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Notes from the Classroom

Diane and Guilford Glazer and Lea and Allen Orwitz Teaching Fellow in Modern Hebrew

Itsik ParienteThanks to the generosity of our donors, in particular Lea and Allen Orwitz and the Diane and Guilford Glazer Foundation, we were able to continue offering Modern Hebrew at UT last year and this year. Our Hebrew Fellow Itsik Pariente taught introductory and intermediate Hebrew to an enthusiastic group of students. In a move we believe will really boost the profile of Modern Hebrew, it was moved to the Department of Modern Foreign Languages and Literatures. 

Monkey in the Museum

Monkey BusinessThis semester, we are offering a course called the Monkey in the Museum for first-year students. Throughout the course, the students work towards creating an exhibition about H.H. and Margaret Rey, the creators of Curious George, and their escape from Nazi-occupied France. During the course, students learn about Jews and Judaism, the Holocaust, exhibition design, and an adorable monkey named George. The students spent some time in the exhibition space at McClung Museum learning about how exhibitions are created. The students will be exhibiting their creation at the John C. Hodges Library during the first two weeks of December. The opening will be December 4 at 1:30 p.m. and include a small reception and a 2 p.m. screening of Monkey Business, the film about the Rey’s escape.   

Karen and Pace Robinson Lecture on Modern Israel

David EllensonDavid Ellenson, director of the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies at Brandeis University, will deliver this year’s Karen and Pace Robinson Lecture on Modern Israel. Ellenson, a distinguished scholar of Judaism, is Chancellor-Emeritus of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, he served as president of HUC-JIR from 2001-2013. Ellenson has authored or edited seven books and over 300 articles and reviews in a wide variety of academic and popular journals and newspapers. His newest book, Jewish Meaning in a World of Choice, appeared in September of 2014 in the University of Nebraska/Jewish Publication Society’s “Scholar of Distinction” series. 

The Karen and Pace Robinson Lecture on Modern Israel will take place Thursday, February 22, 2018, at 7 p.m. in the McClung Museum Auditorium. A reception will follow the talk.


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