Israeli Culture 2007-2008: Israeli Pages Lecture Series

The Israel Center of the Jewish Community Federation
The Taube Center for Jewish Studies
Stanford University
The Jewish Community Center of San Francisco
Present

ISRAELI PAGES
A Year of Hebrew Literature in the Bay Area

The Taube Center for Jewish Studies at Stanford University and the San Francisco Israel Center, in collaboration with the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco present a special lecture series featuring Israel’s finest literary voices. The authors, many of whose works have been translated into English, represent a cross-section of Israeli society and culture. At Stanford, the authors will participate in panels with scholars in the field to discuss different aspects of their work. The series will bridge between writing, reading and research through a variety of activities in classes, public lectures and different venues around the Bay Area. The Jewish Community Library's “Book Club in a Box” will provide local book clubs (both in English and in Hebrew) with copies of books by the featured authors, background information, interviews, reviews and additional material for creating engaging discussions.

More information & updates about specific events:
Taube Center for Jewish Studies, Stanford: jewishstudies.stanford.edu, (650) 725-2789
Israel Center, SF: www.israelcentersf.org, (415) 512-6293
JCCSF: www.jccsf.org/arts, (415) 292-1233
UC Berkeley: (510) 643-2995

Sami Michael

Born in Baghdad, Iraq, in 1926, Sami Michael joined leftist underground movement acting against the regime in Iraq at age 15. In 1948 he fled Iraq and arrived in Israel a year later. Michael, who published his first novel in 1974, has written six novels, four books for youth, and three non-fiction books, and has been granted several literary awards and honorary doctorates in Israel and Europe. Michael has served as the president of the Israeli Association for Civil Rights since 1999. His novel A Trumpet in the Wadi, featuring the intricate romance of an Israeli Arab young woman and a Jewish new immigrant from Russia, has been translated into English and adapted into a feature film.
The event is co-sponsored by Stanford University and the Koret Foundation, Heksherin Institute at Ben Gurion University of the Negev, The Mediterranean Forum at Stanford and the Consulate General of Israel. SF event is sponsored by the JCCSF.

Sami Michael Reading and Film Screening: A Trumpet in the Wadi
September 4, 2007. 8:00pm. Jewish Community Center of San Francisco
The event will feature a screening of “A Trumpet in the Wadi,” an acclaimed feature film based on Sami Michael’s bestselling novel and will be followed by an open discussion.

The Jewish Iraqi Literature International Conference Featuring Sami Michael
September 5–7, 2007. Stanford University
Presented by the Taube Center for Jewish Studies, Stanford University and Heksherim Institute, Ben Gurion University of the Negev

Special Opening Night Session
September 5, 2007. 8:00pm. Stanford University, Humanities Center , Levinthal Hall.
With Sami Michael, Dror Mishani (editor of Sfarim, the literary magazine of the Israeli daily Haaretz) and Professor Nancy Berg, Washington University of St. Louis, author of More and More Equal: The Literary Works of Sami Michael and Exile from Exile: Israeli Writers from Iraq.

Conference Sessions
September 6-7. 10:00am -4:00pm. Stanford University.
Lectures by Robert Alter, Nancy Berg, Nitza Ben Dov, Nili Gold, Lital Levy, Vered Shemtov, Batya Shimoni, Sasson Somekh, Ella Shohat, Yigal Schwartz and Najem Wali

For updated information please check the conference stanford.edu/dept/jewishstudies/events

Michal Govrin

October 8, 2007. 6:00pm dinner, 8:00pm lecture. JCCSF $8.00 Member,
$10.00 Public
October 9, 2007. 12:00 noon. Stanford.
October 9, 2007. 7:00pm. Sacramento Theatre Company, Main Stage. 1419 H Street, Sacramento
October 11, 2007. 5:00pm. Free. 303 Doe Library, UC Berkeley

Michal Govrin is an Israeli writer, poet and theater director.
She studied literature and theater at Tel Aviv University and received her Ph.D. in Jewish Ritual and Theater at the University of Paris. Some of her recent works include The Name , The Making of the Sea: a Chronicle of Interpretation and Snapshots. Among her internationally published essays are Body of Prayer by David Shapiro, Michal Govrin and Jacques Derrida and The Journey to Poland; The Case of the Jewish Biography. Govrin’s home is in Jerusalem, where she teaches at The School of Visual Theater.

Under the auspices of the Consulate General of Israel

Meir Shalev

November 3, 2007 7:00pm Stanford University
November 4, 2007 5:15 pm – JCCSF
In conversation with Dr. Donny Inbar, Director of Culture and Events at the San Francisco Israel Center
November 5, 2007 November 5 7:30 pm - UC Berkeley

Born in 1948 in Nahalal, an agricultural cooperative, and raised in Jerusalem, Shalev studied psychology at the Hebrew University and began publishing after a long and popular career as the host of TV and radio shows. Shalev’s best-selling novels, among them The Blue Mountain, The Loves of Judith, Esau and the upcoming A Pigeon and a Boy, create a world in which Eretz-Yisraeli nostalgia, secular biblical imagery, social consciousness and fantasy are magically fused. Shalev, a regular columnist in the Israeli press, has also published non-fiction books and books for children. The multiple romantic plots of A Pigeon and a Boy, his latest novel (to be published in English in October, 2007), take place during the 1948 War of Independence and in our own time.

Sayed Kashua

January 15, 2008 5:00pm - UC Berkeley
January 16, 2008 8:00pm - JCCSF
January 17, 2008 12:00 noon - Stanford University.
In conversation with Professor Gil Hochberg, UCLA, author of In Spite of Partition: Jews, Arabs, and the Limits of Separatist Imagination.

Kashua was born in the Arab town of Tira in 1975, and lives in the Beit Tsafafa suburb of Jerusalem. Since 1996, he has written for the Jerusalem weekly Kol Ha`ir, the Tel Aviv weekly Ha’ir and the Ha`aretz daily. He published two novels, Dancing Arabs and Let There be Morning, both written in Hebrew and translated to several languages, including English. Dancing Arabs has been praised around the world for its uniquely human portrayal of a young man who moves between two societies, becoming a stranger to both. Kashua’s hero is totally Palestinian and equally Israeli. Presently, Kashua is writing a new sitcom for Israeli television, to be aired in 2007-8 season.

Agi Mishol

February 5, 2008 5:00pm - UC Berkeley
February 6, 2008 8:00pm - JCCSF
February 7, 2008 12:00 noon - Stanford University
In conversation with Professor Dan Miron, Leonard Kaye Professor of Hebrew Literature and Comparative Literature, Columbia University.

Poetess Mishol was born in Hungary in 1947 and came to Israel in 1950. Mishol has been writer-in-residence at Tel Aviv University, and contributes literary reviews for the radio and print media, translates poetry and esoteric literature and is active on the editorial board of the poetry journal, Helikon. Her collection of poems in English translation, Look There, was published in the United States in 2005. According to Professor Dan Miron, “In contemporary Israeli poetry, intense, white flames appear against the dark[…] Agi Mishol’s poetry is one of the brightest of these flames.”

Aharon Megged

April 8, 2008 8:00 pm - Stanford University
In conversation with Professor Steven Zipperstein, Daniel E. Koshland Professor in Jewish Culture and History, Stanford University
April 9, 2008 5:00 pm - UC Berkeley
April 10, 2008 8:00 pm- JCCSF

Born in Poland in 1920, Megged immigrated to pre-state Israel when he was six, lived on a kibbutz for many years, became a journalist and literary editor, and served as cultural attachי in London. Megged has established his status as one of Israel’s leading authors, is a member of the Academy of the Hebrew Language since 1980, and was president of the Israeli branch of PEN from 1980 to 1987. Megged has published over forty books, written plays and had works adapted for stage and screen. Megged’s Foigelman weaves the stories of a contemporary historian in Tel Aviv and a dead Yiddish poet who survived the Holocaust and lived in Paris. Megged was the recipient of the Israel Prize in 2003.

A.B. Yehoshua

April 24, Time TBA - Stanford University
April 28, 8:00 pm – JCCSF

A. B. Yehoshua was born in Jerusalem in 1936, the fifth generation of a Sephardi Jerusalemite family. After studying Hebrew literature and Philosophy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, he started a teaching career. From 1963 to 1967, he lived and taught in Paris; he is now Professor of literature at Haifa University. Yehoshua has published numerous novels, short stories, plays, an opera and essays and is one of the best internationally known awarded Israeli authors, whose work has been published in 28 languages.