Professor Dara E. Goldman Memorial Fund

It is with great sadness that we share the news of the passing of Professor Dara Goldman, The Director of the Program in Jewish Culture and Society at the University of Illinois, loving wife of Itai Seggev, daughter of Clifford and Karen Goldman, sister of Elyssa Goldman, daughter in law of Joram and Varda Seggev, sister in law of Guy Seggev and Michal (widow of Shelby ז"ל) Seggev Lerner, and aunt of Elan Lerner, Shira Lerner, and Elizabeth Seggev. Dara passed away on May 13, 2022 while preparing for graduation weekend and the American Jewish Historical Society conference.

Dara (51), graduated with a BA and MA from Columbia University and a Ph.D. from Emory University. In 2008 she published “Out of Bounds: Islands and the Demarcation of Identity in the Hispanic Caribbean (Bucknell Studies in Latin American Literature and Theory)”. More recently she co-edited a volume of American Literary History on "Twenty-First Century Jewish Writing and the World."

At the University of Illinois, Dara was a tremendous force for research and collaboration. She was connected to numerous campus units and helped form many initiatives to promote dialogue between communities on campus. As the director of the PJCS Dara increased the faculty, funding and research available under the program. She helped create the Central Illinois Jewish Communities’ Archives, was instrumental in hiring new faculty to the program and helped bring top speakers and programs to campus and on behalf of the program off-campus. Dara will always be remembered as a positive force at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

In addition to being a great scholar, Dara loved dancing, skiing, science fiction, and romantic comedies. She was gracious and kind to all. Dara was an amazing wife, daughter(-in-law), aunt and friend, who was likely to take a picture or send an article she read because she was thinking of you.