Erica Lehrer, "Post-Jewish Objects in Poland: Dispossession, Aid, and the Biographies of Things"
Cultural anthropologist Erica Lehrer (Concordia University, Montreal) describes her research on “post-Jewish” objects in Poland, prompted by politicized, oversimplified exhibitions about Polish “Righteous Gentiles” under the 2017–2023 Law and Justice government and by recurring personal encounters with Poles who possess objects that used to belong to Polish Jews. Lehrer argues that objects can reveal a nuanced spectrum of wartime and postwar transfers—from gifts and ongoing intergenerational friendships (e.g., a moulin à légumes used annually to make gefilte fish; replacement Shabbat candlesticks) to barter under starvation, extortionary contracts, and violent expropriation—while highlighting the economics and risks of aid.
19 Apr 2026
Olga Gershenson, "Beyond Hollywood: The Oxford Handbook of Judaism and Film"
In this episode, film scholar Olga Gershenson (University of Massachusetts Amherst; co-head fellow at the Frankel Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies, (University of Michigan) discusses her project, "The Oxford Handbook of Judaism and Film", a 38-chapter Oxford University Press volume available online through library access. She explains why she chose “Judaism and film” over the slippery category “Jewish film,” moving beyond binary in/out definitions to examine production, distribution, reception, interpretation, religion on and off screen, expanded geographies, and non-realist genres like horror. Gershenson contrasts conventional Jews-in-film narratives centered on American Jewish experience and Hollywood with global case studies including Jewish women stars in early Indian cinema, Malayalam films nostalgically reconstructing Kerala’s Jewish past, and the extensive network of Jewish film festivals originating in 1981 San Francisco. She also highlights transnational dybbuk adaptations and Israeli religious-horror television, arguing for curiosity and openness to the field’s breadth.
24 Mar 2026
Sigal Yona, "The Eden Cinema: A Borderland Theater Linking Tel Aviv, Jaffa, and the Wider Middle East"
In this episode we explore Sigal Yona’s research on Tel Aviv’s Eden Cinema, a landmark venue that opened in 1914 on the edge of the Neve Tzedek area, operated with for six decades, and closed in 1974. Yona describes how the cinema began as a contested Zionist-era project that depended on Egyptian distribution networks and multilingual advertising, drew mixed audiences during the silent-film era, and later navigated growing Jewish-Arab tensions and the transition to sound, including live Arabic mediation and early Egyptian sound films. After financial struggles in the 1940s and becoming a workers’ cooperative, it reinvented itself in the 1950s as a major hub for Yiddish films and then Indian and Egyptian films, creating highly participatory collective viewing experiences despite official restrictions. The cinema declined with television and changing film availability, and today the abandoned, graffiti-covered building faces possible renovation.
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