Session 90 — Plenary Session

Jewish Studies Today: Secularization and Religion, Criticism and Identity

Chairperson: Shmuel Feiner

Tuesday,  Aug 4,  20:00 - 22:00  Room: Atzmaut-Mexico Hall

Michael A. Meyer

Research and Religion: Conflicting or Complementary?

David Biale, Chair, Posen Foundation Academic Advisory Committee (AAC), North American projects]

Between Religious Tradition and Modern Secularism: Jewish Studies and the Dialectic of Secularization

Paula Hyman

The Gender Revolution in Modern Jewish Historiography

Menachem Brinker  [Editorial Board member, Posen Library of Jewish Culture & Civilization; author, sample core course syllabus, Posen grant program]

The Uniqueness of Jewish Secularism

Eliezer Schweid

Jewish Studies and Secular Jewish Culture

Session 357

“The Secular Process” and Jewish Studies: A Revolution and its Meaning

Tuesday,  Aug 4,  15:00 - 17:00 Room: 283 (Education)

Ron Margolin  [Professor, Ofakim program for the study of Judaism as culture, Tel Aviv University]

The Secular Element in Mendelssohn’s Philosophy: Religion as Historical Truth and the Concept of Judaism as Culture

Ishay Rosen-Zvi

Religion, Assimilation, and Nationality in Jewish Studies

Tal Kogman

Science, Tradition, and "Jewish Knowledge" in German-Jewish 'Maskilic' Texts

Eli Yassif  [Academic Advisor to the Posen Foundation for Israeli Programs]

The Secular Foundations of Folkloristics and their Significance for Jewish Studies

Session 409

Secular Discourse and its Presentations in the Modern Hebrew Culture

Chairperson:  Eli Yassif  [Academic Advisor to the Foundation for Israeli Programs]  

Monday,  Aug 3,  11:30 - 13:30 Room: 283 (Education)

Hanna Soker-Schwager

Modes of Citation from Jewish Sources in Contemporary Israeli Literature

Nili Aryeh-Sapir

The Light Procession: Hanukkah as a National-Secular Ritual from 1909 to 1936

Tsafi Sebba-Elran

Sefer ha-Agadah (The Book of Legends) and the New Concept of “Judaism” of the National Poet H. N. Bialik

Nicham Ross

How to Read Hasidic Texts from a Secular Modern Perspective?

Session 623

New Approaches to Jewish Secularism

Monday,   Aug 3,   09:00 - 11:00 Room: The Dan Wassong Auditorium (Rabin Building)

Mark A. Raider  [Member, Academic Advisory Committee (AAC), North America]

Free Associations: Hayim Greenberg – Secular Zionist Leader, Jewish Public Intellectual

Laura S. Levitt [Member, AAC; Posen Grant Recipient]

American Jewish Liberalism: A Postsecular Perspective

Naomi Seidman [Member, AAC; Posen Grant Recipient]

Toward a Jewish Secularization Thesis

Session 624

Dichotomies or Continuums? The Secular, the Sacred, and the Syncretic in Jewish Life

Tuesday,  Aug 4,  11:30 - 13:30 Room: 5817

Azzan Yadin  [Posen Grant Recipient]

Secular Engagement of Classical Jewish Texts

Naomi Seidman  [Member, AAC; Posen Grant Recipient]

Haskalah Reading Practices and the “Secular Jew”

Session 625

The New Soviet and post-Soviet Jewish Studies

Chairperson: David Shneer

David Shneer [New Posen Grant Recipient, 2010, Univ of Colorado, Boulder]

Should the Jewishness of the Soviet intelligentsia be rendered visible?

Anna Shternshis

Yiddish Culture in Contemporary Moscow

Olga Gershenson

Jews in Soviet Cinema

Mikhail Krutikov

The Shtetl for the 21st Century: Reality or Fantasy?

Session 629

Twenty-First-Century American Jews: Social and Demographic Aspects

Thursday, Aug 6,  15:00 - 17:00 Room: 5818

Bruce Phillips

Mobility and Jewish Attachment

Ariela Keysar  [Asst. Dir., Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture]

Secular Jews and Other Secular Americans: New Findings

Allen Glicksman 

Issues of Religious and Ethnic Identity among Older American Jews

Barry Kosmin  [Director, Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture]

The Population Profile of American Jews: New Findings

Session 631

Justice Haim Cohen’s Contribution to Jewish Humanism (in Cooperation with Tmura – Israeli Judaism, and The International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism)

Chairperson: Yaakov Malkin

Thursday,  Aug 6,  17:30 - 19:30 Room: 2715

Michal Zmora-Cohen

The Humanistic Theme in Haim Cohen’s Life

Yehuda Bauer

Humanism and Commitment to the Right to Life for all World Nations

Yaakov Malkin 

Trust in Man vs. Belief in God in Haim Cohen’s Writings

Omri Kaufman 

Haim Cohen as Seen Through his Rulings on Issues of Society, Religion, and State

Session 639

Contemporary Antisemitism: The European and Islamic Legacies

Chairperson: Irwin Cotler

Monday,  Aug 3,  17:30 - 19:30 Room: 6837 (Hendeles Zwig Auditorium)

Robert S. Wistrich  [Director, International Center for the Study of Antisemitism]

Antisemitism: The European and Muslim Legacies

Jeffrey Herf

Nazi Propaganda in the Middle East

Menachem Milson

Antisemitism in the Arab and Iranian Media

Session 707

The Anthological Imagination: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture & Civilization in Theory and in Practice

Chairperson: James E. Young

Tuesday,  Aug 4,  17:30 - 19:30 Room: 2715

James E. Young  [Editor-in-Chief, Posen Library of Jewish Culture & Civilization; Member, AAC]

Introducing the Posen Library of Jewish Culture & Civilization

David G. Roskies

The Anthological Imagination and the “Posen Method”

Yosef Kaplan

Anthologizing the Early Modern Period in the Current Era

Deborah Dash Moore

The Explosion of Jewish Culture in an Age of Mass Media

Session 708

Encyclopedic Solutions to Problems of Modern Jewish Identity

Chairperson: Yair Tzaban [Initiator and director, "New Jewish Time: Jewish Culture in a Secular Age—An Encyclopedic View"]

Monday  Aug 3,  15:00 - 17:00 Room: 2718

Sammy Smooha

Why do Jews in Israel Keep Their Identity More than Jews in the West?

Yedidia Z. Stern

Religion and Identity: Past and Present

Shulamit Volkov 

Historiography as Self-Formation and Identity-Construction: The Case of the German Jews

Yirmiyahu Yovel  [Editor-in-Chief, New Jewish Time: Jewish Culture in a Secular Age—An Encyclopedic View]

A Dual Jewish Identity: “Judaism and Hellenism”' in an Historical View