“We are on the map,” said Elie Rekhess, the Visiting Crown Chair in Middle East Studies, of Israeli academia at Northwestern.
"The Zionist Ideal in Israeli Culture: Dream and Reality" conference began Sunday at Lutkin Hall to promote the progress of Israel studies starting at Northwestern. It is the inaugural conference of its kind at Northwestern and continues until Nov. 17.
A year and a half ago, Rekhess approached Barry Wimpfheimer, director of the Crown Family Center for Jewish and Israel Studies. Rekhess and Wimpfheimer were able to expand Israeli-focused programs at Northwestern and organize the conference.
“The conference is a testament of Rekhess’ effort,” said Sarah Mangelsdorf, dean of the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, during the conference.
The conference focuses on the culture behind Israel. “Typically, academic events pertaining to Israel are focused in recent years on the politics of the Israeli conflict,” Rekhess said in an interview before the conference. “I wanted to get away from this and instead focus on additional disciplines which pertain to Israeli society and are not highlighted enough.”
To showcase this, the conference has different sessions devoted to Israeli music, visual arts, literature, poetry and cinema. As a preview of the tone for the rest of the conference, the opening session showcased both literature and music following speeches from Wimpfheimer and Rekhess.
In a last minute change, Yigal Schwartz, a professor at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel, took over as the keynote speaker. He focused on the conflict between Ashkenazi Jews, a conflict that according to Wimpfheimer has been undeveloped in Hebrew literature. Reading excerpts of literature in Hebrew, he analyzed this issue.
The Tel-Aviv University MultiPiano Ensemble performed for the last half hour, playing variations on Israeli music.
“The groundbreaking innovative addition is the cooperative effort between the music school, for example, and us, which enabled us to bring over a Tel-Aviv University Multipiano Ensemble,” Rekhess said in the interview.
Audience members, the majority of whom were adults, along with a handful of students, gave the ensemble a standing ovation at the end.
David Seidman, a McCormick professor of materials and science engineering said, “It was an excellent program, by and large. There was a good balance for an opening program, between something intellectual and something musical.”
Renée and Lester Crown donated to support this academia with a variety of other co-sponsors for the conference.
In his speech, Wimpfheimer emphasized the importance of Israel studies as a way to detach oneself from the politics and bias of the Israeli conflict.
“The field of Israel studies…attempts to produce an academic discussion of Israel that possesses the same rigor and methodology as one would apply to any other subject in the university,” he said. “Israel studies places its hope in the university as a space for a different type of discourse about Israel.”