Events

SEPTEMBER 20, 2023 / 12 P.M.- 1:00 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time (U.S. and Canada)

RAIN OF ASH: ROMAS, JEWS, AND THE HOLOCAUST

The historical record is marked by events, people, and communities that remain just out of the frame.  They are there, clearly visible, but no one pays attention to them. And we should.  

The Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Crimes Against Humanity (Graduate Center—City University of New York), in cooperation with Marion Kaplan, Professor Emerita of Hebrew and Judaic Studies (NYU) and Raz Segal, Endowed Professor in the Study of Modern Genocide (Stockton University), offers a year-long virtual series, Out of the Frame, to center topics long overlooked. 

Please join us on Wednesday 20 September 2023 at 12:00 noon (EDT) for the first of the series:

“Rain of Ash: Roma, Jews, and the Holocaust”

Founder of the field of Critical Romani Studies Ethel Brooks will chat with award-winning author Ari Joskowicz about his new book, Rain of Ash: Roma, Jews, and the Holocaust. Jews and Roma died side by side in the Holocaust, yet their murder has not been recognized equally. The Jewish experience of genocide increasingly occupied the attention of legal experts, scholars, educators, curators, and politicians in the postwar years, while the genocide of Europe’s Roma and Sinti remained out of the frame. Prof. Ethel Brooks, Chair of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Rutgers University, and Prof Ari Joskowicz, Chair of the Department of Jewish Studies, Vanderbilt University, will discuss Joskowicz’s exploration of the simultaneous suffering of Roma and Jews during the Holocaust, as well as the unequal yet necessary entanglement of their quests for historical justice and self-representation. Rain of Ash was awarded the 2022 Ernst Fraenkel Prize.

Chair: Prof. Raz Segal

REGISTER

This event is hosted by The Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Crimes Against Humanity, The Graduate Center—City University of New York
 
In association with:
Center for Jewish Studies at The Graduate Center—City University of New York
 
CUNY Academy for the Humanities and Sciences, The Graduate Center—City University of New York

The Holocaust and the United Nations Outreach Programme, Education Outreach Section, Outreach Division, Department of Global Communications, United Nations

The William T. Daly School of General Studies and the Master of Arts in Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Stockton University

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APRIL 27, 2023 / 12 P.M.- 1:00 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time (U.S. and Canada)

“BEYOND THE SETTLER STATE: ANTICOLONIAL PASTS/FUTURES IN PALESTINE/ISRAEL

The Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Crimes Against Humanity (GC—CUNY), in association with the School of General Studies and the Master of Arts in Holocaust and Genocide Studies (Stockton University) and the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies (New York University), offers a year-long virtual series, The Marginalized and the Erased, to tackle a number of those blank spots. 

Born in the Bronx or Berlin, Jews of a certain age remember the justificatory slogan for the establishment of Israel, “A land without a people for a people without a land.” Persuasive as this may have been at the time, it spoke and continues to speak today to a settler colonial policy of violent erasure. Erasure that the November 2022 Israeli election and subsequent ministerial choices promise to intensify. Looking forward, what futures beyond the settler state might there be? Please join us for a conversation about possible paths toward anticolonial futures, particularly in light of anticolonial pasts, in the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.  The discussion will feature Sarah Ihmoud, a scholar of militarism, occupation, borderlands, and Palestine, and Holocaust and Genocide Studies scholar, Raz Segal. 

This event is hosted also in association with:

The Center for Jewish Studies, The Graduate Center—City University of New York

CUNY Academy for the Humanities and Sciences, The Graduate Center–CUNY

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MARCH 16, 2023 / 1 P.M.- 2:00 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time (U.S. and Canada)

“THE BEDOUIN VILLAGE OF RAH’MA: TOWARD RECOGNITION AND BEYOND”

The historical record is marked by voids: elided events; disappeared people; erased accounts; marginalized communities.  

The Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Crimes Against Humanity (GC—CUNY), in association with the School of General Studies and the Master of Arts in Holocaust and Genocide Studies (Stockton University) and the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies (New York University), offers a year-long virtual series, The Marginalized and the Erased, to tackle a number of those blank spots. 

The Bedouin of the Negev desert have long sought legal recognition from the State of Israel. Without legal status, they are denied their basic rights as Israeli citizens: access to public health services, water, electricity, public transportation, is inadequate or unavailable. Rah’ma is one of the few unrecognized villages that has been promised recognition, yet that promise remains unfulfilled. Still: a school has been approved and built, public utilities have improved, and village residents see some hope. What makes Rah’ma different from other Bedouin villages in the Negev? What paved the way to the promise of recognition? What changes will recognition bring? And can Rah’ma be a model for Israeli-Bedouin relations going forward? Please join for a discussion between Sliman Elfregat, Rah’ma school principal; Debbie Golan, co-founder and president of Atid Bamidbar (A Future in the Desert); and Dvir Warshavsky, Ministry of Education project director.  Chair and moderator: Eli Karetny, deputy director of the Ralph Bunche Institute. 

This event is hosted also in association with:

The Center for Jewish Studies, The Graduate Center—City University of New York

CUNY Academy for the Humanities and Sciences, The Graduate Center–CUNY

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FEBRUARY 23, 2023 / 12 P.M.- 1:00 P.M. Eastern Standard Time (U.S. and Canada)

“THE RUSSIAN INVASION OF UKRAINE: A YEAR OF WAR & GENOCIDE”

Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, escalating the war it had unleashed in 2014. With an avowed goal of de-Ukrainization, Russia rejects the idea of Ukrainian statehood and has declared genocidal goals in Ukraine. 

Please mark the anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by joining us for a conversation about the war, its long-term consequences, and its genocidal nature. The discussion will feature Eugene Finkel, a scholar of genocide and author of the forthcoming To Kill Ukraine, and Elissa Bemporad, an expert on anti-Jewish violence in Ukraine. 

Chair: Natalya Lazar, Director of the Initiative on Ukrainian-Jewish Shared History and the Holocaust in Ukraine, at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

PANELISTS:

Eugene Finkel is the Kenneth H. Keller Associate Professor of International Affairs, Johns Hopkins University.

IN CONVERSATION WITH:

Elissa Bemporad is Professor of History and Ungar Chair in East European Jewish History and the Holocaust at Queens College and CUNY Graduate Center.

MODERATOR:

Natalya Lazar is the Program Manager, The Initiative on Ukrainian-Jewish Shared History and the Holocaust in Ukraine, at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

This event is hosted in association with:

The Center for Jewish Studies at the Graduate Center—CUNY

The Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, USHMM

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FEBRUARY 15, 2023 / 12 P.M.- 1:00 P.M. Eastern Standard Time (U.S. and Canada)

“ISRAEL/PALESTINE: WHAT DO THE ARCHIVES REVEAL/CONCEAL?

The story of the past calls for extensive use of archival documents. But, adducing risk to state security, Israeli archives, especially the state archives, block access to key collections that pertain to the state’s history in general and the Palestinian Nakba and ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict in particular. Palestinian researchers who seek to tell the story of the Palestinian past using Palestinian personal papers and archival materials face additional, unofficial, obstacles.  Areej Sabbagh-Khoury, professor of sociology at the Hebrew University and a 2022 Guggenheim Distinguished Scholar, and Yaacov Lozowick, a historian who served as Israel’s chief archivist from 2011-2018, will discuss what Israeli archives reveal and conceal.  Please join for a challenging conversation that will range from the role of archives in the power dynamics of the conflict to the stories still to be told if access to the archives were unfettered.  Chair and moderator: Hebrew University professor Amos Goldberg, head of the Avraham Harman Research Institute for Contemporary Jewry.  

PANELISTS:

Areej Sabbagh-Khoury, Professor of sociology at the Hebrew University and a 2022 Guggenheim Distinguished Scholar

Yaacov Lozowick, Historian, Israel’s chief archivist from 2011-2018

CHAIR:

Amos Goldberg, Hebrew University professor; Head of the Avraham Harman Research Institute for Contemporary Jewry

In association with:

The Center for Jewish Studies, The Graduate Center—City University of New York

CUNY Academy for the Humanities and Sciences, The Graduate Center—City University of New York

The School of General Studies and the Master of Arts in Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Stockton University 

The Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies, New York University

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DECEMBER 1, 2021 / 12 P.M.- 1:00 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time (U.S. and Canada)

“Finding the Disappeared: The Role of Truth Commissions and Post-Conflict Justice Initiatives in Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico”

A challenging conversation about recovering disappeared persons and the promotion of human rights.

A stellar panel of scholar/activists will explore the role of truth commissions and other international justice efforts to document, sanction, and establish reparations for 20th and 21st century rights violations in Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico. Professor and Senior Researcher at the Center for Research and Advanced Studies in Social Anthropology in Mexico City, Aída Hernández promotes women’s and indigenous people’s human rights in Mexico. An activist researcher, her work with families of missing person focuses on strategies of resistance.  Tatiana Devia, a staff attorney for the Transitional Justice Program at (the non-profit) Corporate Accountability Lab, has investigated human rights abuses in Colombia and analyzed the work of Truth Commissions through a gender lens. Ana María Méndez Dardón, Director for Central America Program, Washington Office on Latin America, served as special projects officer to the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG). She seeks to strengthen access to justice in Guatemala and has shone a bright light on women illegally detained during the Rios Montt dictatorship.

Chair: Prof. Victoria Sanford

The Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Crimes Against Humanity, The Graduate Center—City University of New York
 
In association with:

Colombian Studies Group, The Graduate Center—City University of New York

CUNY Academy for the Humanities and Sciences

The PhD Program in Anthropology, The Graduate Center—City University of New York

The School of General Studies and the Master of Arts in Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Stockton University
 
The Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies, New York University

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OCTOBER 27, 2021 / 12 P.M.- 1:00 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time (U.S. and Canada)

“Post-Roe America: Women and Human Rights”

A challenging conversation about the loss of bodily autonomy and human rights

With the extinction of abortion access as a constitutional right, obstetric care has become a legal labyrinth and cybersecurity for individuals has emerged as a serious concern.  Frontline expert Dr Lisa Harris will address the thorny question of how the SCOTUS decision shapes medical practice.  And cybersecurity experts Eva Galperin and Jennifer Granick will plumb the weaponization by law enforcement and ordinary citizen bounty hunters of women’s telephone call histories, browser histories, text messages, emails, location data, and payment records. Lisa Harris is Associate Chair of Ob/Gyn at the University of Michigan Medical School; her research sits at the intersection of clinical obstetrical and gynecological care and law, policy, and politics. Eva Galperin, at the forefront of cybersecurity research, policy, and practice, is dedicated to providing privacy and security for vulnerable populations around the world; Galperin serves as Director of Cybersecurity at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.  Jennifer Granick is a lawyer and prize-winning author. As the Surveillance and Cybersecurity Counsel with the Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at the American Civil Liberties Union, Granick litigates, speaks, and writes about privacy, security, technology, and constitutional rights. 

Chair: Marion Kaplan

The Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Crimes Against Humanity, The Graduate Center—City University of New York
 
In association with:

The School of General Studies and the Master of Arts in Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Stockton University

The Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies, New York University

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SEPTEMBER 29, 2021 / 12 P.M.- 1:00 P.M. Eastern Time (U.S. and Canada)

The historical record is marked by voids: elided events; disappeared people; erased accounts; marginalized communities.  

The Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Crimes Against Humanity (GC—CUNY), in association with the School of General Studies and the Master of Arts in Holocaust and Genocide Studies (Stockton University) and the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies (New York University), offers a year-long  virtual series, The Marginalized and the Erased, to tackle a number of those blank spots. 

Please join us on September 29, 2022 at 12:00 noon (EDT) for the first of the series:

“Forgotten, Ignored, and Distorted Histories of Romani People: Past and Present”

Groundbreaking scholars Ethel Brooks, Ioanida Costache, and László Csősz move between past and present as they plumb the history of anti-Roma racist violence, and the erasure of that history even as the violence persists. Drawing upon testimonies and documents, their presentations reveal individual, communal, and institutional obstacles to remembrance and education. Chair of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Rutgers University, award-winning scholar Prof. Ethel Brooks serves (among many positions) as Chair of the Board of the European Roma Rights Center.  Dr Ioanida Costache, recipient of a prestigious postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania, focuses on Romani historical trauma and artistic practice.  Prof. László Csősz, historian and senior archivist at the National Archives of Hungary is also a Claims Conference University Partnership in Holocaust Studies Senior Lecturer at the ELTE University in Budapest. His current project explores the wartime history of the Hungarian Roma.  

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AUGUST 31, 2021 / 12 P.M.- 1:00 P.M. Eastern Time (U.S. and Canada)

“BESIEGED VOICES FROM UKRAINE” PART III

Russia’s attack on Ukraine has brought death and injury to thousands, the forced flight of millions, and the physical destruction of cities and towns. Please join journalist Maria Avdeeva, public historian Sasha Nazar, and author Serhiy Zhadan who will address the complexities of lives disrupted and the experience of unfolding war from the perspectives of their three professions. An international security expert, Maria Avdeeva has reported tirelessly from cities under siege since the Russian invasion.   Public historian and grassroots activist Sasha Nazar has led successful initiatives to protect Jewish heritage sites.  And Serhiy Zhadan, poet, novelist, and essayist, has won more than a dozen literary awards including, most recently, the 2022 Peace Prize of the German Book Trade “for documenting the struggles of his compatriots caught up in a brutal war.”

Co-Chairs: Elissa Bemporad and Natalya Lazar.

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JUNE 23, 2021 / 12 P.M.- 1:10 P.M. Eastern Time (U.S. and Canada)

“BESIEGED VOICES FROM UKRAINE” PART II

Russia’s attack on Ukraine has caused the death and injury of thousands, the forced flight of millions, and the physical destruction of cities and towns. Please join poet Iya Kiva, art historian Eugeny Kotlyar, and journalist Olga Tokariuk, who will address the complexities of lives disrupted and the experience of unfolding war from the perspectives of their three professions. Award-winning poet Iya Kiva’s work has been translated into more than 20 languages. Kharkiv State Academy of Design and Arts professor Eugeny Kotlyar is a renowned expert on Jewish heritage sites in Ukraine. And independent journalist Olga Tokariuk’s reports have been featured in (inter alia) Time and The Washington Post, and on NPR. Co-Chairs: Elissa Bemporad and Natalya Lazar.

PANELISTS:

Iya Kiva: Poet

Eugene Kotylar: Historian

Olga Tokariuk: Journalist

CO-CHAIRS:

Natalya Lazar, Initiative on Ukrainian-Jewish Shared History and the Holocaust in Ukraine, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum 

Elissa Bemporad, Queens College and the Graduate Center, CUNY

This event is hosted in association with:

The Center for Jewish Studies at the Graduate Center—CUNY

The School of General Studies and Graduate Education and the Master of Arts in Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Stockton University 

The Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, USHMM

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MAY 12, 2021 / 12 P.M.- 1:10 P.M. Eastern Time (U.S. and Canada)

“BESIEGED VOICES FROM UKRAINE”

Russia’s attack on Ukraine has caused the death and injury of thousands, the forced flight of millions, and the physical destruction of cities and towns. Please join historian Yuri Radchenko, poet Ostap Slyvynsky, and photojournalist Anton Skyba, who will address the complexities of lives disrupted and the experience of unfolding war from the perspectives of their three professions. Yuri Radchenko is the co-founder of the Center for Interethnic Relations Research in Eastern Europe in Kharkiv. Ostap Slyvynsky has published several collections of poetry and is the recipient of prestigious Ukrainian and international literary awards. Anton Skyba has been covering the occupation of his native Donetsk and Russia’s war against Ukraine since 2014; he himself was captured, tortured, and released in July of that year.  Co-Chairs: Natalya Lazar and Elissa Bemporad.

This event is hosted in association with:

The Center for Jewish Studies at the Graduate Center—CUNY

The School of General Studies and Graduate Education and the Master of Arts in Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Stockton University 

The Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, USHMM

PANELISTS:

Yuri Radchenko: Historian

Ostap Slyvynsky: Poet

Anton Sykba: Photojournalist

CO-CHAIRS:

Natalya Lazar, Initiative on Ukrainian-Jewish Shared History and the Holocaust in Ukraine, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum 

Elissa Bemporad, Queens College and the Graduate Center, CUNY

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APRIL 28, 2021 / 12 P.M.- 1:15 P.M. Eastern Time (U.S. and Canada)

“FLEEING A HOME, SEEKING A HOME: JEWISH REFUGEES IN MODERN TIMES”

This panel grapples with refugee Jews displaced by war in three different geopolitical contexts: Ukraine, Central Asia, and the Middle East. Profs Jeff Veidlinger, Eliyana Adler, and Shay Hazkani recapture lost voices of displacement and rethink the meaning of “refugee” as they explore the experiences of Ukrainian Jews who left their homes in the wake of anti-Jewish violence unleashed during the Russian Civil War; Polish Jews who, in  the midst of the Holocaust, fled the Germans and were deported by the Soviets to Central Asia; and of Moroccan Jews, who immigrated to Israel shortly after the establishment of the Jewish state. Chair: Prof. Elissa Bemporad.

This event is hosted in association with The Holocaust and The United Nations Outreach Programme, Outreach Division, Department of Global Communications, United Nations.

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This paper traces the lines of communication between the Sobibór extermination camp and the Eastern Polish town of Włodawa to explore how knowledge of the mechanisms of extermination shaped Jewish-Gentile interactions during the Holocaust. Drawing on court documents and postwar testimonies, the paper illuminates how widespread local awareness of the murder of Jews at Sobibór drove the plunder and take-over of ‘post-Jewish’ goods and property in and around the town.

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How is the commemoration of assistance to Jews used to distort history and suppress research on the Holocaust in Poland? 

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This paper will explore the diverse political strategies employed by the Polish government to distort and instrumentalize the Holocaust as a constitutive feature of its “policy on history” (polityka historyczna). 

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