The Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU presents new virtual events series: “Black Lives in a Jewish Context”

The Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU will present “Black Lives in a Jewish Context,” a virtual series of illustrated lectures, films, and interviews with scholars, historians, and clergy members around diversity and intersectionality within Judaism.
 
The series will include key players, from Chief Rabbi Capers Funnye of Beth Shalom Bnai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation in Chicago (and Michelle Obama’s cousin), to scholars and activists in the U.S. including Nathan Devir, associate professor at the World Languages and Cultures department at the University of Utah and Shalva Weil, senior researcher at the Seymour Fox School of Education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The series also will feature a virtual launch of Hybrid Hate: Conflations of Anti-Black Racism and Anti-Semitism from the Renaissance to the Third Reich, written by Tudor Parfitt - professor with the Department of Religious Studies at FIU’s Steven J. Green School of International & Public Affairs, and emeritus professor at London University’s School of Oriental and African Studies. 
 
Fall programming dates:
 
Monday, Oct. 26 at 12 p.m.   
From Red to Black: The Changing Colour of Ethiopian Jews in Israel 
Shalva Weil, Hebrew University of Jerusalem 
This lecture traces the perceived changing color of Ethiopian Jews in Israeli society with a dual –etic (outsider) and –emic (subjective) perspective over a period of 50 years, from the time they first migrated to Israel, until today. Inevitably, the lecture surveys the different waves of Aliya (immigration) of Ethiopian Jews to Israel.  It will be argued that over this period of time, Ethiopian Jews became “blacks” in the eyes of the Israeli public and, from the point of view of Ethiopian Jews themselves, they turned into ‘black’ from what they perceived as ‘red’ (the colour they thought they were before they came to Israel). The lecture recalls recent racial attacks in Israel, and particularly the case of Solomon Teka, shot dead by police in a northern town in Israel. The current situation in Israel undoubtedly resonates with increasing racialization in the United States. 
 
Monday, Nov. 9 at 7 p.m.  
Hybrid Hate: Conflations of Anti-Black Racism and Anti-Semitism from the Renaissance to the Third Reich 
Tudor Parfitt, Florida International University 
Join Tudor Parfitt for the virtual launch of his book, Hybrid Hate: Conflations of Anti-Black Racism and Anti-Semitism from the Renaissance to the Third Reich. Hybrid Hate is the first book to study the conflation of antisemitism and anti-Black racism. As objects of racism, Jews and Blacks have been linked together for centuries as peoples apart from the general run of humanity. In this book, Parfitt investigates the development of anti-Semitism, anti-Black racism, and race theory in the West from the Renaissance to the Second World War. This program is co-sponsored by Books & Books and the Global Jewish Studies Program at the Steven J. Green School of International & Public Affairs.
 
 Please note that the Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU remains closed but offers an array of virtual programs and exhibitions at jmof.fiu.edu**