Event Archive 2016 - Present

‘Love’ or ‘friendship’ is a core theme of Jewish and Christian thought. Hence, the paramount significance of the commandment to “Love your neighbor” Lev 19:18b in the reception history of the Hebrew Bible. Indeed, as Franz Rosenzweig noted, it is the foundational principle of the Jewish and Christian ethos. At this critical juncture in history, when a plethora of “cultures of hate” have emerged to claim the public and political arena, it is of undoubted value to highlight the inviolable principle of Neighborly Love. Yet, at the same time it is also urgent to acknowledge that monotheistic faiths abound in tropes of personal hatred and political enmity. This conference posits that the Jewish and Christian ethic of love and friendship may only be fully appreciated against the backdrop of concepts and attitudes of personal ‘hatred’ and enmity within the respective religious cultures. Speakers include Jeffrey Stackert and Paul Mendes-Flohr, both of the University of Chicago Divinity School, Klaus-Peter Adam of the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, Dana Hollander of McMaster University, and Malka Simkovich of Catholic Theological Union. The conference is sponsored by the Greenberg Center for Jewish Studies and the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago through a grant by the Henri Luce Foundation. For information, contact Nancy Pardee at npardee@uchicago.edu.

Rose Stair, MA student in the Divinity School, will deliver a lecture for the Jewish Studies Workshop. For information, contact the workshop coordinators, Matt Johnson at mjohnson26@uchicago.edu or David Cohen at davidc1@uchicago.edu.

Join the Jewish Studies Workshop for a discussion with Sarah Hammerschlag, Associate Professor in the Divinity School, about her new anthology Modern French Jewish Thought (Brandeis University Press, 2018)! The introduction and table of contents of the anthology should be read in advance and are available on our blog: https://voices.uchicago.edu/jst_hb/ The password is: anthology. The Jewish Studies Workshop is committed to being fully accessible. For any questions or concerns about accessibility, please contact the workshop coordinators, David Cohen (davidc@uchicago.edu) or Matt Johnson (mjohnson26@uchicago.edu).

The White Elephant Archive, Setting No. 3 explores the legacy of the Holocaust from the perspective of the third generation living in Austria today. In this intensely personal, documentary / object theatre production Eduard Freudmann uses his family’s archive—which includes poems written by his grandfather while imprisoned in concentration camps—to explore his family’s silence about the Holocaust, and his own attempt to understand the burden of this legacy through art. The piece reflects on the politics of Holocaust commemoration in Austria, and larger questions about how to speak of a horror once its witnesses are gone or silent. Presented by the University of Chicago Greenberg Center for Jewish Studies, with support from the Future Fund of the Republic of Austria, Federal Chancellery of Austria, and Austrian Cultural Forum New York City.