Media Type: Video
Only Miracles Interview with Avi Gorodetski
Avi Gorodetski shares her reflections after just experiencing Only Miracles. She shares the importance of interactive theater in Holocaust education.
Jews in the United States and the Response to the Holocaust, 1942-45
“Jews in the United States and the Response to the Holocaust, 1942-45-Audrey G. Ratner Lecture Series with Dr. Jason Dawsey
Reports of the mass murder of European Jews reached Jews in the United States in 1942. Although precise knowledge of what was actually happening was piecemeal, American Jews and Jewish refugees, recently arrived in the US, mobilized to draw attention to the genocide, demanded military action against the Nazis to stop the killing, and called for collective efforts to aid survivors. This talk covers the range of responses from the Jewish community in the US to the Holocaust during World War II.”
WDSU Rose Rosenkranz Media Story
“Rosie Rosenkranz was born in a Siberian labor camp.
NEW ORLEANS — A Holocaust survivor will share her story during a talk on Tulane University’s campus on Wednesday.
Rosie Rosenkranz is described as a miracle baby, born in a Siberian slave labor camp, according to Professor Dodd Loomis, who has researched her family extensively.
Rosenkranz will speak at 6:30 p.m. inside the Diboll Gallery. Her talk is open to the public, but registration is required.
The conversation kicks off the opening of “”Only Miracles,”” a play telling the story of Rosenkranz’s parents.
Its first showing is Saturday, April 13, inside the Touro Synagogue on St. Charles Avenue. To purchase tickets, click here.
Loomis wrote, produced and directed the play, which he hopes will be an active and immersive experience for attendees.
“”I think when you sit down and read a book, for me … it’s easy to just engage the prefrontal cortex and turn this into an academic experience,”” Loomis said. “”There’s some value there, but we have to push beyond that, and what I’m trying to do is have the audience have an emotional connection.””
He hopes through both the talk with Rosenkranz and the play, people will understand the Holocaust more effectively.
“”When you say six million, I can’t wrap my head around that. It’s a statistic. There’s no emotional piece,”” Loomis said. “”So to be able to tell two people’s, two survivors’ stories, both of which all of their families were killed, in real personal detail, to me, informs the greater whole.”””
Mike Cohen Investiture: Tulane Grant Center
“Michael R. Cohen, PhD, was formally invested in the Stuart and Suzanne Grant Chair in the American Jewish Experience at Tulane University on Jan. 17. The event also honored the establishment of the Stuart and Suzanne Grant Center for the American Jewish Experience.
Cohen also chairs the Department of Jewish Studies at the School of Liberal Arts, where he holds a Sizeler Family Professorship in Judaic Studies IV.
“”I am so humbled and honored to be leading the Grant Center and to be holding the Grant Chair,”” Cohen said. “”With the resources to support initiatives that I see as vital to the field of American Jewish studies, we have been able to develop scholarly programs that address the insularity of American Jewish history and expand its relevance.””
Cohen noted the Grant Center’s collaborative research groups, public programs, student fellowships and leadership courses.
“”The Center that I envisioned would contribute richness to the field of American Jewish studies by supporting experimentative, collaborative and interdisciplinary programs and research, would cross boundaries between academic spaces and the wider ecology of the Jewish world, and would engage students in meaningful ways that would prepare them to be leaders of the future,”” he said.
At the investiture, President Michael A. Fitts spoke of Tulane’s longstanding connection to Judaism and of the positive impact of the Jewish community on the history of New Orleans.
“”There’s no institution in the Gulf South better suited to enhance the scholarship and teaching of the rich history, diversity and bright future of the American Jewish experience – specifically, the Southern Jewish experience,”” said Fitts.
Fitts lauded the generosity of Stuart and Suzanne Grant in establishing the chair and the center as a world-class hub for exploring the varied and diverse nature of the American Jewish experience at Tulane. The Grants are dedicated Tulanians as parents of Sam (SSE ’19), now a member of the U.S. Marine Corps. The couple are also members of Tulane’s National Campaign Council, and Suzanne Grant is a member of the Board of Tulane.
Along with Cohen and Fitts, Provost Robin Forman and School of Liberal Arts Dean Brian Edwards were on hand to celebrate the special moment and to express their gratitude to Stuart and Suzanne Grant for making such an impactful gift for the Department of Jewish Studies and the campus community as a whole.”
Presentation and Panel Discussion – The End of the Golden Age of American Jews
Presentation and Panel Discussion Regarding Franklin Foer’s recent article, “The Golden Age of American Jews is Ending” with Dr. Ilana Horwitz, Dr. Naomi Yavneh-Klos, and Rabbi Katie Bauman at Touro Synagogue. This goes with the pdf article of the same name.
Religions Surprising Impact on Academic Success Ilana Horwitz
“How does a religious upbringing influence a student’s academic outcomes?
In this talk, Dr. Horwitz discusses research from her new book, God, Grades, and Graduation: Religion’s Surprising Impact on Academic Success (Oxford University Press, 2022). She explains why intensely religious students tend to overperform in educational attainment and undermatch in college choice, and how the relationship between religion and academic outcomes varies by socioeconomic status.
From Heterodox Academy”
The Jew in the Lotus 30th Anniversary Dialogue
The Jew in the Lotus is a best-selling account of dialogue between rabbis and the Dalai Lama. Poets and teachers Rodger Kamenetz and Norman Fischer
A Conversation with Holocaust Survivor Rose (Raisa) Lefkowitz Rosenkranz
Join Rose Rosenkranz, a Holocaust survivor and “miracle baby” born in a Siberian Slave Labor Camp in the heart of the war, as she shares her story of resilience and hope. The Grant Center for the American Jewish Experience at Tulane University will present an evening of powerful narratives and personal reflections of life in the United States after the Holocaust.
Mrs. Rosenkranz’s remarkable story will not only educate but serve as the inspiration for the upcoming immersive theatre production titled “Only Miracles”, Written and Directed by Tulane Visiting Assistant Professor, Dodd Loomis. This captivating production, that took place in mid-April at the historic Touro Synagogue, will bring to life the experiences of Mrs. Rosenkranz, her parents and others who lived through this dark chapter in history.
Ballots, Babies, & Banners of Peace
“Ballots, Babies, and Banners of Peace – Rottman Family Lecture Series with Dr. Melissa Klapper
This talk with Dr. Melissa Klapper will explore the social and political activism of American Jewish women from the 1890s through World War II, focusing on three mass women’s movements of the day: suffrage, birth control, and peace. No history of first wave feminism is complete without understanding the outsize impact of Jewish women on these movements and the powerful effect of their activism on contemporary American life.”
Dr. Lawrence J. Kanter Lecture – Dr. Mike Cohen Lecture at SJHS
In 2021, Dr. Lawrence J. Kanter made by the largest single philanthropic gift in the society’s history. Dr. Kanter has been a long-time member of the society, as well as an active contributor to Jewish life in the Jacksonville area where he has worked and lived for more than 30 years. His gift will support lectures and research grants through the society, as well as the Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience in New Orleans and the Department of Jewish Studies at Tulane University, Larry’s alma mater, to whom he gave similar gifts recognizing our joint desire to impact the future of southern Jewish scholarship. The second Kanter lecture was given in October 2022 by Dr. Michael Cohen during the society’s annual conference in Charleston, SC.
Evolving Representations of the Holocaust Survivor in the Post-War World
David Slucki and Golan Moskowitz discuss how public perceptions and representations of the Holocaust survivor have evolved from 1945 through the present, considering shifting cultural trends, political factors, intergenerational dynamics, and varied aesthetic approaches.
Golan Moskowitz introduces his book Wild Visionary
Wild Visionary reconsiders Maurice Sendak’s life and work in the context of his experience as a Jewish gay man. Maurice (Moishe) Bernard Sendak (1928–2012) was a fierce, romantic, and shockingly funny truth seeker who intervened in modern literature and culture. Raising the stakes of children’s books, Sendak painted childhood with the dark realism and wild imagination of his own sensitive “inner child,” drawing on the queer and Yiddish sensibilities that shaped his singular voice. Interweaving literary biography and cultural history, Golan Y. Moskowitz follows Sendak from his parents’ Brooklyn home to spaces of creative growth and artistic vision—from neighborhood movie palaces to Hell’s Kitchen, Greenwich Village, Fire Island, and the Connecticut country home he shared with Eugene Glynn, his partner of more than fifty years. Further, he analyzes Sendak’s investment in the figure of the endangered child in symbolic relation to collective touchstones that impacted the artist’s perspective—the Great Depression, the Holocaust, and the AIDS crisis. Through a deep exploration of Sendak’s picture books, interviews, and previously unstudied personal correspondence, Wild Visionary offers a sensitive portrait of the most beloved and enchanting picture-book artist of our time. For more information: https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=31783
