Naomi Seidman and Clémence Boulouque Join IIJS for the 2025 Yosef Yerushalmi Memorial Lecture

IIJS was pleased to welcome Naomi Seidman, in conversation with our own Clémence Boulouque, for the annual Yosef Yerushalmi Memorial Lecture on Wednesday, November 19.

This lecture honors the legacy of historian Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, whose work transformed the study of Jewish history and memory. This year’s program featured a conversation between Naomi Seidman and Clémence Boulouque, exploring questions of Jewish translation, storytelling, and cultural transmission. The event offered an engaging opportunity to reflect on Yerushalmi’s enduring influence and the vibrant scholarship it continues to inspire.

Naomi Seidman is the Chancellor Jackman Professor of the Arts in the Department for the Study of Religion and the Centre for Diaspora and Transnational Studies at the University of Toronto. She was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2016 and a National Jewish Book Award in 2019. Her writings include the 2006 Faithful Renderings: Jewish—Christian Difference and the Politics of Difference; The Marriage Plot, Or, How Jews Fell in Love with Love, and with Literature (2016); and the 2019 Sarah Schenirer and the Bais Yaakov Movement: A Revolution in the Name of Tradition. Her podcast, "Heretic in the House," was released in 2022. Translating the Jewish Freud (2024) is her fifth book.

Clémence Boulouque received her Ph.D. in Jewish Studies and History from New York University in 2014 and took postdoctoral training at the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, University of Pennsylvania. Her interests include Jewish thought and mysticism, interreligious encounters, intellectual history, and networks with a focus on the modern Mediterranean and Sefardi worlds, as well as the intersection between religion and the arts, and the study of the unconscious.

The full discussion is available to view below.

Supported by the generosity of the Kaye and Radov families.

"My Story, Your Story, the True Story", a lecture with Gershom Gorenberg

Journalist, historian, and professor Gershom Gorenberg joined IIJS on Thursday, October 30, for “My Story, Your Story, the True Story.” In this lecture, Gorenberg examines how competing narratives influence journalism, the writing of history, and the search for a truthful account of the past.

Gershom Gorenberg is an Israeli historian and journalist and the author, most recently, of War of Shadows: Codebreakers, Spies and the Secret Struggle to Drive the Nazis from the Middle East. Based on documents that remained classified for decades, War of Shadows solves the mystery of the World War II spy affair that nearly brought Rommel’s army and SS death squads to Cairo and Jerusalem. Gorenberg previously wrote three critically acclaimed books on Israel’s history and politics - The Unmaking of Israel, The Accidental Empire: Israel and the Birth of the Settlements, 1967-1977, and The End of Days: Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Temple Mount. He co-authored Shalom Friend, a biography of Yitzhak Rabin and winner of the National Jewish Book Award.

Gorenberg is a contributing writer for The Atlantic. He has written for The New York Times, Washington Post, The New York Review of Books, Foreign Policy, The New Republic, and Prospect Magazine (UK) and in Hebrew for Haaretz and Maariv. In recent years, he has spent spring semesters at Columbia as the Knapp Senior Research Scholar at IIJS and adjunct professor at the Graduate School of Journalism, teaching a workshop on writing history. He lives in Jerusalem.

The full lecture is available to view below. The images referenced in the lecture are linked separately below and labeled with the time at which they appear in the recording.

Supported by the generosity of the Kaye and Appel families.

Steven Zipperstein in Conversation with Jeremy Dauber on "Philip Roth: Stung by Life

IIJS and the Center for American Studies welcomed Professor Steven Zipperstein for a talk on his new book, Philip Roth: Stung by Life, the landmark biography of one of America’s most prominent literary voices. He was joined in conversation by IIJS Director Emeritus Professor Jeremy Dauber on Monday, October 27, at noon in 617 Kent Hall.

In this groundbreaking literary biography, Steven J. Zipperstein captures the complex life and astonishing work of Philip Roth (1933–2018), one of America’s most celebrated writers. Born in Newark, New Jersey—where his short stories and books were often set—Roth wrote with ambition and awareness of what was required to produce great literature. No writer was more dedicated to his craft, even as he was rubbing shoulders with the Kennedys and engaging in a spate of famous and infamous romances. And yet, as much as Roth wrote about sex and self, he viewed himself as socially withdrawn, living much like an “unchaste monk” (his words).

Zipperstein explores the unprecedented range of Roth’s work—from “Goodbye, Columbus” and Portnoy’s Complaint to the Pulitzer Prize–winning American Pastoral and The Plot Against America. Drawing upon extensive archival materials and over one hundred interviews, including conversations with Roth about his life and work, Zipperstein provides an intimate and insightful look at one of the twentieth century’s most influential writers, placing his work in the context of his obsessions, as well as American Jewishness, freedom, and sexuality.

Steven J. Zipperstein is the Daniel E. Koshland Professor in Jewish Culture and History at Stanford University. He is the author and editor of ten books, including Rosenfeld’s Lives: Fame, Oblivion, and the Furies of Writing and Pogrom: Kishinev and the Tilt of History.

Jeremy Dauber is the Atran Professor of Yiddish Language, Literature and Culture and, for a decade, directed the Institute of Israel and Jewish Studies at Columbia University, where he is also the Mendelson Family Professor of American Studies and Director of the Center for American Studies.

The discussion is available to view in full below.

This event is co-sponsored by the Center for American Studies.

Three Israeli Scholars discuss "Framing October 7: A Date of Inflection for Jewish History"

The Institute hosted a panel discussion led by IIJS Co-Director Rebecca Kobrin and featuring Jonathan Dekel-Chen, Nadav Eyal, and Avi Shilon on Sunday, October 5, 2025.

On October 7, 2023, Hamas invaded Israel and carried out the deadliest assault on Jews since the Holocaust. The attack not only shattered assumptions about Jewish sovereignty, security, and politics but also reshaped Israel’s relationship with the wider world. In the months that followed, the war in Gaza and the intensifying debates it provoked deeply influenced global perceptions of Israel, the Jewish diaspora, and the boundaries of antisemitism.

As scholars continue to assess the aftermath, new questions emerge. How should October 7 and its consequences be integrated into the broader trajectory of Jewish history? What insights do Jewish historical experience and memory offer for understanding this moment? In what ways are shifting international responses to the Hamas–Israel conflict reshaping Jewish life worldwide?

The Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies continues this vital conversation with the second event in our series, Framing October 7.

Jonathan Dekel-Chen is a member of Kibbutz Nir Oz. The Hamas attack on his kibbutz on October 7, 2023 resulted in the massacre of dozens of its members, the captivity of many dozens more as well as the physical destruction and looting of Nir Oz. His 37 year-old son Sagui – a father of three young girls – was among the hostages from Nir Oz; he was released on February 14, 2025.

Since the Hamas attack on his kibbutz, Dekel-Chen has advocated in the US and Israel for release of the hostages, including many meetings with senior officials in both the Biden and Trump administrations, as well as members of Congress. He has also made hundreds of media appearances to inform the public about the plight of the hostages.

Dekel-Chen is the Rabbi Edward Sandrow Chair in Soviet & East European Jewry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he holds a dual appointment in the Department of Jewish History and in the Department of General History; he is also the Academic Chairman of the Leonid Nevzlin Research Center for Russian & East European Jewry. Dekel-Chen’s research deals with modern Jewish history, modern Israel, transnational philanthropy and advocacy, non-state diplomacy, agrarian history and migration.

Together with Sagui, his older son Etai, and the late Tamar Kedem Siman-Tov, in 2014 Jonathan co-founded the Bikurim Youth Village for the Arts in Eshkol. Relocated to Ein Gedi in 2020, Bikurim provides world-class artistic training for underserved high school students from throughout Israel.

Nadav Eyal is a leading Israeli journalist, Adjunct Professor at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs and Senior Scholar. He is winner of the Sokolov Award (Israel’s equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize) and recipient of the B'nai B'rith World Center Award for Journalism. He writes columns for Yediot Ahronot and Ynet, and serves as a commentator for Channel 12. 

Nadav chaired the Movement for Freedom of Information, which promotes transparency and accountability in Israel from 2021-2026. His recent book HOW DEMOCRACY WINS (if it does) (2023), was lauded by Haaretz as a major contribution to the study of democracy. He has also produced major documentary projects, including: Trumpland (2016), Syrian refugee crisis (2015), and Hate on rising anti-Semitism (2014). 

Since October 7, 2023, he has focused on covering the Hamas attack, Gaza war, and northern border, including field reporting and victim accounts.

Avi Shilon is a historian who specializes in Israel Studies. His PhD dissertation focuses on the attitudes of the leaders of the Revisionist Movement toward Jewish religion from 1925 to 2005.

He is the author of Menachem Begin’s biography, Menachem Begin: A Life (Yale University Press, 2013); Ben Gurion: His Later Years in the Political Wilderness (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016); and The Decline of the Left-wing in Israel: Yossi Beilin and the Politics of the Peace Process (I.B. Tauris, 2020).

Shilon was a visiting scholar at NYU from 2019 to 2022, teaching courses at the Hebrew University and Ben-Gurion University in Israel, as well as at NYU and Rutgers University in the U.S, and Tsinghua University in Beijing. Last year, he taught at Columbia University.

Shilon is also the editor of the non-fiction section at Am-Oved Publishing House and writes op-ed columns for Yedioth Ahronoth. He is currently teaching at the Tel-Hai Academic College in Israel.

The panel is available to view in full below.

IIJS Film@Home: "Running on Sand" Q&A with Director, Producer Adar Shafran

IIJS opened its Fall 2025 Film Series with Running on Sand. Guests were invited to screen the film from the comfort of their homes, then join us via Zoom for a Q&A with the film’s director and producer Adar Shafran, led by IIJS Film Programmer Stuart Weinstock.

Aumari, a young Eritrean refugee living in Israel, is about to be deported. At the airport, he is mistaken for Maccabi Netanya's new star player from Nigeria. Despite having no soccer skills, Aumari seizes the opportunity and finds himself lifting up the floundering team while bonding with the team's female CEO. Nominated for four Ophir Awards (Israel's Oscars), including Best Film, and winning the Audience Award at both the Palm Springs International Film Festival and the Boca International Jewish Film Festival, Running on Sand combines Ted Lasso-style humor with an empathic depiction of refugees' struggles, shedding light on the unseen and unheard in Israeli society.

Adar Shafran is a producer and co-owner of Firma Films, a Tel-Aviv-based production company making feature films, television series, and short-form content. He has produced films and a series with Haredi filmmaker Rama Burshtein (Fill the Void, The Wedding Plan, and Fire Dance) and with the comedy duo Guy Amir and Hanan Savyon (Maktub, Forgiveness, and Bros), among others. Running on Sand is Adar's first feature film as director.

The Q&A is available to view in full below.

This event was made possible by the generosity of the Appel and Kaye families.

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