HBI Blog: Fresh Ideas From HBI, Anniversary Edition
![collage of images related to HBI, faces, book covers, artwork](../about/images/no-blur-collage-updated.png)
2024
May 21, 2024
HBI initiated a Student Docent Program this past year to help with Deeply Rooted: Faith in Reproductive Justice, a 21 artist show, and Lives Eliminated, Dreams Illuminated with artists Lauren Bergman and Ella Milch-Sheriff. HBI’s eight student docents helped HBI curators imagine a feedback space, created resource and docent guides, and helped with exhibition outreach and gallery tours. XiHu Arfa, Brandeis ‘24, said the job was a perfect fit to merge her interests in Women’s and Gender studies, Studio Art, museum studies. “It was new to me to work with the curators and the HBI staff, and to give tours and talk about the art. It was an invaluable experience,” said Arfa, who assisted with tours, framing art and hanging wall text. Mara Lebovitz, Brandeis ‘24, said “We’ve learned to interact with a much larger community, and to see how art can create paths forward in a time that feels divided.” Meet the 2023 student docents.
May 20, 2024
Art is a central part of the way that HBI achieves the mission of producing and promoting fresh ideas at the intersection of Jewish studies and women’s and gender studies. To this end, HBI features at least one, but sometimes several exhibitions per year in the Brandeis Kniznick Gallery. At the same time, art is woven into other aspects of HBI’s work by funding creative projects as well as sponsoring other events related to the arts. HBI’s art exhibitions create access points and opportunities for discussion and reflection on challenging topics. We are honored that several of our exhibitions are now collected in major museums. Recent topics explored by art include reproductive justice, Holocaust and gender, the Yemenite Children Affair, ritual objects for women, and more. Learn more about HBI’s immediate past exhibition, Deeply Rooted: Faith in Reproductive Justice, and other past art exhibitions.
Image:
Top row, l-r: Tamar Paley, A Fringe of Her Own: A Collection of Ritual Objects for Women; Lives Eliminated, Dreams Illuminated, Lauren Bergman, “Tema Schneiderman”, Seven Species, Three Generations, Ellen Schon, “Figs”
Middle row, l-r: Helène Aylon, “Afterword: For the Children”; Deeply Rooted: Faith in Reproductive Justice, Safarani Sisters, “Colorist”
Bottom row, l-r: Deeply Rooted: Faith in Reproductive Justice, Caron Tabb, “I Am My Sisters Keeper 2”, Ayelet Carmi and Meirav Heiman, One Foot Planted, Tamar Nissim, Contagious Truths
May 17, 2024
HBI Research Associates are affiliates who carry out projects that support the institute’s mission. HBI provides RAs with academic oversight, access to HBI and the resources of Brandeis University and they play an active part in the intellectual life of the institute and the university by attending and presenting work in the HBI Seminar Series. Many of HBI’s Research Associates have already been Scholars in Residence and continue their work and their affiliation with HBI in this way.
Find out more about the program, our 26 current Research Associates, and their projects. Watch current Research Associate Rachel B. Gross as she reflects on HBI's large impact on her career path from a 2007 intern to her present position of Associate Professor in American Jewish Studies at San Francisco State University.
May 15, 2024
The Hadassah-Brandeis Institute Academic Advisory Committee (AAC) is composed of recognized experts in a range of disciplines within Jewish Women’s and Gender Studies. Each year, they share their time and expertise with us to conduct evaluations of proposals submitted to the HBI Research Awards Program. A subset of this group acts as the final Research Awards Selection Committee.
The 2024 Research Awards Selection Committee is Lisa Fishbayn Joffe (Brandeis University), Rav Rachel Adelman (Hebrew College), Deidre Butler (Carleton University), Debra Kaufman (Northeastern University, emerita), Melissa Klapper (Rowan University), Larissa Remennick (Bar-Ilan University) and Ilana Szobel (Brandeis University).
Watch Melissa Klapper, a 2007 and 2023 HBI Scholar in Residence - and three-time Jeopardy champion - describe the way HBI has supported her across her entire career and why she is proud to serve on the AAC.
May 14, 2024
Want to explore Jewish women's lives through new and thought-provoking literary fiction, memoir and more? Want to connect first hand with those who create it? The Sandra Seltzer Silberman HBI Conversations Series, dedicated in honor of our beloved Conversations friend, Sandy Silberman, z"l, brings us together in a warm, online setting to share stories that explore the diversity of Jewish women's experiences across the world from yesterday and today.
HBI Conversations has been in existence since 2002 - ensconced in living rooms around the country for 18 years, and now online, since 2020. We’ve been grateful to share Silberman’s and HBI’s love of reading and learning about Jewish women with the ever-growing HBI community across the U.S. and the world. Learn more and watch past Conversations programs.
Don’t miss our final HBI Conversations event of the year on Wednesday, May 22 at 7 pm ET (in-person at HBI and online). We’re delighted that Shulamit Reinharz, founding director of HBI, will be joining us to share all about her recently released expansive and colorful first person collection 100 Jewish Brides: Stories from Around the World, which she co-edited with Barbara Vinick. Please register here to join.
May 10, 2024
The Hadassah-Brandeis Institute awards grants to support research or artistic projects in Jewish women’s and gender studies across a range of disciplines. The purpose is to support work that has the potential to make a significant contribution to the field of Jewish Gender Studies by using the lens of gender to inform the field of Jewish Studies, by bringing insights from Jewish Studies to the field of Women’s and Gender Studies, and by exploring interreligious collaborations between Jewish women and women of other faiths. Since our founding, HBI has given 327 Research Awards, many that resulted in books, some that were published in the HBI Series on Jewish Women, won book awards and became acclaimed best sellers.
For example, between 2008 and 2010, HBI gave Judy Batalion approximately $9000 over two Translation Awards (now under the Research Award program) and one Research Award for her translation of the Yiddish work, Freuen in di Ghettos, published in 1946 by the Pioneer Women's Organization. The work is a compilation of recollections, letters and poems by and about Jewish women resistors, mainly from the Polish Labor Zionist movement. This research ultimately led to the publication of Batalion’s well-reviewed book, The Light of Days: The Untold Story of Women Resistance Fighters in Hitler’s Ghettos (HarperCollins, 2021) which has been optioned by Steven Spielberg for a major motion picture. It was also excerpted in the New York Times, Opinion section, The Nazi-Fighting Women of the Jewish Resistance.
Watch as Judy Batalion tells HBI how The Light of Days would not have been possible without our early support.
May 9, 2024
May is Jewish American Heritage Month, a time to celebrate the more than 350-year history of Jewish contributions to America and American culture. A crucial collaborator in the field of Jewish women's and gender studies for twenty-five years, HBI has made important contributions that have supported generations of innovative scholarship, art, and literature by and about American Jewish women, and the world.
With pride, we are sharing a small selection of HBI’s contributions:
- Dirty Dancing: Revisiting the Catskills, HBI’s 2023 Kniznick Gallery exhibition featuring the work of Marisa J. Futernick. Watch Futernick’s artist talk.
- HBI Series on Jewish Women / Brandeis Press publication, Frankly Feminist: Short Stories by Jewish Women from Lilith Magazine (2022), edited by Susan Weidman Schneider and Yona Zeldis McDonough. Watch HBI Director Lisa Fishbayn Joffe discuss the collection with Weidman Schneider and Zeldis McDonough when they joined the Sandra Seltzer Silberman HBI Conversations Series.
- Deeply Rooted: Faith in Reproductive Justice, HBI’s 2023 art exhibition curated by Caron Tabb and featuring the work of twenty-one artists across five decades, four continents, and numerous traditions as a response to the Supreme Court’s Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health decision. View the Deeply Rooted catalog.
- Sandra Seltzer Silberman HBI Conversations Series featuring renowned disability rights advocate Judy Heumann, z”l, author of Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist (2021). Watch the conversation.
- Sandra Seltzer Silberman HBI Conversations Series featuring Dr. Carole Kessner, author of Marie Syrkin: Values Beyond the Self (2021), a HBI Series on Jewish Women publication — with Peter Osnos. Watch the discussion.
- Sandra Seltzer Silberman HBI Conversations Series featuring Professor Pamela Nadell, author of America’s Jewish Women: A History From Colonial Times To Today (2020). Watch the conversation with Pamela Nadell.
- Watch HBI Research Associate Samantha Pickette’s Book Launch: Peak TV’s Unapologetic Jewish Woman: Exploring Jewish Female Representation in Contemporary Television Comedy (2022)
- Watch the 2023 HBI panel event, Jewish Women's Organizing in Support of Reproductive Rights: Past and Present, moderated by HBI Director Lisa Fishbayn Joffe and joined by Becca Rausch, Massachusetts State Senator, Melissa Klapper, historian and current HBI Scholar in Residence, Daphne Lazar Price, Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance (JOFA) Executive Director, and Lara Crawford, National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW) MA.
![Four members of the Boston Agunah Taskforce sit and stand around table filled with books.](../images/research/gcrl/batf/batf.jpg)
May 7, 2024
Part of the HBI Project on Gender, Culture, Religion and the Law, the Boston Agunah Taskforce is devoted to research, education and advocacy for fairness in the Jewish divorce process. We believe that withholding a Jewish divorce is a form of domestic abuse. Women sometimes wait years for a solution, and are often referred to as “agunot,” women ‘chained’ to marriages that are no longer viable. Get refusal is not just an Orthodox issue. It can affect every segment of our Jewish community. People need a Get to remarry in a Conservative synagogue in the U.S., in the state of Israel and in more Orthodox oriented Jewish communities around the world.
The Boston Agunah Taskforce currently serves more than 200 women every year through our online hotline and our in-person services. In addition, our website, getyourget.com, generates traffic from women around the world seeking information on Get abuse, providing educational resources to women we don’t directly service. Since January 2020, the Boston Agunah Taskforce has responded to hundreds of questions and assisted in the delivery of 90 Jewish divorces.
The Boston Agunah Taskforce is grateful for the continued support of The Miriam Fund of CJP - Combined Jewish Philanthropies.
Learn more about the Boston Agunah Taskforce.
![Black and white images of family members smiling and together.](../images/website-pic-hrsg-event-updated.png)
Now I know their names: Family members murdered in the Holocaust
Photo Credit: ©Karin Rosenthal 2023
May 6, 2024
Today, on Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, we remember and mourn the six million Jews and others who perished in the Holocaust. Earlier in the day, HBI held its annual public program featuring the work of the HBI Holocaust Research Study Group (HRSG). A multi-disciplinary group of women scholars actively working on individual Holocaust related projects, our members include a journalist, a prose writer, a public artist, a poet, a fine art photographer, a sociologist, a public health professor, and a film-maker. This year’s program, “Listening to History: Memory of the Holocaust and Competing Narratives of the Israel/Palestine Crisis” was recorded and will be shared here in the coming days. Learn more about this research group and watch past events.
![book covers, on the left, Holy Rebellion, Religious Feminism and the Transformation of Judaism and Women's Rights in Israel by Ronit Irshai and Tanya Zion-Waldoks, in white letters on a black background showing a red Torah, and on the right, The Marital Knot: Agunot in the Ashkenazi Realm, 1648-1850 by Noa Shashar, in white letters on a gray background, showing an image of a dress made of hundreds of pieces of paper](../images/website-gcrl-books.png)
May 3, 2024
A publication series of the Brandeis University Press, the Brandeis Series on Gender, Culture, Religion and the Law focuses on the conflict between women’s claims to gender equality and legal norms justified in terms of religious and cultural traditions. It seeks work that develops new theoretical tools for conceptualizing feminist projects for transforming the interpretation and justification of religious law, examines the interaction or application of civil law or remedies to gender issues in a religious context, and engages in analysis of conflicts over gender and culture/religion in a particular religious legal tradition, cultural community, or nation. Created under the auspices of the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute in conjunction with its Project on Gender, Culture, Religion, and the Law, this series emphasizes cross-cultural and interdisciplinary scholarship concerning Judaism, Islam, Christianity, and other religious traditions.
Here are two of the newest books in the series, Holy Rebellion: Religious Feminism and the Transformation of Judaism and Women's Rights in Israel by Ronit Irshai and Tanya Zion-Waldoks, and coming in December, The Marital Knot: Agunot in the Ashkenazi Realm, 1648-1850 by Noa Shashar.
May 2, 2024
Today’s anniversary celebration installment focuses on the annual Diane Markowicz Lecture on Gender and Human Rights made possible by Sylvia Neil and her husband Dan Fischel in memory of Sylvia’s late sister, Diane Markowicz, to honor her commitment to gender equality and social justice.
The Lecture Series features internationally renowned scholars, judges and activists discussing ways of negotiating the tensions between gender equality and religious or cultural norms and seeks to illuminate a specific set of questions. What are the most pressing challenges in the quest for women’s human rights? Who are the most innovative thinkers taking on these issues? How can their work inform the struggle for gender equality around the world?
Our most recent speaker was Dr. Cochav Elkayam-Levy, an international law and human rights expert and founder of The Civil Commission on Oct. 7th Crimes by Hamas Against Women and Children. An independent, non-governmental collaboration of international human rights experts and women's rights organizations, the Civil Commission was created to advocate for and support the investigation of war crimes committed by Hamas against women and children during the massacre of the 7th of October 2023, and the continuous war crimes. On Oct. 31, Dr. Cochav Elkayam-Levy spoke before the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women.
The Markowicz Lecture Series features internationally renowned scholars, judges and activists discussing ways of negotiating the tensions between gender equality and religious or cultural norms. Past Markowicz speakers include Professor Yofi Tirosh, Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg, Professor Rachel Adler, Professor Catharine MacKinnon, Roya Hakakian, and others. Learn more and watch past lectures here.
![Images of HBI-related events - Markowicz Lecture, Agunah Taskforce - and the book cover for "Holy Rebellion"](../images/website-no-words-gcrl-for-post.png)
May 1, 2024
The mission of HBI’s Project on Gender, Culture, Religion and the Law (GCRL) is to support research and activism which explores conflicts between women's claims to gender equality and legal norms justified in terms of religious and cultural traditions. Its location at HBI shapes its unique approach to exploring these issues. The project supports research on the rights of women in Jewish law, both in Israel and the Diaspora. It also supports comparative work that examines the issues of women's rights under religious laws in interdisciplinary and cross-cultural perspective.
The GCRL hosts scholars in residence and sponsors research. Within the Project on Gender, Culture, Religion and the Law there is the Diane Markowicz Lecture on Gender and Human Rights, the Boston Agunah Task Force, and the HBI Series on Gender, Culture, Religion and the Law. In the coming days, we will explore each of these. The HBI Project on Gender, Culture, Religion and the Law was founded and is chaired by Sylvia Neil.
April 30, 2024
A publication series of the Brandeis University Press, the HBI Series on Jewish Women offers a wide range of books by and about Jewish women in diverse contexts and time periods. Of interest to scholars and the public, the HBI Series on Jewish Women fills major gaps in Jewish Studies and in Women and Gender Studies as well as their intersection. The HBI Series on Jewish Women is supported by a generous gift from Dr. Laura S. Schor. The 42 books in the HBI Series on Jewish Women are appropriate for course adoption in Jewish studies, women’s studies, gender studies, history, religion and many other fields of study as well as for general reading.
Tamar Biala, editor of Dirshuni: Contemporary Women’s Midrash, a publication in the HBI Series on Jewish Women, 2013 and 2015 Scholar in Residence, and current HBI Research Associate, reflects on HBI as a space where she was welcome to fully explore women’s midrash in a supportive environment.
![Neta Weiner and Stav Marin](../about/images/website-studio-israel-neta-weiner-and-stav-marin.png)
Neta Weiner and Stav Marin
April 29, 2024
Studio Israel began during the pandemic as an online conversation series that looks at Israeli culture and diversity through the lens of contemporary Israeli artists and creatives. This Thursday, May 2 at 6:30 pm, we launch the first Studio Israel Live: The Multilingual Music of Jaffa with Neta Weiner and Stav Marin. Joining Weiner and Marin is Yuval Gur, JArts x CJP Community Creative Fellow. For more information or tickets, visit our events page. Studio Israel is a partnership among Hadassah-Brandeis Institute, Jewish Arts Collaborative, Schusterman Center for Israel Studies, and the Vilna Shul and is made possible by generous support from Combined Jewish Philanthropies.
View recordings of our past programs on our Studio Israel web page.
April 26, 2024
The Hadassah-Brandeis Institute accepts six undergraduate and two graduate students with a demonstrated interest in women’s studies, Jewish women’s studies or topics related to Jewish women/Jewish gender issues around the world to participate in our paid residential internship program. Students have the opportunity to work on their own research project, support the research of a Brandeis affiliated scholar, learn about research and careers in Jewish and gender studies, and go on day trips of interest.An HBI survey found that one third of over 175 former HBI summer interns have pursued careers in academic Jewish-gender studies, or brought fresh perspectives to their work as clergy or Jewish professionals. In this way, the work of HBI finds paths into the world, making room for a more inclusive Judaism.
Dr. Samantha Pickette, an HBI 2018 Gilda Slifka Intern, former Internship Academic Advisor, internship mentor, current HBI Research Associate, and Brandeis Hillel Assistant Director, shares her journey with the internship, HBI, and how it influenced her career.
April 25, 2024
HBI has a number of opportunities for students both during the academic year and the summer. This past year HBI employed students for various roles including as student Kniznick gallery docents for the art exhibitions Deeply Rooted: Faith in Reproductive Justice and Lives Eliminated, Dreams Illuminated. Students also worked as research assistants for scholars in residence and for HBI affiliates. They are employed to help in the office, recruit for our Gilda Slifka Summer Internship and other events, and to help run events smoothly. Tomorrow, we will discuss the Gilda Slifka Summer Internship, one of HBI’s important student programs.
Today, Mara Lebovitz, Brandeis ‘24 HBI student assistant and gallery docent, shares her experiences working for HBI both in the Kniznick Gallery and the office.
April 24, 2024
The HBI Scholar in Residence program offers distinguished scholars, writers and communal professionals the opportunity to produce significant work in the area of Jewish studies and gender issues while being freed from their regular institutional responsibilities. Scholars in Residence contribute to the life of HBI by immersing in the institute’s weekly activities, participating in HBI conferences and programs, and delivering a public lecture. Since our founding HBI hosted 138 scholars in residence, working on a range of topics. For example, this year’s research areas included disability culture in Israel, fiction about the Jewish American family, emerging travel for Jewish women between 1860 and 1920, queer Niddah, and American Jews and the politics of abortion.
Dr. Max Strassfeld, 2022 Scholar in Residence, Project on Gender, Culture, Religion and the Law, speaks to HBI’s relevance in today’s climate.
April 21, 2024
In the years following HBI’s founding, it had an enormous impact. Dr. Sylvia Barack Fishman, HBI’s founding co-director, explains HBI’s academic influence in both building and contributing to the field of Jewish women’s and gender studies.
April 19, 2024
How did HBI begin?
The genesis of HBI can be traced to a 1995 report of the Hadassah-sponsored National Commission on American Jewish Women, chaired by Brandeis sociologist Dr. Shulamit Reinharz, who ultimately became the founding director of HBI. Titled Voices for Change: Future Directions for American Jewish Women, the report summarized existing research and concluded that while information on Jewish women’s history, lives and culture existed, there was a need for robust support for future research. Thanks to a generous endowment from Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America, HBI (originally known as the International Research Institute on Jewish Women) opened at Brandeis University in 1997. The mission of HBI was later expanded to include gender more generally.
Dr. Shulamit Reinharz, the founding director, describes the mission, “Fresh ways of thinking about Jews and gender worldwide – producing and promoting scholarly research, artistic projects and public engagement,” as broad and “multidimensional” so that it encourages “every field of inquiry.”
Watch Dr. Shulamit Reinharz, founding director, tell HBI’s origin story.
April 18, 2024
During these 25 days, we will feature testimonials from people who tell their own HBI stories. Today, we hear from Rachel Barenbaum, 2022 HBI Scholar in Residence, and author of A Bend in the Stars (2019) and Atomic Anna (2022). She reflects on HBI’s influence on her work.
![Lisa Fishbayn Joffe](../about/images/lisa-headshot-200-x-200.png)
Dr. Lisa Fishbayn Joffe, Shulamit Reinharz Director of HBI
April 17, 2024
Twenty-five years ago, in a small office at Brandeis, the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute opened its doors to a single scholar, published one book, and gave out 20 HBI Research Awards. Read more from HBI Director Dr. Lisa Fishbayn Joffe.