March 28, 2023
12-1 p.m. ET
Hybrid: Online and In-Person in the Liberman-Miller Lecture Hall at Brandeis University
Rachel B. Gross, San Francisco State University, HBI Scholar in Residence
“Preaching the Promised Land: Mary Antin’s American Religions”
Once one of the most famous women in the United States, Mary Antin shaped American conversations about immigration and Jews’ place in the United States with her 1912 autobiography, “The Promised Land.” In her politically savvy narrative, Antin sharply contrasted her childhood in Russia from life in the United States, presenting Americanism as a religion to which one could convert. In the years following the national acclaim of “The Promised Land,” Antin continued to be a religious seeker, participating in a wide range of innovative religious communities, even as she battled mental and physical illnesses.
“Preaching the Promised Land: Mary Antin’s American Religions” will explore Mary Antin’s variable and dynamic approaches to religion. As a political campaigner, a Zionist, a member of an intentional Christian community, a devotee of the Indian spiritual leader Meher Baba, and a believer in Rudolph Steiner’s spiritual concept of anthroposophy, Antin’s political and spiritual explorations tell us about the possibilities of early twentieth-century American Jewish identities. This religious biography will tell the story of a Jewish writer, a single mother, a disabled woman, and a spiritual seeker who found communities that sustained her and her daughter on her own terms. She sought out intentional communities not in spite of her mental and physical illnesses but because of them, finding communities where she could contribute and be embraced as her whole self, including as a Jew.
This event is free and open to the public.
March 29, 2023
11 a.m. – 12 p.m. in the Kniznick Gallery, followed by dancing from 12-1 p.m. / In-person
This is a live event only. Please register to attend.
Join artist Marisa J. Futernick in the Kniznick Gallery for a tour of “Dirty Dancing: Revisiting the Catskills,” and bring your photo albums to share over coffee and snacks. Stay for a noon dance party if you wish — do The Twist and learn a new dance from the Borscht Belt era!
This event is free and open to the public.
March 30, 2023
12-1 p.m. ET/online
Painter Zoya Cherkassky will be in conversation with Gannit Ankori, Henry and Lois Foster Director and Chief Curator of the Rose Art Museum.
Painter Zoya Cherkassky was born in Ukraine in 1976 and immigrated to Israel in 1991. Her works have been shown in premier Israeli art museums and galleries for over a decade, as well as throughout Europe and North America. Her works bring together languages stemming from ‘high’ and ‘low’ cultures, pop and computer aesthetics. As an immigrant from the former USSR to Israel, Cherkassky deals with issues of identity and alienation as well as the different conflicts that rise in the clash between the cultures.
Discover more of Zoya Cherkassky’s work.
Studio Israel is an online conversation series that looks at Israeli culture and diversity through the lens of contemporary Israeli artists and creatives. Chaired by Caron Tabb, Studio Israel is a partnership among Hadassah-Brandeis Institute, Jewish Arts Collaborative, the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies, and the Vilna Shul, and is made possible by generous support from Combined Jewish Philanthropies.
This event is free and open to the public.
Extended hours in the Kniznick Gallery, Dirty Dancing: Revisiting the Catskills by Marisa J. Futernick
March 30, 2023, 10 am to 7:30 pm. Live event only.
Join artist Marisa J. Futernick in the Kniznick Gallery for a tour of “Dirty Dancing: Revisiting the Catskills.” Bring friends and stay for snacks.
Kniznick Gallery, 515 South St., Waltham, MA.
For more HBI events, visit our Events Page.
