Jewish American Heritage Month
Top row (L-R): Marisa J. Futernick's "Do the Watusi", "Marie Syrkin" book cover, "Frankly Feminist" book cover, "Being Heumann" book cover, "Peak TV" book cover, "America's Jewish Women" book cover. Bottom row (L-R): Caron Tabb's "I Am My Sister's Keeper 2", Repro Rights flier, Janice Rubin's "Infertility", Charlie Dov Schön, "Post-Roe Protection Amulets".
May is Jewish American Heritage Month, a time to celebrate the more than 350-year history of Jewish contributions to America and American culture. A crucial collaborator in the field of Jewish women's and gender studies for twenty-five years, HBI has made important contributions that have supported generations of innovative scholarship, art, and literature by and about American Jewish women, and the world.
With pride, we are sharing a small selection of HBI’s contributions:
- Dirty Dancing: Revisiting the Catskills, HBI’s 2023 Kniznick Gallery exhibition featuring the work of Marisa J. Futernick. Watch Futernick’s artist talk.
- HBI Series on Jewish Women / Brandeis Press publication, Frankly Feminist: Short Stories by Jewish Women from Lilith Magazine (2022), edited by Susan Weidman Schneider and Yona Zeldis McDonough. Watch HBI Director Lisa Fishbayn Joffe discuss the collection with Weidman Schneider and Zeldis McDonough when they joined the Sandra Seltzer Silberman HBI Conversations Series.
- Deeply Rooted: Faith in Reproductive Justice, HBI’s 2023 art exhibition curated by Caron Tabb and featuring the work of twenty-one artists across five decades, four continents, and numerous traditions as a response to the Supreme Court’s Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health decision. View the Deeply Rooted catalog.
- Sandra Seltzer Silberman HBI Conversations Series featuring renowned disability rights advocate Judy Heumann, z”l, author of Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist (2021). Watch the conversation.
- Sandra Seltzer Silberman HBI Conversations Series featuring Dr. Carole Kessner, author of Marie Syrkin: Values Beyond the Self (2021), a HBI Series on Jewish Women publication — with Peter Osnos. Watch the discussion.
- Sandra Seltzer Silberman HBI Conversations Series featuring Professor Pamela Nadell, author of America’s Jewish Women: A History From Colonial Times To Today (2020). Watch the conversation with Pamela Nadell.
- Watch HBI Research Associate Samantha Pickette’s Book Launch: Peak TV’s Unapologetic Jewish Woman: Exploring Jewish Female Representation in Contemporary Television Comedy (2022)
- Watch the 2023 HBI panel event, Jewish Women's Organizing in Support of Reproductive Rights: Past and Present, moderated by HBI Director Lisa Fishbayn Joffe and joined by Becca Rausch, Massachusetts State Senator, Melissa Klapper, historian and current HBI Scholar in Residence, Daphne Lazar Price, Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance (JOFA) Executive Director, and Lara Crawford, National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW) MA.