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 […]
Lauren Cooper, a Comparative Literature major and Spanish and History minor (2016) at UC Berkeley, and the Managing Editor of the Berkeley Fiction Review, has been engaged as an Undergraduate Research Apprentice at The Magnes since 2014. She has collaborated in the making of multiple exhibitions, and helped creating an online companion to the Magnes […]
Robert Alter is Professor of the Graduate School and Emeritus Professor of Hebrew and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of twenty-six books and has received numerous awards, including the Robert Kirsch Award of the Los Angeles Times for lifetime contribution to American literature, the Charles Homer Haskins Prize […]
Erard Grand Piano, London, 1854 Nicholas McGegan is Music Director of Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Principal Guest Conductor of the Pasadena Symphony and, beginning in 2014, Artist in Association with Australia’s Adelaide Symphony. Through 29 years as its music director, McGegan has established the San Francisco-based Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and Philharmonia Chorale as one of the world’s […]
Yosef Rosen, a Doctoral Candidate in Jewish Studies and Magnes Graduate Fellow (Fall 2015), and Zoe Lewin, an Art History and Rhetoric major (2016) at UC Berkeley, will present on the visual power of text expressed in the shiviti holdings in The Magnes Collection. Shivitis are devotional Hebrew manuscripts aimed at encouraging meditation and the contemplation of God’s name […]
Dr. Noreen Green, Artistic Director and Conductor of the Los Angeles Jewish Symphony (LAJS), which she founded in 1994, discusses the history of film music, concentrating on the contribution of Jewish émigré composers. The talk will include the screening of movie highlights, as well as recordings from the LAJS performances.
Rebecca Golbert, executive director of the Institute for Jewish Law and Israel Studies at UC Berkeley, scholarship reflects overlapping interests in Jewish and Holocaust studies, anthropology and ethnography, and conflict resolution and mediation. Her doctoral and postdoctoral research focused on Ukrainian Jewish community and identity and Holocaust memory and memorialization within post-Soviet Ukraine. Her presentation […]
Pharaonic magic has broadly influenced magic in Antiquity; in particular, ancient Jewish magical texts and practices reveal interesting points of contact with earlier Egyptian sources. During this talk, a few issues concerning a comparative study of magic in Antiquity will be discussed by bringing as a case-study the comparison between ancient Egyptian and Jewish magic. […]
City of Berkeley 14th Annual Holocaust Remembrance Day Free and open to the public. Honoring Marika and Laszlo Somogyi Distinguished Survivors With David Chernyavsky, violinist Markus Pawlik, Pianist Tomasz Koncewicz, Fulbright Visiting Professor, UC Berkeley Law George Csicsery, Filmmaker "Angel of Mercy" Mark Donig, UC Berkeley Law Student Enrique Lopez, Berkeley High Student UC Berkeley Armenian Choir […]
The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life cordially invites you to an opening reception for I-Tal-Yah: An Island of Divine Dew Italian Crossroads in Jewish Culture An exhibition marking the 500th Anniversary of the founding of the Venice Ghetto (1516) Tuesday, September 6, 2016 at 5 pm 2121 Allston Way, Berkeley Never before […]
Drawing on Dr. Patricia Munro's research in Bay Area synagogues, Professor Claude Fischer and Dr. Munro will focus on how the Bar and Bat mitzvah developed into a major American Jewish ritual, how it has both responded to changes in the Jewish community (particularly rising egalitarianism and intermarriage), and how it has changed the Jewish […]
The Band's Visit (Israel, 2007, 87 min.) A band comprised of members of the Egyptian police force head to Israel to play at the inaugural ceremony of an Arab arts center, only to find themselves lost in the wrong town. Reception included. Free and open to the public. RSVP at bit.ly/Bandsvisit. A year-long series on Israeli […]
