete with expulsions, pogroms, deportations, and ongoing anti-Semitism. Last winter’s shootings at the Hyper Cacher (Kosher supermarket) in Paris, reports of mass French emigration, and the urging of Israel’s Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu for French Jews to “come home,” have all cast doubt on the future of the French Jewish community, presently numbering more than 500,000, the third largest Jewish population in the world. This talk will examine these and other issues pertaining to both the history of French anti-Semitism and the present socio-political climate in France.

Professor Rubin is the author and editor of numerous books and articles on world Jewish literature, including
Writing Our Lives: Autobiographies of American Jews (Jewish Publication Society),Telling and Remembering: A Century of American Jewish Poetry (Beacon Press), and Celebrating the Jewish Holidays: Poems, Stories, Essays
(Brandeis University Press).

This past spring he served as visiting fellow at the Institute for American Universities in Aix-en-Provence, France. He
frequently lectures both in the US and abroad on topics related to Jewish history and culture, and is a member of Hevreh.

Advanced lunch reservations required by Thursday, August 27 before noon.

Cost: $11 includes program and farm fresh buffet lunch from Freund's Farm Market and Bakery.  Program only is $5.