A Message from the Director
By Dr. Lisa Fishbayn Joffe
Every year, the HBI gives out over $50,000 worth of research awards to support innovative new work in the field of Jewish women’s and gender studies. Assisted by experts from around the world who volunteer to serve on our Academic Advisory Committee and decision committee, we identify and support important new work. Sometimes this work develops new methodologies, explores new areas of research or creates new theoretical tools for understanding the role of gender in Jewish life. Sometimes, this scholarship engages in projects of reclamation, telling the stories of Jewish women, gender minorities or other communities that have been lost or ignored.
I was thinking about our collective responsibility to remember and retell the stories of Jewish history when I spent a lovely winter break last month travelling around Portugal with our children, now in their teens and 20s. As always, Jewish heritage tours were part of our experience. We learned about the role of Jews in the Portuguese age of exploration, trade and colonization, and the destruction of the community after the adoption of the Inquisition, forced conversion and pogroms.
We visited the major cities of Lisbon and Porto but also spent some time in Coimbra, home to a university established in 1290. The New York Times recommends Coimbra as one of the 25 places to visit in 2025. We agree, but for different reasons.
We stopped there to tour the remains of Conimbriga, a Roman era town on the outskirts 
of the city. When we arrived, the concierge at our hotel gave us a map, circling the highlights – “you might want to visit this church, and everyone goes to this chapel”. I was intrigued, however, by the label marked “Mikveh” in the middle of the town. Some googling revealed that there was also an exhibit about the Jewish community of Coimbra, housed on Inquisition Square, where Jewish “New Christians”, forced to convert but persisting in “judaizing” activities, had been imprisoned and murdered for centuries.
We paid a visit to the museum and learned more about this long and tragic history, including that the Inquisition had been in operation into the 19th century, only being abolished in 1821. When we were there, we noticed the staff were setting up for an event. It turned out there was to be a public candle-lighting for Hanukkah that evening. They asked if we wanted to come back. We did. And so, we spent the second night of Hanukkah at a party with about 30 other diaspora Jews, including students and faculty at the university who came from Germany, Argentina and Israel, and tourists like ourselves from Italy and US. All of it was organized by a Chabad couple from South Africa who brought the giant electronic menorah and the kosher latkes.
It felt meaningful to be part of this reconstituted Jewish community, composed of Jews who live in many lands, many of whom were seeking to uncover the lost stories of Portugal’s Jewish history. I will cherish the memory of my children, smiling over sufganiyot, (jelly donuts) in a building where authorities sought to abolish Jewish life and identity for 500 years.
Support from HBI provides researchers with the time and space to engage in research to
uncover and share the lost histories of Jewish women and gender minorities. On Wednesday, we heard from Kerry Wallach, a recipient of an HBI research award, who spoke about her new book, Traces of a Jewish Artist: The Lost Life and Work of Rahel Szalit. The book explores how this once prominent pre-war Lithuanian-Polish-German artist was lost to art history after her deportation and murder in Auschwitz.
HBI Research Associate and art historian, Rachel Perry, will speak on her research Who Will Draw Our History? Graphic Witnessing by Jewish Women Holocaust Survivors.
She will describe her efforts to locate and analyze graphic albums and artwork created by Jewish women survivors of the Holocaust which illustrate their experiences in the ghettos and concentration camps. This work, in conversation with that of contemporary artists, will also be the basis of the 2026 HBI art exhibition in the Kniznick gallery.
Melissa R. Klapper will join HBI for a live meeting of the Sandra Seltzer Silberman HBI Conversations Series at the Jewish Library of Baltimore to speak on the book she completed during her residency at HBI in 2023. The Civil War Diary of Emma Mordecai, edited by Dianne Ashton with Melissa Klapper tells the story of a Jewish woman living in the antebellum South. While never losing sight of the racist social and political structures that shaped Mordecai’s world,The Civil War Diary provides a vivid look at the wartime experiences of a Jewish woman in the Confederate South. Colleagues at Rowan University, Ashton mentored Klapper long before they ended up at the same university. When Ashton passed away during the writing of this book in 2022, Klapper, as a friend, colleague and historian, completed and published the work so that this important diary entered the historical record.
HBI looks back to the past but also engages in deep exploration of the present. Our 2025 art exhibition will feature the photography of an exciting young artist, Hannah Altman, As It Were, Suspended in Midair. Altman’s photographs examine how Jewish myths are shared, inherited, and reshaped across the diaspora. The exhibition will be accompanied by a roster of programs and tours available to public and private groups, including a Cross Campus Tour at the Kniznick Gallery and the Rose Art Museum. Reach out to Amy Powell, HBI senior assistant director, to inquire about booking a visit or drop by anytime we are open.
Congratulations to HBI’s founding director, Shulamit Reinharz, whose newest book, Hiding in Holland : A Resistance Memoir is a 2025 National Jewish Book Award finalist in the category of Holocaust Memoir. Reinharz tells the story of her father Max Rothschild’s resistance as he repeatedly saved his own life. This will be the subject of an HBI program this spring. Stay tuned. Congratulations also to Talia Carner, a member of the HBI Board of Advisors whose book, The Boy with the Star Tattoo, is a 2025 National Jewish Book Award finalist in the Book Club category. Carner presented at HBI last year as part of the Sandra Seltzer Silberman HBI Conversations Series.
I was delighted to learn this week that Holy Rebellion: Religious Feminism and the Transformation of Judaism and Women's Rights in Israel by Ronit Irshai and Tanya Zion-Waldoks has been awarded the 2025 National Jewish Book Award in the category of Women’s Studies. The book, part of The Brandeis Series Project on Gender, Culture, Religion and the Law (GCRL) series which I co-edit with GCRL Project Chair Sylvia Neil, tells the story of the impact of orthodox feminism in modern day Israel and offers trenchant analysis of the possibilities for change in the future. It is a ray of hope as Israel faces a new and complex set of challenges. HBI will be hosting two events marking the launch of the book. If you are in the Boston area, join us in person for The Rebellious Daughters of Abraham: Global Feminism across Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, a panel discussion about feminisms across the Abrahamic traditions cosponsored by the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies at Brandeis. On March 12, please join us for an online event with the authors in our Sandra Seltzer Silberman Conversations Series.
One of the highlights of our year is the annual Diane Markowicz Lecture on Gender and Human Rights. This year, we welcome Samira Mehta who will speak on her forthcoming book, God Bless the Pill: Contraception and Sexuality in American Religion, which explores interfaith cooperation around support for contraception and reproductive rights.
These are some of the highlights of the entire calendar of HBI events, including our Seminar Series featuring the work of our Scholars in Residence, our Sandra Seltzer Silberman Conversations Series, events related to our art exhibition and more. For all the programs, visit our website’s Upcoming Events page. If you missed a program, visit our Past Events page to listen to the recording.
All these programs, from HBI’s research residencies to our publications and public talks, are made possible through the generosity of our board and donors. I’m so grateful to all of you who make this work possible. Please consider becoming a Friend of HBI this year by making a sustaining annual gift of $250.
Wishing us all strength, purpose and meaning this year,
Warm regards,
Lisa Fishbayn Joffe
Dr. Lisa Fishbayn Joffe is the Shulamit Reinharz Director of the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute.