Lecture series revamped: fall schedule announced

By JEWISH REVIEW

article created on: 2008-11-01T00:00:00

In response to the evolution of Portland’s Jewish community, the Institute for Judaic Studies is revamping its annual Writers and Scholars Lecture Series to focus more on regional writers and scholars.

A decade ago, in 1998, the Institute for Judaic Studies recognized the dearth of scholarly information on Jewish topics in the Portland community, according to IJS founder Rabbi Joshua Stampfer.

Many local branches of national organizations hosted speakers sent by the national offices to strengthen the goals of the particular institution. But authors and scholars in the Judaic field did not come to share their special knowledge and expertise.

The Writers and Scholars Lecture series was launched to remedy this, according to Sylvia Frankel, who has coordinated the program since its inception.

Over the past 10 years, IJS brought four lecturers each year to Portland. Speakers of world renown were common, including British historian Sir Martin Gilbert; Dr. Arnold Eisen, now the Chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary; A.B. Yehoshua, the renowned Israeli novelist; and Rabbi Harold Kushner, author of the best seller “When Bad Things Happen to Good People.”

The 2006 introduction of the Harold Schnitzer Family Program in Judaic Studies at Portland State University has become a great force for Judaic Studies in our community, said Stampfer. Part of their program is to bring guest scholars from all over the world to the campus.

“As a result of this, we decided to focus on a smaller program that we initiated two years ago, the Literary Salon, and to expand it,” said Stampfer.

This new program will bring writers and scholars from the Pacific Northwest whose work is highly stimulating and valuable, but who may not be receiving the national attention they deserve, said Stampfer.

The first speaker in the Northwest Writers and Scholars Lecture series will be David Greenberg, author of many children’s books, who will speak at 7 p.m., Nov. 16 in the Stampfer Chapel at Congregation Neveh Shalom.

“Slugs” was his first book of poetry published in 1982.

“A Tugging String,” Greenberg’s newest novel about growing up during the civil rights era, was published this fall. The story is a fictionalized account of the author’s years growing up in Great Neck, N.Y. during the turbulent civil rights struggles of the 1950s and 1960s, when African Americans were struggling to attain equality. A commentary by the author’s father, who was a lawyer for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, is included in this book.

The year’s second lecture will be at 7 p.m., Dec. 18, also at Neveh Shalom. “From Protest to Collaboration: Western Jews and the Plight of Japanese Americans during World War II,” is the title of the lecture to be presented by Ellen Eisenberg, a professor at Willamette University who wrote a book on the same topic. The second lecture is co-sponsored by the Oregon Jewish Museum.

The cost for each lecture is $5 general, free to students.

For more information, contact Sylvia Frankel at frankel@lclark.edu.