Etgar Lefkovits was Jerusalem correspondent at the Jerusalem Post, and also worked at the Jerusalem bureau of the
Israel Studies Project
The Israel Studies Project has brought Israeli writers and scholars of the highest caliber to Urbana-Champaign. A collaboration between Illinois and the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago, it has moved us to the forefront of national and international efforts in Israel Studies.
The Israel Studies Project grew out of an op-ed piece by Michael Kotzin, Executive Vice President of the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago. Kotzin, who alas passed away since beginning this project, proposed that federations and universities work together to foster the study of Israel at North American college and universities.
With the joint sponsorship of the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago and former Illinois Chancellor Richard Herman, we have been able to invite Israeli academics, writers, and artists to come for visits from a few weeks to several semesters. The presence of such prominent Israeli academics and artists gives both campus and community access to important and often little-known work on Israel and the Middle East.
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A warm welcome to Omri Drumlevich, who is our Israel Studies Project visitor for the Fall semester. Omri was born in Kibbutz Ramat Rachel.
The Program in Jewish Culture & Society is delighted to welcome Liat Maggid Alon as an Israel Institute Visiting scholar for the 2019-2020 academic year.
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- The Program in Jewish Culture and Society at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign presents:
In the spring of 2017, Rachel Harris hosted the symposium A Film of Her Own: Women in Israeli Cinema at the iHotel. More than one hundred people turned up for the opening events that included lectures, a film screening, and a banquet dinner. Though the eighteen scholars and filmmakers brought together represent how the industry has become active in championing women, scholarship has not had the same centralized focus as the activists and documentary filmmakers, and this was the first symposium of its kind to spotlight feminism, women’s filmmaking and the cinema happening in Israel.
