The Samuel and Althea Stroum Lecture Series

It has been over 30 years since Murray Shiff (z”l), then Executive Director of the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle, and Edward Alexander, chair of the Jewish Studies Committee at the UW, got an idea that was quite ambitious for a relatively small and isolated Jewish community: to bring to the UW each year an internationally-known Jewish studies scholar for a series of lectures – lectures that would reach not only the Seattle community but, through publication, a nationwide audience as well. Shiff asked one person after another for the financial resources needed. One after another, they turned him down – until he talked with Sam Stroum (z”l), who proved willing to add support for what became the Samuel & Althea Stroum Lectureship in Jewish Studies to the very long list of worthy causes to which he was already committed. The lectures have put the Jewish Studies Program, the UW, and Seattle on the Jewish Studies “map” worldwide.

With the Stroum’s support, The University of Washington Press has published over 16 books based on the lectures; the books have collectively sold tens of thousands of copies. Several have won national book awards, and many are used in university courses around the country. To learn more, go to the UW Press website:

http://www.washington.edu/uwpress/books/series/Seriesstroumlec.html

Since 2000, the lectures have been recorded and can be viewed at any time on streaming video. Click on a link to watch a specific series; then click on one of the three lectures in that series.

2009

Professor Yael Zerubavel, Rutgers University
"Encounters with the Past: Remembering the 'Bygone' in Israeli Culture"

May 17, 19, & 21, 2009--View Invitation

www.uwtv.org/programs/displayevent.aspx

2008

Professor Michael Walzer, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton
"Biblical Politics"

http://www.uwtv.org/programs/displayseries.aspx?&fID=5629&pID=497

2006

October

Professor Lawrence H. Schiffman, New York University
“Creation, Revelation & Redemption: The Religion of the Dead Sea Scrolls”

http://www.uwtv.org/programs/displayseries.aspx?&fID=2186&pID=497

May

Professor Anita Norich, University of Michigan
“Speaking in Tongues: Translating Yiddish in the 20th Century”

http://www.uwtv.org/programs/displayseries.aspx?&fID=1824&pID=497

2005

Professor Aron Rodrigue, Stanford University
“Sephardi Jewries and the Holocaust”

http://www.uwtv.org/programs/displayseries.aspx?&fID=852&pID=497

2004

Professor Susan Handelman, Bar-Ilan University, Tel Aviv
“Find Yourself a Teacher: The Mentor/Disciple Relation in Classical Jewish Thought and Contemporary Practice”

http://www.uwtv.org/programs/displayseries.aspx?&fID=775&pID=497

2003

Professor Chava Weissler, Lehigh University
“Jewish Renewal in the American Spiritual Marketplace”

http://www.uwtv.org/programs/displayseries.aspx?&fID=710&pID=497

2002

Professor Michael Stanislawski, Columbia University
“In the Culture of the Rabbis: Asher of Reichshofen and Glikl of Hameln”

http://www.uwtv.org/programs/displayseries.aspx?&fID=616&pID=497

2001

Professor Paul Mendes-Flohr, Hebrew University, Jerusalem
“Cultural Disjunctions and Modern Jewish Identity”

http://www.uwtv.org/programs/displayseries.aspx?&fID=452&pID=497

2000

Professor Calvin Goldscheider, Brown University
“Studying the Jewish Future”

http://www.uwtv.org/programs/displayseries.aspx?&fID=453&pID=497