College Commons

Author Hen Mazzig dives into the varieties and challenges of Jewishness diversity, while also capturing our shared experience, identity and story. Hen Mazzig is an award winning Israeli author, a writer, and a speaker who has inspired thousands around the world with his story for over a decade. He was named as one of the Algemeiner’s top 100 people positively influencing Jewish life in 2018 and 2021, Top 50 online pro-Israel Influencers, and Top 50 LGBTQ+ Influencers. In 2022 the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis chose Hen to be its' Portrait in Courage award laureate. Hen's first bestselling book, "The Wrong Kind of Jew" was released in 2022.

Author Oren Schneider was raised by his grandfather, Alex, who survived Buchenwald and built a life in Israel, against all the odds. Oren Schneider was born in Israel, a third generation to holocaust survivors and seventh generation to farmers from the Galilee. He is an entrepreneur and business owner who enjoys music, cooking, travel, people and especially the combination of all four. He lives with his family in Brooklyn.

Congressional observer Ira Shapiro revisits his past critiques of Congress. Ira Shapiro’s forty-five-year Washington career has focused on American politics and international trade. Shapiro served twelve years in senior staff positions in the U.S. Senate, working for a series of distinguished senators: Jacob Javits, Gaylord Nelson, Abraham Ribicoff, Thomas Eagleton, Robert Byrd, and Jay Rockefeller. He served in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative during the Clinton administration, first as general counsel and then chief negotiator with Japan and Canada, with the rank of ambassador. In his most recent book on the U.S. Senate, The Betrayal: How Mitch McConnell and the Senate Republicans Abandoned America (Rowman & Littlefield; May 17, 2022), Shapiro turns his gaze to how the Senate responded to the challenges posed by the Trump administration and its prospects under President Biden.

Author Jai Chakrabarti explores unexpected avenues to discovering family and identity in his new short story collection. Jai Chakrabarti is the author of the novel A Play for the End of the World (Knopf), which won the National Jewish Book Award for debut fiction, was the Association of Jewish Libraries Honor Book, and was long-listed for the PEN/Faulkner Award. He is also the author of the story collection A Small Sacrifice for an Enormous Happiness (Knopf, Feb 2023). His short fiction has appeared in One Story, Electric Literature, A Public Space, Conjunctions, Gulf Coast, Michigan Quarterly Review, and elsewhere and has been anthologized in The O. Henry Prize Stories, The Best American Short Stories, and awarded a Pushcart Prize and also performed on Selected Shorts by Symphony Space. His nonfiction has been published in The Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, Writer’s Digest, Berfrois, and LitHub. He was an Emerging Writer Fellow with A Public Space and received an MFA in Creative Writing from Brooklyn Co

Host Josh Holo and author Dara Horn have a lively and thought-provoking discussion about her controversial new book. Dara Horn is the award-winning author of five novels and the essay collection People Love Dead Jews, and the creator and host of the podcast Adventures with Dead Jews. One of Granta magazine’s Best Young American Novelists and a three-time winner of the National Jewish Book Award, among other honors, Horn received her doctorate in Yiddish and Hebrew literature from Harvard University, and has taught these subjects at Sarah Lawrence College, Yeshiva University, and Harvard. She has lectured at hundreds of venues across North America, Israel and Australia. She lives in New Jersey with her husband and four children. Photo credit by: Michael B. Priest

Lilith Magazine Editor Susan Weidman Schneider shares a groundbreaking Jewish feminist short story collection spanning 40 Years. Susan Weidman Schneider, one of Lilith’s founding mothers, has been editor in chief since the magazine launched. Her writing about Jewish women’s philanthropy, the Jewish stake in abortion rights, the persistence of gender stereotyping and more have been credited with moving the needle on feminist change in the Jewish world. She’s the author of Jewish and Female and Intermarriage, and co-author of Head and Heart, a book about money in the lives of women.

Young author Suzette Sheft retells her grandmother’s story of survival during the Holocaust. Suzette Sheft is a 16-year-old student at the Horace Mann School in New York City. She lives in Manhattan with her mother, twin brother, and two dogs. In her free time, she enjoys writing, reading, running, volunteering, and spending time with her family. She won a Scholastic Silver Key for an excerpt of Running for Shelter, her debut novel. The book is dedicated to her late father who inspired her to write and share her family’s story.

Dr. Rotem Rozental dives into the treasure of the Jewish National Fund’s pre-state photographic archive. Rotem Rozental, Ph.D, is the Executive Director of the Los Angeles Center of Photography. Between 2016-2022, she served as Chief Curator at American Jewish University, where she was also Assistant Dean of the Whizin Center for Continuing Education and Senior Director of Arts and Creative Programming. Her upcoming book, Pre-State Photographic Archives and the Zionist Movement is in press with Routledge Publishers, and was named recipient of the Jordan Schnitzer First Book Award by the Association for Jewish Studies. Rotem is a lecturer at USC Roski School of Art and Design Critical Studies Department, and teaches seminars about photo-theory at the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research. She mentors artists worldwide and contributes regularly to magazines, journals and exhibition catalogues. Her writings about contemporary art and image-based media, as well as Jewish and Israeli art, were published in Artfo

Grace Overbeke uncovers the stories behind the career of legendary Jewish comedian Jean Carroll. Grace Overbeke, PhD: Grace Kessler Overbeke is an Assistant Professor in the Theatre Department of Columbia College with a focus on Comedy Writing and Performance. Previously, she served as the Perilman Postdoctoral Fellow in Jewish Studies at Duke University. Her most recent scholarship appears in Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies, Theatre Topics, and Theatre Annual. Other publications appear in The New England Theatre Journal, Theatre Survey, Studies in American Humor, and The Jewish Forward. She was the recipient of the Mark and Ruth Luckens International Prize in Jewish Thought and Culture, and the Northwestern Crown Center Fellowship for Jewish and Israel Studies. She received her B.A. in Theatre and English from Wesleyan University, and her M.A. and Ph.D. from Northwestern University's Interdisciplinary PhD in Theatre and Drama.

Professor Eric Lawee uncovers the complexities and fascination of our most influential author. Eric Lawee is a full professor in the Department of Bible at Bar-Ilan University, where he teaches the history of Jewish biblical scholarship. His Rashi’s Commentary on the Torah: Canonization and Resistance in the Reception of a Jewish Classic won the 2019 Jewish Book Award in the category of Scholarship of the Jewish Book Council. It was also the 2021 finalist for a Jordan Schnitzer Book Award in the category of Medieval and Early Modern Jewish History and Culture of the Association for Jewish Studies. Lawee holds the Rabbi Asher Weiser Chair for Medieval Biblical Commentary Research and directs Bar-Ilan's Institute for Jewish Bible Interpretation.

Prof. Gordon Dale traces the path of traditional Hasidic music. Dr. Gordon Dale, the Inaugural Dr. Jack Gottlieb, z”l, Scholar in Jewish Music Studies, currently serves as the Visiting Assistant Professor of Ethnomusicology at the Debbie Friedman School of Sacred Music (DFSSM) at HUC/New York. Effective July 1, 2022, he will become the Assistant Professor of Jewish Musicology in the DFSSM. Dr. Dale has most recently conducted extensive research in the Hasidic communities of New York and Israel, and has lectured across the United States on topics related to Israeli popular music, and Jewish music and mysticism. Dr. Dale is currently the Executive Director of The Jewish Music Forum, a project of the American Society for Jewish Music, and is a past president of the Society for Ethnomusicology’s Special Interest Group for Jewish Music. He holds a Ph.D. from The Graduate Center, CUNY, an M.A. from Tufts University, and a B.S. from Northeastern University. His forthcoming book, The Life and Works of Rabbi Ben Zion

Stories and identities collide and coalesce as Ladino-speaking Jews land in Mexico. Assoc. Professor of Jewish Studies at the University of Michigan, Dr. Devi Mays studies the transnational Jewish networks in the Mediterranean and globally, with a focus on Sephardic Jews, gender, and identity. In her 2020 book “Forging Ties, Forging Passports,” she tells the stories of Sephardi migrants to Mexico with, their networks among formerly Ottoman lands, France, the United States, Cuba, as well as Mexico. Mostly, Dr. Mays points out the manner in which geographic and social mobility challenged the physical borders of the state and the conceptual boundaries of the nation. “Forging Ties” won a 2020 National Jewish Book Award a 2021 Jordan Schnitzer Book Award.

Professor Alexander Kaye reminds us that Orthodoxy does not necessarily seek a monopoly on the power of state. Alexander Kaye is the Karl, Harry, and Helen Stoll Assistant Professor of Israel Studies at Brandeis University, and is the author of "The Invention of Jewish Theocracy: The Struggle for Legal Authority in Modern Israel" (Oxford University Press, 2020). His research deals in the history of Jewish thought, with a special focus on political thought, the history of law and theories of Jewish modernity. He is also an expert in Israel Studies, and his research in the history of Israel focuses on the relationship between law, religion and politics, and in particular in the history of religious Zionism.

Blurb: Washington insider Ira Shapiro takes the Senate to task – and asks us to fix it. Ira Shapiro’s forty-five-year Washington career has focused on American politics and international trade. Shapiro served twelve years in senior staff positions in the U.S. Senate, working for a series of distinguished senators: Jacob Javits, Gaylord Nelson, Abraham Ribicoff, Thomas Eagleton, Robert Byrd, and Jay Rockefeller. He served in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative during the Clinton administration, first as general counsel and then chief negotiator with Japan and Canada, with the rank of ambassador. In his two previous highly regarded books on the U.S. Senate, Ira Shapiro chronicled the institution from its apogee in the 1970s through its decline in the decades since. Now, in his new book -- The Betrayal: How Mitch McConnell and the Senate Republicans Abandoned America (Rowman & Littlefield; May 17, 2022), Shapiro turns his gaze to how the Senate responded to the challenges posed by the Trump adminis

Professor Annabel Herzog dives into a unique Jewish philosopher's approach to ethics and politics. Annabel Herzog is a Professor of Political Theory at the School of Political Science, and Director of the M.A. Program in Cultural Studies, at the University of Haifa. Her work has focussed on 20th-century philosophers, such as Hannah Arendt, Emmanuel Levinas, Albert Camus and Jacques Derrida; on Philosophy and Literature; on Contemporary Jewish Philosophy; on Memory and Trauma, on Ethics and Politics. Her book: Levinas's Politics: Justice, Mercy, Universality (University of Pennsylvania Press: 2000 won of the 2021 Jordan Schnitzer Book Award in Philosophy and Jewish Thought.

An early-modern myth of Jewish credit frames age-old antisemitic tropes. Francesca Trivellato is Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Early Modern European History at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ. She is the author, most recently, of The Promise and Peril of Credit: What a Forgotten Legend about Jews and Finance Tells us about the Making of European Commercial Society (Princeton University Press, 2019), which won the 2020 Jacques Barzun Book Prize in Cultural History and the 2021 Jordan Schnitzer Book Award in medieval and early modern Jewish History and Culture.

How the Jewish community can become truly diverse and inclusive in the 21st Century. Warren Hoffman is the executive director of the Association for Jewish Studies, the largest academic Jewish studies membership organization in the world. He has spent his career working in Jewish communal agencies, including JCCs and Federations, to bring change, innovation, and new ideas to legacy organizations. He holds a PhD in American literature from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Hoffman is the author of two books: The Passing Game: Queering Jewish American Culture and The Great White Way: Race and the Broadway Musical. Miriam Steinberg-Egeth has been a leader in the Philadelphia Jewish community since 2006, providing interdenominational and intergenerational opportunities for Jews of all backgrounds to connect with communal experiences that work for them. Her roles have included director of the Center City Kehillah, administrator for the Board of Rabbis of Greater Philadelphia, and director of Hillel of G

Dr. Jason Lustig uncovers epic struggles over archives, the repositories of our stories and identity. Dr. Jason Lustig is a Lecturer and Israel Institute Teaching Fellow at the Schusterman Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. His first book, A Time to Gather: Archives and the Control of Jewish Culture (Oxford University Press, 2021), traces the twentieth-century struggle over who might “own” Jewish history, especially after the Nazi looting of Jewish archives. Dr. Lustig is also the host and creator of the Jewish History Matters Podcast, which is online at JewishHistory.FM. He received his Ph.D. at the UCLA Department of History, and has also been a Harry Starr Fellow in Judaica at Harvard University’s Center for Jewish Studies and a Gerald Westheimer Early Career Fellow at the Leo Baeck Institute.

Author Helene Wecker and the immigrant experience told through the lives of mythical monsters. Helene Wecker’s first novel, The Golem and the Jinni, was awarded the Mythopoeic Award for Adult Literature, the VCU Cabell Award for First Novel, and the Harold U. Ribalow Prize, and was nominated for a Nebula Award and a World Fantasy Award. Its sequel, The Hidden Palace, was published in June 2021, and received a National Jewish Book Award and a Golden Poppy Award. A Midwest native, she holds a B.A. in English from Carleton College and an M.F.A. in Fiction Writing from Columbia University. Her work has appeared in literary journals such as Paper Brigade, Joyland, and Catamaran, as well as the fantasy anthology The Djinn Falls in Love and Other Stories. She currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and children.

CCAR Chief Executive Rabbi Hara Person defends abortion rights, in the wake of Dobbs. Rabbi Hara Person is the Chief Executive of Central Conference of American Rabbis. She is the first woman Chief Executive in the history of the CCAR. As Chief Executive, Rabbi Person oversees lifelong rabbinic learning, professional development and career services, CCAR Press -- liturgy, sacred texts, educational materials, apps, and other content for Reform clergy, congregations and Jewish organizations -- and critical resources and thought leadership for the 2,200 rabbis who serve more than 2 million Reform Jews throughout North America, Israel, and the world. She was ordained in 1998 from HUC-JIR, after graduating summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Amherst College (1986) and receiving an MA in Fine Arts from New York University/International Center of Photography (1992). Rabbi Person served as Educator at the Brooklyn Heights Synagogue from 1990-1996, and was the Adjunct Rabbi there from 1998-2019. She also serve