Institute for Jewish Studies and Interfaith Understanding Sponsors Panel Discussion, Lectures

April 05, 2013

Savyon Liebrecht

Old Dominion's Institute for Jewish Studies and Interfaith Understanding (IJSIU) is sponsoring three programs on campus this month, starting Thursday, April 11, with a panel discussion, "Lawyers Without Rights."

The program, about Jewish lawyers in Germany under the Third Reich, will be from 6:30-8 p.m. in Chandler Recital Hall of the Diehn Center for the Performing Arts. It will be preceded by a reception at 5:30. To RSVP, contact Farideh Goldin, director of the IJSIU, at fgoldin@odu.edu.

Former U.S. congressman G. William Whitehurst, ODU's Kaufman Lecturer in Public Affairs, will give opening remarks. Panelists will be: U.S. District Judge Mark S. Davis, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Norfolk Division; Frederick Lubich, professor of German, ODU; and moderator Susan R. Blackman, Wilcox & Savage, P.C.

Co-sponsors of the presentation are the Norfolk and Portsmouth Bar Association Foundation and the Hampton Roads chapter of the Federal Bar Association.

Savyon Liebrecht, an internationally known Israeli writer and daughter of Holocaust survivors, will give the 2013 Helen and Daniel Sonenshine Lecture on Sunday, April 14. During her talk, "On Writing," she will address the politics of writing in Israel today. The lecture begins at 7 p.m. in Room 1012 of the Batten Arts and Letters Building. A reception and book signing will follow at 8 p.m.

In her novels, short stories and plays, Liebrecht writes about the Holocaust survivors and their children, the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, the Mizrakhi/Ashkenazi disconnect, secular/religious tension, and gender and aging issues.

Dalia Wassner will give a lecture on "The Sword, the Pen and the Uterus: Contemporary Latin American Women Creating Inclusive Public Spheres" from 12:30-1:30 p.m. Thursday, April 18, at the Baron and Ellin Gordon Art Galleries. Refreshments will be provided.

Wassner is currently a research associate at the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute. She is investigating Latin American Jewish women's responses to national moments of violence through literature, film and satirical journals.

For more information about this month's IJSIU events, contact Goldin at 683-6816 or fgoldin@odu.edu.