Leo Baeck Institute 15 W. 16th St. New York, NY 10011 (212) 744-6400
Spring 2014 Events at Leo Baeck Institute
LBI is proud to announce a diverse and exciting program of events through May 2014, which begins on Thursday, March 27th with a screening of Free Fall. This documentary is by acclaimed director Péter Forgács and explores the Holocaust in southern Hungary. Additionally, on Sunday, March 30th, LBI will hold the panel discussion, “Eastern Jews, Western Jews: World War One and the Transformation of the Jewish Experience,” where scholars will explore the migrations of Eastern and Western European Jews after WWI. We hope to see you at one or more of the events listed below. Unless otherwise noted, please register in advance at (212) 744-6400. The most current list of events is always online at lbi.org/events.
Thursday, March 27, 2014, 6:30 PM | Film Screening
Free Fall featuring director Péter Forgács
Acclaimed director Péter Forgács explores the unique circumstances of the Holocaust in southern Hungary in his intimate film Free Fall, told through the home videos of a Jewish family in the 1940s. Forgács will introduce the film and join us for a post-screening discussion and reception.
Co-presented with the Center for Jewish History
$7 Members / $10 General
Reserve Tickets
Sunday, March 30, 2014, 2:00 PM | Panel Discussion
Eastern Jews, Western Jews: World War One and the Transformation of the Jewish Experience
World War I was a cataclysmic event. Its upheaval also led to new encounters between Eastern and Western European Jews, narrowing, exacerbating and complicating the historical divide between these two communities at the same time as anti-Semitism swelled. This roundtable examines the consequences of these encounters and the complex and changing dynamics of the Jewish East-West relationship. With Steve Aschheim (Hebrew University), Hasia Diner (NYU), and Anson Rabinbach (Princeton University), and David Fishman (Jewish Theological Seminary).
Co-presented with YIVO Institute for Jewish Research
$7 Members / $10 General
Reserve Tickets
Wednesday, April 9, 2014, 6:30 PM | Book Talk
Loyalty Betrayed: Jewish Chaplains in the German Army During the First World War
Around 30 Jewish chaplains served in the German army during WWI, providing spiritual care for 100,000 Jewish soldiers plus Jewish refugees made homeless by the Tsarist army. Author Peter Appelbaum has collected, translated, and annotated their memoirs and diaries for the first time in English. With moderator Dr. Ismar Schorsch, Chancellor Emeritus of the Jewish Theological Seminary and President Emeritus of LBI.
This event was rescheduled from its original date in February.
RSVP to (212) 744-6400 or mlegaspi@lbi.cjh.org.
$5 Members / $10 General
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Wednesday, April 23, 2014, 6:30 PM | Discussion and Film Screening
There Was Once… featuring director Gábor Kálmán
The second of two films screened in commemoration of the 70th anniversary of nationwide Jewish deportations in Hungary, There Was Once… documents the contemporary struggles of a Hungarian high school teacher who sparks controversy by uncovering the Jewish past of her small town, Kalocsa.
Director Gábor Kálmán, a Holocaust survivor from Kalocsa, will introduce the film and discuss the memory of Jewish life in Hungary.
Co-presented with the Center for Jewish History
$7 Members / $10 General
Reserve tickets
Thursday, April 24, 2014, 6:00 PM | Book Presentation
Lawyers without Rights
Lawyers without Rights, a traveling exhibition, depicts how Jewish lawyers were barred from courts beginning in 1933 and how individual rights and the rule of law were neglected during the Nazi era. The exhibit was created by the Berlin regional Bar Association to document the treatment of its Jewish members during the Third Reich and first came to LBI in 2004. In conjunction with the opening of the exhibition in a Brooklyn courthouse, LBI will sponsor a presentation by Douglas G. Morris, author of Justice Imperiled: The Anti-Nazi Lawyer Max Hirschberg in Weimar Germany.
Admission Free
RSVP to (212) 744-6400 or mlegaspi@lbi.cjh.org
Tuesday, April 29, 2014, 6:30 PM | Discussion
Reinventing Jewishness in Post-Communist Hungary: Anti-Semitism and Jewish Renaissance
How can young Hungarian Jews shape public history and memory in a country ruled by an anti-Semitic party? How does a Jewish community that has historically defined itself against conservatism, traditionalism, and religion make sense of its Jewish heritage? Historian Anna Manchin (Prins Postdoctoral Fellow, CJH), historian Michael Miller (Central European University), and activist Adam Schonberger will discuss contemporary Jewish life in Budapest.
Co-presented with the Center for Jewish History
$7 Members/ $10 General
Reserve Tickets
Wednesday, April 30, 2014, 8:00 PM | Discussion
Uprooted: New Perspectives on Jewish Refugees and Migrants after World War II
The events surrounding the end of World War II and the establishment of the State of Israel prompted mass migrations of Jews. Journalist Peter Beinart leads a discussion of this dramatic period, bringing together the experiences of Ashkenazi and Mizrahi Jewish migrants in Eastern Europe, Allied-occupied Germany, and Israel. With Natalia Aleksiun (Touro College), Avinoam Patt (University of Hartford), Orit Bashkin (University of Chicago), and Ori Yehudai (Center for Jewish History/Israel Institute).
Co-presented with the Center for Jewish History
$7 Members/ $10 General
Reserve Tickets
Wednesday, May 7, 2014, 6:30 PM | Book Presentation
Jewish Pasts, German Fictions
Jewish Pasts, German Fictions is the first comprehensive study of how German-Jewish writers used images from the Spanish-Jewish past to define their place in German culture and society. Jonathan Skolnik (UMass Amherst) argues that Jewish historical fiction was a form of cultural memory that functioned as a parallel to the modern, demythologizing project of secular Jewish history writing.
RSVP to (212) 744-6400 or mlegaspi@lbi.cjh.org
Members free/ $5 General
Wednesday, May 21, 2014, 7:00 PM | Lecture and Monodrama
Sabina Spielrein
Featuring a pre-performance talk by Dr. Henry Zvi-Lothane (Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Mt. Sinai Hospital) at 6:00 PM.
A former patient of Carl G. Jung, Sabina Spielrein became one of the first female psychoanalysts. She studied medicine and worked in both Switzerland and the Soviet Union, where, as a Russian Jew, she was eventually killed by a German SS squad. Award-winning Swiss actress Graziella Rossi vividly captures Spielrein’s extraordinary life in this 90-minute monodrama based on Karsten Alnaes’ biographical novel, Sabina, and adapted for the stage by Liv Hege Nylund. Mississippi-born, Zurich-based saxophonist Harry White performs the score by Asgeir Skrove.
Acting: Graziella Rossi
Saxophone: Harry White
Direction: Klaus Henner Russius
Lighting: Hans Naef
Presented in partnership with the Zurich Meets New York Festival.
RSVP to (212) 744-6400 or mlegaspi@lbi.cjh.org
Free Admission