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SUMMONED: Identity and Religion in a Haredi Neighborhood

Magnes Collection of Jewish Life and Art 2121 Allston Way, Berkeley, CA, United States

In Summoned, Tavory takes readers to the heart of the exhilarating —at times exhausting—life of the Beverly-La Brea Jewish Orthodox community. Just blocks from West Hollywood’s nightlife, the Orthodox community thrives next to the impure sights, sounds, and smells they encounter every day. But to sustain this life, as Tavory shows, is not simply a moral […]

Great Stories | Spring 2016

Magnes Collection of Jewish Life and Art 2121 Allston Way, Berkeley, CA, United States

Author and journalist Frances Dinkelspiel explores the Jewish connections in the history uncovered by her recent NY Times bestseller book, Tangled Vines: Greed, Murder, Obsession and an Arsonist in the Vineyards of California (St. Martin’s Press 2015), including Benjamin Dreyfus’ pioneering of kosher wine production in the Golden State, Isaias Hellman and Daniel Mayer’s controlling […]

PopUp Exhibition | Brett Lockspeiser on Moses Mendelssohn’s Digital Library

Magnes Collection of Jewish Life and Art 2121 Allston Way, Berkeley, CA, United States

What can a 19th century painting of a library scene teach us about the problems and opportunities of building a new digital library? What's changed since 1856? What hasn't? In this talk, Brett Lockspeiser will use Oppenheim's painting of Mendelssohn's library as a springboard to explore questions around what a new digital library can and should […]

FREUD, POLITICS AND ANTI-SEMITISM

Magnes Collection of Jewish Life and Art 2121 Allston Way, Berkeley, CA, United States

This talk aims to portray the significant effects of Freud’s anxieties regarding anti-Semitic violence on his psychoanalytic theory. Taking as its entry point Freud’s reorientation of anti-Semitism as aggressive action, Sharvit argues that Freud’s fear of the violent mob had deep implication on his political theory and theory of mind. The threat of anti-Semitism encouraged […]

Lecture | Celia Applegate: Family Ties: How the Mendelssohns Understood Their Own History

Magnes Collection of Jewish Life and Art 2121 Allston Way, Berkeley, CA, United States

In 1879, Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel’s son Sebastian published “Die Familie Mendelssohn 1729-1847” as the “chronicle of a good German Bürger Family.” It carried an epigram from Goethe’s Iphigenie as its frontispiece, on the joy of recounting the deeds of one’s fathers. This lecture will work backwards in time from this 1879 family chronicle, using letters […]

Todd Gitlin | Chosen People? Jewish Identity

Magnes Collection of Jewish Life and Art 2121 Allston Way, Berkeley, CA, United States

6 p.m. reception, 6:30 p.m. lecture Today, American Jews are in centrifugal motion, and the center does not hold. Sixty years ago, after the Holocaust, Jews overwhelmingly joined in the American celebration and in a common commitment to Israel. Redemptive spirit, old-country nostalgia, and successful assimilation came together. Today, the sense of commonality frays, perhaps to the breaking […]

PopUp Exhibition | Daniel Schifrin on Chess & Jewish Literature

Magnes Collection of Jewish Life and Art 2121 Allston Way, Berkeley, CA, United States

Daniel Schifrin’s fiction and essays have appeared, among other places, in McSweeney’s, the Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Westwind/UCLA’s Journal of the Arts, Jet Fuel Review, and em. He has been a visiting scholar at Stanford University, writer-in-residence at the Contemporary Jewish Museum, and a co-curator for the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art […]

Music Performance | Left Coast Chamber Ensemble presents Felix Mendelssohn, Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor

Magnes Collection of Jewish Life and Art 2121 Allston Way, Berkeley, CA, United States

Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor, Op. 49 (1839) I. Molto Allegro agitato II. Andante con molto tranquillo III. Scherzo. Leggiero e vivace IV. Finale. Allegro assai appassionato   Left Coast Chamber EnsembleAnna Presler, violin Tanya Tomkins, cello Eric Zivian, piano   Erard Grand Piano, London, 1854     Founded in 1992, Left […]

Lunch Book Talk with Ingrid Carlberg

Magnes Collection of Jewish Life and Art 2121 Allston Way, Berkeley, CA, United States

Author and journalist Ingrid Carlberg will talk about her recently published book, Raoul Wallenberg: The Heroic Life and Mysterious Disappearance of the Man Who Saved Thousands of Hungarian Jews from the Holocaust (MacLehose Press 2016). Read the Kirkus review here. Ingrid Carlberg's biography of Raoul Wallenberg was awarded the August Prize for nonfiction and the Swedish Academy's Axel Hirsch Prize. Carlberg's […]

PopUp Exhibition | The Inadvertent Archivist. Gary Handman’s Report From the Magnes Community Archives

Magnes Collection of Jewish Life and Art 2121 Allston Way, Berkeley, CA, United States

Gary Handman, Archivist and Public Services Coordinator at The Magnes Collection, is the former Director of the Media Resources Center, Moffitt Library, University of California Berkeley, one of the largest and most respected video collections in a U.S. academic library. Gary has taught, spoken and published widely on topics related to media librarianship, visual literacy, […]

Curating Culture, Making Memory: On the Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews

Magnes Collection of Jewish Life and Art 2121 Allston Way, Berkeley, CA, United States

Curating Culture, Making Memory: On the Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews 11 a.m.-6 p.m., April 3 A day of film and lectures highlighting the Polin Museum located in Warszawa and Jewish history in Poland. 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m. "Raise the Roof," 2015. 85 minutes. Landmark Shattuck Theater, 2230 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley.  A documentary by […]

Depth of Field: Sephardic Identities on Screen | The Wedding Song

Magnes Collection of Jewish Life and Art 2121 Allston Way, Berkeley, CA, United States

The Wedding Song  France-Tunisia, 2008. 100 min. The Nazi occupation of Tunisia strains the bonds of friendship between a Muslim and a Sephardic woman who are both preparing for their marriages.       About the Depth of Field Series The term "Sephardic" indicates the descendants of the Iberian Jews who were expelled from Spain […]