Center for Judaic Studies Jews on the Move Rimon: Master Classes in Judaic Studies Spring 2007

I. Master Class: “Hollywood and Jerusalem: Tales of Jewish Migration”

Hollywood and Jerusalem are more than mere places. Both are magnets for Jewish migration; both are metaphors of modern Jewish self-transformation, of finding a place in the sun.

Session 1.a.: “Screenwriters and Other Hollywood Jews”
3-6 P.M.; April 17, 2007; Multi-purpose Room; Ritchie Center

The first part of the session will focus on American Jewish writers who moved west to Hollywood, including two who offered radically different solutions to the Jewish Question: John Howard Lawson, Hollywood’s top communist, and Ben Hecht, who helped run guns to the Zionist Irgun while writing the anti-Nazi film Suspicion for Alfred Hitchcock.

·Hecht, Ben. 1944. A Guide for the Bedevilled. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. 1-20; 199-221. 1

·Fuch, Daniel. 1989. “Strictly Movie.” Commentary 88.3(September 1989): 38-46. 27


Session 1.b.: “Maverick Dreamers: Warder Cresson and Judah Magnes in Jerusalem”
3-6 P.M.; April 17, 2007; Multi-purpose Room; Ritchie Center

The second part of the session will turn to a pair of American Jews who immigrated to the Land of Israel before 1948, two utterly different characters whose beliefs resonate powerfully today: Warder Cresson (1798-1860), the first U.S. consul to Jerusalem, a religious extremist who converted to Judaism in 1848, stood trial for lunacy in Philadelphia, and after his acquittal returned to Jerusalem as the first American oleh; and Rabbi Judah Magnes (1877-1948), a socialist and pacifist whose bi-national Zionist vision was steamrolled by tragic events.

·Schoffman, Stuart. 2004. “‘Insane on the Subject of Judaism’: Pursuing the Ghost of Warder Cresson.” Jewish Quarterly Review 94.2 (Spring 2004): 318-360. 37

·Magnes, Judah. 1982. Dissenter in Zion: From the Writings of Judah L. Magnes, edited by Arthur Goren. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 81
Ø “Address Delivered in Jerusalem: May 22, 1923: ‘Eretz Israel and the Galut’.” Pp. 208-214. 82 Ø “To Chaim Weizmann: London.” Pp. 276-278. 86 Ø “To the Editor of the New York Times: February 17, 1945: ‘Compromise for Palestine’.” Pp. 422-427. 88

Session 2: Jewish “Anglo-Saxons” in Jerusalem: A Personal Assessment, 1988-2007 4-6 P.M.; April 18, 2007; Multi-purpose Room; Ritchie Center

The final session will examine, more broadly, the contemporary American Jewish experience in Israel, where immigrants from English-speaking countries are known as “Anglo-Saxons.”

· The A.B. Yehoshua Controversy: An Israel-Diaspora dialogue on Jewishness, Israeliness, and Identity. 2006. Dorothy and Julius Koppelman Institute on American Jewish-Israeli Relations, American Jewish Committee. 91

II. Public Lecture: Memory and Justice: A Jewish-Arab Journey to Auschwitz 7-9 P.M.; April 16, 2007; Gottesfeld Room; Ritchie Center

· Kolitz, Zvi. 1999 [1946]. “Yosl Rakover Talks to God.” Pp. 1-25 in Yosl Rakover Talks to God [Yosl Rakovers vending tsu Got], translated by Carol Brown Janeway. New York: Pantheon Books. 161