| Swig Program in JSSJ Fall 2023 Events
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We are excited to announce the Swig Program in Jewish Studies and Social Justice on-campus events for fall 2023! As always, every event is free and open to the public. If you have any questions, please contact Swig JSSJ Program Interim Director Oren Kroll-Zeldin.
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Skywatchers: The Slow Art of Belonging with ABD ProductionsTuesday, Oct. 3 | 6:30–8 p.m. | Fromm Hall, Maraschi Room
Join us for a special evening with ABD Productions and Skywatchers’ artist-activists. Established in 2011, Skywatchers brings artists into durational collaboration with residents of San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood, as they believe relationship is the first site of social change. Large-scale transformation begins with intimate, interpersonal interactions that engender change for all involved: artists, participants, and audiences. Centering residents’ lives and experiences, this multi-disciplinary, mixed-ability ensemble creates art works that amplify neighborhood stories, interrogating the poverty industrial complex, illuminating marginalized narratives, and positioning community voices in the civic discourse through the arts. This evening will include presentations of Skywatchers’ art, followed by conversations with their artists. Part of the JSSJ "Open Doors" Sukkot Program, this event is co-sponsored by the Department of Critical Diversity Studies and the Department of Performing Arts and Social Justice.
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Israelism Film Screening Monday, Oct. 30 | 6:30–8 p.m. | Fromm Hall, Maraschi Room
Join us for a special screening of the new award-winning film Israelism, which focuses on two young American Jews raised to defend the state of Israel at all costs, one of whom joins the Israeli military while the other fights for Israel on “the other battlefield,” America’s college campuses. Yet a chasm emerges in their Jewish identities after witnessing Israel’s mistreatment of the Palestinian people firsthand. Overall, their stories reveal the American Jewish community’s generational divide regarding what the Jewish State means to Jewish Americans. The film screening will be followed by a moderated discussion led by a member of the Swig JSSJ Program faculty. This event is co-sponsored by the Program in Middle Eastern Studies and the Department of Politics.
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Wednesday, Nov. 15 | 6:30–8 p.m. | Fromm Hall, Maraschi Room
The rock band Phish has a diehard fan base and a dedicated community of enthusiasts — Phishheads — who follow the band around the country. What may be surprising to some, however, is that a significant percentage of Phishheads are Jewish. Aside from two members of the band raised as Jews themselves — bassist Mike Gordon and drummer Jonathan Fishman — Phish has even been known to play Hebrew songs in concert. This event celebrates the publication of the book This Is Your Song Too: Phish and Contemporary Jewish Identity, co-edited by JSSJ faculty member Oren Kroll-Zeldin. The book argues that Phish is one avenue through which contemporary Jews find cultural and spiritual fulfillment outside the confines of traditional institutional Jewish life. In effect, Phish fandom and the live Phish experience act as a microcosm through which we see American Jewish religious and cultural life manifest in unique and unexpected spaces. Joining Kroll-Zeldin in conversation will be the book's co-editor, Ariella Werden-Greenfield, who is also the associate director of the Feinstein Center for American Jewish History and special adviser on antisemitism at Temple University, as well as book contributor Rabbi Joshua Ladon, director of education for the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America.
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"Open Doors" Sukkot Sep. 29 – Oct. 6 | Sukkah on Welch Field
We will build our sukkah this year on Welch Field between St. Ignatius Church and Kalmanovitz Hall. Everyone is invited to spend time in the sukkah throughout the week-long Sukkot holiday, held this year at the end of September and beginning of October. Everyone is welcome to hang out, eat lunch or dinner with friends, or use this temporary structure as a place to relax and recharge. In addition, we will be hosting special events and programs in the sukkah throughout the week. For more information, contact Rabbi Camille Shira Angel or stop by University Ministry.
JSSJ Open Doors Shabbat Sukkot with JCCSF and Value Culture
Friday, Oct. 6 | 5–7 p.m.
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In fall 2023 we unveiled Mapping Jewish San Francisco, a new project where USF scholars and students are together archiving the history of Jews in the San Francisco Bay Area. One of our first online exhibits, Out of Egypt, explores the history of Karaite Jews in the United States, an extraordinary story of how this minority-within-a-minority has survived against great odds and reestablished a robust religious, spiritual, and cultural life in the Bay Area, including the only Karaite synagogue in the Western Hemisphere.
Thanks to continued team efforts co-led by Swig JSSJ Director Aaron Hahn Tapper and student Research Assistant Megan Shirron, since last fall, we have added more than 75 new video testimonies describing life in Cairo from the 1940s through the 1960s and the immigration trials and tribulations that took members of the Karaite Jewish community from Egypt to the Bay Area. We now have 125 videos online, making this the largest online collective video archive of Karaite Jews in the world!
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Your generous support of the Swig Program in Jewish Studies and Social Justice will help us engage students in both theoretical and practical approaches of social justice and activism rooted in the Jewish traditions.
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