“Multicultural Memory: Remembering Across Jewish Cultures and Beyond” Panel Discussion – Part of Campus Week 2021, “Resistance, Recovery, Revival – Modern Jewish Life in Germany and Beyond”

Campus Week opens with the Western North Carolina Jewish Archives Panel on Multicultural Memory: Remembering Across Jewish Cultures and Beyond with Michael Figueroa, associate professor of ethnomusicology at UNC Chapel Hill and Danielle Christmas, assistant professor of English & comparative literature at UNC Chapel Hill.

This panel discussion will explore Jewish memory culture in Germany, with the additional aim of setting German-Jewish memory culture in conversation with the memory culture of Jewish communities in Israel and the US. While the Holocaust often functions as the central event in the cultural and intergenerational memory of many German Jews and Ashkenazi Jews living elsewhere, there are many Jewish groups for whom the Holocaust is less central to their Jewish identity and familial past. With this panel, we aim to explore intersections and divergences in the memory cultures of Ashkenazi Jews in Germany, Mizrahi and Arab Jews in Israel, and Black Jews in the US, to critically examine the role of the Holocaust in multiethnic Jewish discourses, and to create opportunities for participants and attendees to engage across national, generational, racial, and ethnic lines.

Come early at 6:30 pm for the opening of the exhibit 1,700 Years of Jewish Life in Germany Poster Exhibition organized in partnership with UNCA’s Ramsey Library and the Western North Carolina Jewish Archives.

For more information, visit cjs.unca.edu

About Campus Week 2021 – “Resistance, Recovery, Revival – Modern Jewish Life in Germany and Beyond” This year’s campus week will focus on illuminating for a North American audience the long history of Jewish life in German-speaking countries as well as the many important contributions of Jewish citizens to all aspects of contemporary life in Europe and beyond. We want to amplify contemporary Jewish voices, center their experiences living in today’s Germany, and connect German Jewish life to the experiences of Jews and other marginalized groups in the United States. Our goal is to bridge current national and international discourses about national and personal identity, integration, memory, and community, and to create opportunities for participants to engage across national, generational, racial, and ethnic lines.

Campus Week features the November 8th Panel on Multicultural Memory: Remembering Across Jewish Cultures and Beyond and the opening of the exhibit 1,700 Years of Jewish Life in Germany Poster Exhibition; a screening of the film Masel Tov Cocktail, followed by Q&A with Director Arkadij Khaet on Wednesday, November 10th; and, a virtual lecture by Max Czollek, author of the bestseller “Desintegriert Euch” and the more recent “Gegenwartsbewältigung” on Thursday, November 11th.

This event series is part of the US-wide Campus Week initiative and is generously sponsored by the German Embassy with $3300. Support was also received from NEH Professor Kate Zubko and Carol G. Belk Distinguished Professor Mark Gibney as well as the Center for Jewish Studies.