Public Programs
Some of the biggest issues and challenges facing Jewish communities today include philanthropy, business ethics, politics, identity and continuity, the changing face of American Jewry, and many others. The JSC address these issues through a series of lectures, panel discussions, symposia, and specials events that are available to the Baruch community and general public.
Spring Public Events 2026
Holocaust Speakers Series: to recognize and celebrate the lives and stories of survivors, co-organized with Prof. Edyta Greer, Dept Natural Sciences + The Committee of Concerned Scientists
“Bearing Witness: Renia Spiegel’s Diary and Family Reflections”
Elizabeth Bellak (née Ariana Spiegel), survivor, actor and teacher, in conversation with her daughter, Alexandra Bellak, about Elizabeth’s extraordinary discovery and publication of her sister Renia’s wartime diary. Renia was killed in Przemysl in 1942.
Tuesday, February 24, 6pm on Zoom
“From Missiles to Microbes: A Life of Invention”
A talk with Solomon Rosenblatt, polymer chemist, innovator, and entrepreneur whose seven-decade career has spanned aerospace engineering, national defense, space exploration, and medical technology
Thursday, March 12 at 6pm in person
Film Series: Contemporary Jewish Experiences (48-hr streaming + virtual talkback)
Colleyville (dir. Dani Menkin, Hey Jude Productions, 2024)
In the safe haven of Colleyville, Texas, on January 15, 2022, Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker and three others find themselves hostages when a stranger disrupts a typical Saturday morning at Congregation Beth Israel Synagogue. Directed by award-winning filmmaker Dani Menkin, (On the Map, Picture of His Life) this gripping real-life drama unfolds over an 11-hour standoff, testing their resilience and courage in unimaginable ways. This international event captured the world’s attention live on TV and will feature never-before-seen footage from those harrowing 11 hours, providing a unique perspective on the ordeal.
Free 48-hour streaming, March 24-March 25
Talk back with film director Dani Menkin and Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker
March 26, 6pm on Zoom
Yom HaShoah Student Poetry event
Baruch students will take part in the nationwide effort to honor the victims of the Holocaust and Nazi persecution by holding a Yom HaShoah/Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony. The event coincides with the nation’s annual commemoration of the Holocaust established by Congress and led by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. The ceremony, which is open to all Baruch students, staff, faculty, and community members, will feature readings of poetry written by those who witnessed the Holocaust, both survivors and those who were murdered by the Nazis. Through our Holocaust Remembrance event, the Wasserman Jewish Studies Center seeks both to commemorate the tragic history of the Holocaust and to reflect on the lessons it holds for our lives today.
April 15, 6pm on Zoom
Antisemitism Studies Lab Series “Antisemitism from Ancient Time to AI”
Dr. Daniel Miehling will lecture on “Beyond the Written Word: Toward New Frameworks for Studying Online Antisemitism in an Age of Political Polarization and Polycrises”
Drawing on recent advances in the study of hate speech and online antisemitism, Daniel Miehling examines the multimodal nature of contemporary digital environments. Beyond written discourse, his talk highlights recent manifestations of antisemitism and the diverse ways in which such content circulates online. He further demonstrates how emerging analytical methods enable researchers to trace and interpret the dissemination of multimodal antisemitic content, including images, audio, and video.
The talk also explores the role of generative AI in amplifying false narratives and conspiracy fantasies, including AI‑generated material that blurs or conflates Holocaust remembrance with contemporary acts of violence—a dynamic intensified by current political polarization and overlapping global crises. Finally, Miehling stresses the importance of substantial conceptual, methodological, and curricular adjustments in scholarship and education to address these developments adequately.
Dr. Daniel Miehling is a computational social scientist and Visiting Assistant Professor at Indiana University Bloomington, affiliated with the Borns Jewish Studies Program and the Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism (ISCA). He is the author of Online-Antisemitismus verstehen: Hassrede im Web 2.0 (Understanding Online Antisemitism: Hate Speech in Web 2.0, Nomos 2024), and has published in academic journals on antisemitic discourse and social media analysis. Enriching the study of contemporary antisemitism with new methodologies to detect and analyze antisemitic and polarizing content online, he is also developing educational tools that empower students to engage critically with real-world data and the ethical implications of AI and Natural Language Processing (NLP) in social science.
April 21, 6pm. Room TBD.
Antisemitism Studies Lab Research Presentations:
Keynote by Ruth O’Hara Chair Eric Mandelbaum, with presentations by faculty and students affiliated with the Antisemitism Studies Lab.
May 7, 6pm-8pm, Room TBD
Fall Public Events 2025
Holocaust Speakers Series: to recognize and celebrate the lives and stories of survivors, co-organized with Prof. Edyta Greer, Dept Natural Sciences + The Committee of Concerned Scientists
- Dr. Roald Hoffman, Nobel-prize winning professor, Frank H. T. Rhodes Professor, Emeritus, Cornell (https://chemistry.cornell.edu/roald-hoffmann). Oct 27, 2025, 6-7pm in person.
- Dr. Joel Lebowitz, Distinguished Professor, George William Hill Professor of Mathematics and Physics, Rutgers (https://physics.rutgers.edu/people/faculty-list/faculty-profile/lebowitz-joel-l). Date TBD
Film Series: Contemporary Jewish Experiences (48-hr streaming + virtual talkback)
- Torn, Talk back with director Nim Shapira and Rabbi Sarna (NYU). Torn delves into the controversy surrounding the ‘KIDNAPPED’ poster campaign, a grassroots effort to raise awareness about the 240 hostages taken by Hamas. These posters quickly became polarizing symbols, sparking intense clashes between pro-Israel and pro-Palestine activists and turning New York City’s streets into battlegrounds of ideology and emotion. The film explores the motivations behind activists putting up and tearing down the posters, unraveling the complexities of this intense ‘paper arm’ proxy war, fought thousands of miles from the actual conflict. Torn is a 75-minute independent documentary, produced and filmed in New York City. Nov 4, 2025, 4:30-5:30pm.
Distinguished Speakers Series:
- Dr. Einat Wilf, Goldman Visiting Professor at Georgetown University. Leading thinker on Israel, Zionism, foreign policy and education. Former member of the Israeli Parliament from 2010 to 2013, where she served as Chair of the Education Committee and Member of the influential Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. Co-sponsoring with Hillel. Sept 15, 2025, 6-7pm
Public Talks:
- Oct 28, 4:30-5:30pm: Isaac Amon, “From the Inquisition to the Constitution: The Story of Jews in Early America”
- Oct 30, 5pm: Roz Bernstein, author of The Girl Who Counted Numbers. Co-sponsoring with the Esther Allen/Harman Writing Program
- Nov 18, 4:30-5:30pm: Danielle James, translator of Return to the Place I Never Left by Tobias Schiff
Experiential Learning Opportunity – JWS Students Field Trip:
- The Jewish Museum Guided Tour: Anish Kapoor: Early Work, & Identity, Culture, and Community: Stories from the Collections of the Jewish Museum, December 9, 4: 30-5:30pm
Spring Public Events 2025
Distinguished Speakers Series:
Sephardic Voices: Jewish Experiences in the Middle East and North Africa
Dr. Devin E. Naar, Isaac Alhadeff Professor of Sephardic Studies, Associate Professor of History and Jewish Studies, Sephardic Studies Program Chair, at University of Washington; his book Jewish Salonica: Between the Ottoman Empire and Modern Greecewon the 2016 National Jewish Book Award. As the chair of the new Sephardic Studies Program of the Stroum Center for Jewish Studies housed within the Jackson School of International Studies, Dr. Naar has spearheaded a project to collect, preserve and disseminate the rich Sephardic and Ladino historical, literary and cultural heritage. Dr. Naar has created the first major online Sephardic Studies Digital Library and Archive comprised of more than 1,500 artifacts, books and letters collected from residents of the Seattle area and across the country.
February 11, 4:15-5:15pm, Zoom
Dr. Sarah Abrevaya Stein, Professor, Viterbi Family Endowed Chair in Mediterranean Jewish Studies, & Sady and Ludwig Kahn Director, Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies at UCLA. Author of many books including Family Papers: A Sephardic Journey Through the Twentieth Century (2019),Extraterritorial Dreams: European Citizenship, Sephardi Jews, and Ottoman Twentieth Century (2016), Saharan Jews and the Fate of French Algeria (2014), and co-editor of important collections such as Sephardi Lives: A Documentary History, 1700-1950 (2014); The Holocaust and North Africa (2018), and most recent Wartime North Africa: A Documentary History, 1934-1950 (2022).
February 25, 4:15-5:15pm, Zoom
Dr. Aomar Boum, professor of socio-cultural anthropology, Maurice Amado Endowed Chair in Sephardic Studies at UCLA. Author of many books, including Memories of Absence: How Muslims Remember Jews in Morrocco (2013), A Concise History of the Middle East (2016), and The Holocaust and North Africa (2018). Dr. Boum is socio-cultural anthropologist with a historical bent towards social and cultural representation of and political discourse about religious and ethnic minorities in the Middle East and North Africa. Much of his work focuses on the anthropology and history of Jewish-Muslim relations from the 19th century to the present.
March 18 at 4:15-5:15pm on Zoom
Lecture on Antisemitism in the Era of Social Media by Dr. Matthias Becker, postdoc researcher at University of Cambridge, about his latest publication Decoding Antisemitism: A Guide to Identifying Antisemitism Online, and Antisemitism in Reader Comments: Analogies for Reckoning with the Past (2021). Dr. Becker leads “Decoding Antisemitism,” an interdisciplinary and transnational research project on Jew-hatred on social media. He is an expert on applied linguistics, critical discourse studies and research on prejudice with strong focus on antisemitism.
April 8, 4:15-5:15pm, location TBD
Panel on “The Future of Yiddish” with Chaya Nove, Debra Caplan, Alyssa Quint, Justin Cammy, and Miriam Udell. March 31, BPAC
Film Series: Resistance During the Holocaust: The Courage to Care
48-hour streaming of One Life with Zoom director talk back
February; date and time, TBD
48-hour streaming of White Bird: A Wonder Story with Zoom director talk back
March; date and time, TBD
Yom HaShoah commemoration performance with pianist Itay Goren
Banned Music
Internationally acclaimed pianist Itay Goren will present his program Banned Music.
This lecture/recital features five composers of different nationalities whose music was banned by the Nazis – Pavel Haas, Erich Korngold, Luigi Dallapiccola, Darius Milhaud and Paul Hindemith. Mr. Goren will speak about the lives of the composers and will perform selections from their works, demonstrating the wealth of ideas and variety of styles that existed in Europe of the early 20th century, before the tragic events that followed the Nazis rise to power.
Engelman Recital Hall, BPAC
April 22nd, 4:15-5:30 pm
Yom HaShoah poetry reading by Baruch students
April 23rd, 4:15 pm on Zoom
Fall Public Events 2024
Kristallnacht Commemoration Event
• November 7th, 6:00 pm, VC 14-270 – An evening with journalist Gershom Gorenberg: “October 7 & Kristallnacht: What we should and shouldn’t learn from history.”
Holocaust Literature Author Talk with Ari Richter
• November 12th, 4:00 pm-5:00 pm, VC 14-266 – Discussion with graphic novelist Ari Richter on his graphic family memoir, Never Again Will I Visit Auschwitz.
Holocaust Literature Author Talk with Roslyn Bernstein
• December 3rd, 4:15 pm-5:15 pm, VC 14-280 – Reading and discussion with Professor Emerita Roslyn Bernstein on her award-winning novel, The Girl Who Counted Numbers.
Film Series: Resistance During the Holocaust – The Courage to Care
• September 22nd-24th – Irena’s Vow: 48-hour streaming with a Zoom talk back with screenwriter Dan Gordon on September 24th at 5:30 pm EDT.
• October 21st-23rd – Resistance: They Fought Back: 48-hour streaming with a Zoom director talk back with Paula Apsell on October 24th at 6:00 pm EDT.
Spring Public Events 2024
Blacks and Jews: Together and Apart film series
Periphery
Co-sponsored by the Department of Black and Latinx Studies
Free 48-hour streaming: February 5th through February 8th
Director Zoom talk back with Sara Yacobi Harris: February 8th at 6:00 pm
Periphery is a photographic and film exhibition created in partnership by No Silence on Race (NSOR) and the Ontario Jewish Archives (OJA). Periphery is a short film about ethnic diversity in the Jewish community in Toronto, Canada. Sharing narratives from individuals of multiracial and multiethnic backgrounds, Periphery creates space to look, listen, and learn from participants as they share their experiences and explore ideas of representation, intersectionality, ethnicity, race, and sexuality. Periphery invites us to appreciate the richness of Jewish identity and cultural expression while illustrating the feeling of grappling to belong. The film and portraits draws our attention inwards and invites us to examine how we foster and support a broader and richer view of the Jewish community.
Blacks and Jews: Together and Apart film series
I Shall Not Be Silent
Co-sponsored by the Department of Black and Latinx Studies
Free streaming and Zoom discussion on March 19th at 5:00 pm EST with director Rachel Eskin Fisher, Baruch Prof. Jamel Hudson and Baruch students.
As the civil rights of Jews were systematically being stripped away in 1930s Berlin, one young rabbi refused to be silent. His name was Joachim Prinz. Uncowed by Nazi monitoring and repeated arrests, Prinz continued to let his voice be heard, urging Jews to leave Germany. Finally expelled from the country in 1937, Prinz himself arrived in the United States and was horrified by the racism he found. As rabbi of Temple B’nai Abraham in Newark, NJ, and later as president of the American Jewish Congress, Prinz became a leader in the civil rights movement, even speaking at the 1963 March on Washington.
March 13th on Zoom at 5:00 pm EST
Pioneering German-Jewish Pilots During World War I: in-person panel with awarding-winning journalist and Baruch Distinguished Lecturer Ralph Blumenthal, Dr. Jason Crouthamel, Professor of History, Grand Valley State College, Elimor Makevet, author of Jewish Flyers and the World War and former NYT art director Steven Heller, co-founder and co-chair of the MFA Designer as Author program at the School of Visual Arts, New York.
April, date and time, TBA
Blacks and Jews: Together and Apart film series
BlacKKKlansman (dir. Spike Lee, 2018)
Co-sponsored by the Department of Black and Latinx Studies
Free 48-hour streaming
Zoom event
Tuesday, April 2, 4-5:30pm
“Salzwedel Concentration Camp Reunion” short film and talkback with Joelyn Flomenhaft
“Salzwedel Concentration Camp Reunion: A Liberator and Survivors Speak” is a short documentary based on the oral history of Joelyn Flomenhaft’s father, Norman Werbowsky, a combat medic in the 84th Infantry, 309th Medical Battalion. He did not often speak about his WWII experience because he wanted to shield his family of the horrors that he had seen. However, at 90 years old, he wanted to finally talk about his service and ultimately served on the Speakers Bureau of The Museum of Jewish Heritage. Fate would have him reconnect with two Holocaust survivors, whom he liberated, sitting the audience listening to him speak at two different times. The short highlights their reunion, held in Long Beach, NY. The short premiered on JLTV, a cable station, in August 2014 and continues to be featured for Holocaust education.
Tuesday, April 16, 4-5:30pm
Translator Danielle James will speak about her upcoming book, Return to the Place I Never Left. The book provides a first-hand historical account of the Holocaust from Flemish to English. A memoir-in-verse, written in short, rhythmic sentences, this book reveals the memories of a man who’s experienced pain, extensive and deep. It’s about a teenage boy, Tobias Schiff, who was deported in Antwerp and survived multiple years in multiple concentration camps. Schiff is a Holocaust survivor whose narrative offers a personal, harrowing account of his experiences during one of history’s darkest times. Schiff’s narrative is distinguished by its raw emotional depth and vivid detail, providing an intimate view of the realities of life in Nazi death camps and the long-lasting impact of trauma. Through his eyes, readers are transported to the concentration camps, witnessing the atrocities and struggles that defined daily existence, seeing his tenacity while broken, beaten, and starved, and learning what enabled him and others to cling to the last shred of life while surrounded by death.
April 17th
Conference: “Understanding Antisemitism in Global and Local Contexts”
Panels: Antisemitism and Latin America; Antisemitism and Israel; and Antisemitism on Campus
Engelman Recital Hall, BPAC
Monday, May 6th, time TBA
Yom HaShoah Student Poetry Zoom event
Baruch College students will take part in the nationwide effort to honor the victims of the Holocaust and Nazi persecution by holding a Yom HaShoah / Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony on May 6 at 6pm. The event coincides with the nation’s annual commemoration of the Holocaust established by Congress and led by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. The ceremony, which is open to all Baruch students, staff, faculty, and community members, will feature readings of poetry written by those who witness the Holocaust, both survivors and those who were murdered by the Nazis. Through our Holocaust Remembrance event, the Wasserman Jewish Studies Center seeks both to commemorate the tragic history of the Holocaust and to reflect on the lessons it holds for our lives today.
May, time and date, TBA
Looking for Roots, Finding Flowers (2008): screening and talk back with director Daniel Jacobson
This documentary explores the filmmaker’s evolving relationship to the cyclical understanding of time and memory propounded by the Jewish tradition and his ambivalence towards the legacy of the Holocaust. Steven Metzler, a survivor of Auschwitz concentration camp and the filmmaker’s grandfather, recounts his experiences and returns to his native Romania after 63 years to find his grandfather’s house which he lived in as a child. What the family discovers on their journey transforms their understanding of time, memory, and religious ties forever.
Spring Public Events 2023
Interfaith Initiative: Faith, Conflicts and Coalition Series:
Antisemitism/Anti-Judaism: a conversation between Professor David Nirenberg, Tenth Director and Leon Levy Professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ, and Professor Magda Teter, Professor of History and the Shvidler Chair of Judaic Studies at Fordham University
February 7th at 6:00 pm on Zoom
An in-person reading and discussion with Jane Saginaw, author of the memoir Because the World is Round
February 23rd at 6:00 pm
An in-person conversation about Albert Memmi with Jonathan Judaken and Michael Lejman, editors of The Albert Memmi Reader, following a screening of Margaux Fitoussi and Mo Scapelli’s short film El Hara
March
A conversation with Achy Obejas, novelist, poet, translator and journalist, author of Days of Awe, part of our Discovering Crypto-Jewish Identities series
March 28th at 6:00 pm
Interfaith Initiative: Faith, Conflicts and Coalition Series:
In-person discussion with Sander Gilman and Zhou Xun:“I Know Who Caused COVID-19”: Pandemics and Xenophobia
April 17th at 5:30 pm
Yom HaShoah poetry event:
April 18th
With Baruch’s Mishkin Gallery:
Artist Aura Rosenberg’s cinematic interpretations of philosopher Walter Benjamin’s Berlin Childhood Around 1900 and Theses on the Philosophy of History
Screening and Public Conversation featuring:
Aura Rosenberg, Dr. Susan Buck-Morss, CUNY Graduate Center, Dr. Laura López Paniagua, Bard College Berlin
April 27th
An in-person conversation with Ben Moser, Pulitzer-Prize winning author and translator of Susan Sontag: Her Life and Work and Why This World: A Biography of Clarice Lispector
May 11th at 6:00 pm
2023 Spring Film Series: Discovering Crypto-Jewish Identities:
Xueta Island, dirs., Dani Rotstein, Ofer Laszewicki and Felipe Wolokita, 2022. Featuring a talk back with the directors, March 15th
The Last Sephardic Jew, dir. Miguel Angel Nieto, 2004
Sefarad, dir. Rodrigo Santos, 2019
Fall Public Events 2022
13 Drivers’ Licenses exhibit and public lecture
October 24th through October 25th
Public lecture with Lisa Salko: October 25th at 6:30 pm (reception to follow)
Engelman Recital Hall, Baruch’s Performing Arts Center (BPAC)
A tribute to Baruch Distinguished Professor Grace Schulman, on the occasion of her retirement and the launch of her new book: Again, the Dawn: New and Selected Poems, 1976-2002
November 3rd at 6:00 pm
Engleman Recital Hall, Baruch’s Performing Arts Center (BPAC)
Zikkaron Kristallnacht: A Family Story, dir. Eugene Marlow, 2015
An in-person talk back with Baruch Professor Eugene Marlow following the screening
November 10th at 6:00 pm
A reading with Roslyn Bernstein, Baruch Professor Emerita, and author of the novel, The Girl Who Counted Numbers
This event will be Professor Bernstein’s first public reading for The Girl Who Counted Numbers
December 8th at 6:00 pm on Zoom
2022-2023 Film Series: Discovering Crypto-Jewish Identities
Fall titles, free 48-hour streaming access
Children of the Inquisition, dir. Joseph Lovett, 2019: October 12th and 13th
Sefarad, dir. Rodrigo Santos, 2019: November 9th and November 10th
1618, dir. Luis Ismael, 2021: December 7th and December 8th
Spring Public Events 2022
Jess Solomon and Eman El-Husseini, the El Salomons: a married Jewish-Palestinian lesbian comedy couple
February 24th at 7:00 EST pm on Zoom
Public lecture with Dr. Madga Teter
Shvidler Chair in Judaic Studies and Professor of History, Fordham University
March 30th at 6:30 pm EST on Zoom
Jewish/Latinx Film Series: Spring titles, free 48-hour streamings
co-sponsored by Black and Latinx Studies, the Initiative for the Study of Latin America (ISLA) and
Baruch Performing Arts Center (BPAC)
February: El Brindis, Chile, directed by Shai Agosin, 2007
March: La Amiga, Argentina, directed by Jeanine Meerapfel, 1988 talk-back with the director following the streaming!
April: The Year My Parents Went on Vacation, Brazil, directed by Cao Hamburger, 2006
*exact dates and times for spring films, TBA
co-sponsored with Baruch’s Miskin Gallery, spring visiting artist: Pinar Yolacan
Public lecture, TBA
Born in Ankara, Turkey in 1981, Pinar Yolacan studied fashion at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design and Fine Art Media in Chelsea School of Art before graduating from The Cooper Union with a BFA in 2004. Yolacan had solo shows at YKY in Istanbul, Finnish Museum of Photography in Helsinki, Center for Contemporary Art in Lagos, and Wetterling Gallery in Stockholm. Since 1997, reviews about her work regularly appeared in The New York Times, Art in America, ArtReview, Bidoun, Dutch, Rolling Stone and i-D magazines. Yolacan’s work is in the permanent collections of The J. Paul Getty Museum, Museum of Fine Art, Boston, KIASMA Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki and International Center of Photography in New York. Yolacan lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.