Events and Speakers
Upcoming Events
Public Event
"Writing Identity" - A conversation with Dr. Leon Wiener Dow
Sayed Kashua,
Novelist; Columnist; Creator, Arab Labor, Israel's Leading
Television Show
March 14, 2013, Reception at 5:00; Program at 5:45
The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life
2121 Allston Way, Berkeley
Faculty/Graduate-Student Roundtable:
"The Reborn Jewish Community of Poland: Identities and Interactions"
Kosntanty Gebert, Scholar-in-Residence, Taube Center for the Renewal of
Jewish Life in Poland
Tuesday, March 19, 2013, 12:30 - 2 pm
Institue of European Studies
Seminar Room, 201 Moses Hall
RSVP required, click here.
Faculty/Graduate-Student Roundtable
"A Jewish Law for Modernity"
Leon Wiener Dow, Post-Doctoral Fellow in Jewish Law, Robbins Collection; Schusterman Israeli Post-Doctoral Teaching Fellow
Monday, April 8, 2013, 12:00 - 1:45 pm
Past Events:
Undergraduate Student Workshop
"Israel Following the 2013 Elections: A New Chapter or More of the Same?"
Prof. Yoram Peri, Abraham S. and Jack Kay Chair in Israel Studies,
and Director of the Joseph and Alma Gildenhorn Institute for Israel Studies
at the University of Maryland at College Park
February 14, 2013 at 4:30 pm
Location: Morrison & Foerster Room (298 Boalt Hall)
Kosher refreshments will be served.
THE 2012-2013 ROBBINS COLLECTION LECTURE IN JEWISH LAW AND THOUGHT:
"The Future of Judaism"
Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks
Monday, November 26, 2012
Reception begins at 5:00 pm; program at 6:00 pm
Booth Auditorium, Berkeley Law, 2778 Bancroft Way
2012-2013 GILBERT FOUNDATION COLLOQUY
"Behind the Robe"
A discussion between former Israeli Chief Justice Dorit Beinisch and 9th Circuit Chief Judge Alex Kozinski
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Reception at 5:00 pm; program at 5:45 pm
Click here to view event slidehow
ROBBINS COLLECTION LECTURE IN JEWISH LAW:
Narrating the Law: How Stories Create Complex Law in the Talmud
Professor Barry Wimpfheimer, Northwestern University
Monday, April 16, 2012 - 5:15 PM
Goldberg Room, Boalt Hall School of Law
Click here to view event slideshow
Click here to view event announcement.
SYMPOSIUM: "Legal Heterodoxy in Islamic and Jewish History: 
Late Antique and Medieval Transformations"
April 23 - 24, 2012
Goldberg Room, UC Berkeley School of Law
Click here to view event announcement.
LECTURE: "Investing in Israel:
How Innovation from the Start-Up Nation is Changing all of Our Lives"
Monday, April 23, 2012
Boalt Hall, UC Berkeley School of Law
MUSIC: Jewish Music Festival 
Bustan Quartet
Thursday, March 22, 2012 - 7:00 PM
At the Magnes Collection,
2121 Allston Way Berkeley - (510) 642-3781
LECTURE: "Laws and Ethics: Jewish and U.S. Traditions"
Rabbi Elliot Dorff, Rector and Prof. of Philosophy, American Jewish University
February 27, 2012 - 12:45 PM
Boalt Hall, UC Berkeley School of Law
LECTURE: "Demonic Desires:
The Evil Inclination ("Yetzer Hara") in Rabbinic Thought"
Professor Ishay Rosen-Zvi, Dept. of Hebrew Culture Studies, Tel-Aviv University
February 13, 2012 - 6:00 PM
Warren Room, Boalt Hall, UC Berkeley School of Law
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE: "Israel Through the High Tech Lens."
February 1-2, 2012
Haas School of Business and UC Berkeley School of Law
Israel has been a uniquely and immensely successful hub of technology entrepreneurship. With the second largest number of start-up companies in the world (after the U.S.) and numerous NASDAQ listed companies outside North America, Israel is often compared with Silicon Valley. This spring, the Berkeley Institute for Jewish Law and Israeli Law Economy and Society will launch “Israel through the High-Tech Lens,” an international conference which will focus on important and multidisciplinary aspects of the flourishing Israeli high-tech phenomenon.
LECTURE: "The State of the Middle East Peace Process"
Shmuel Rosner, Israeli Journalist & Blogger; author, Shtetl, Bagel, Baseball
January 19, 2012 - 4:30 PM
Boalt Hall, School of Law
ROUNDTABLE: "Biblical Law and Narrative:
Leviticus 5:20-26, Fraudulent Transaction, and the Joseph Story"
Professor Calum Carmichael, Cornell University
December 6, 2011 - 12:15 PM
Dean's Seminar Room
DIALOGUE: Prospects for Peace: The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict... What is Next?
David Makovsky and Ghaith al-Omar
Monday, October 3, 2011 - 7:00 PM
Boalt Hall, UC Berkeley School of Law
Click here to view a digital recording of the proceedings.
David Makovsky and Ghaith al-Omari, gave an informed perspective of the uncertain future for a peace in the Middle East.
* This event was co-sponsored by: Berkeley Hillel, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Institute of International Studies, Israeli Action Committee, Real Partners, Real Peace and International House.
LECTURE: When Maskilim Went to the Spas: On the Recovery and Rejuvenation of the Jewish Body, Mind and Nation
Mirjam Triendl-Zadoff, University of Munich, Department of History
Monday, September 19, 2011 - Moses Hall, UCB
During the last third of the 19th century Marienbad, a fashionable spa town in Bohemia, became an intellectual and spiritual venue for Hebrew and Yidish writers from Eastern Europe. It became known not only for its amenities and luxuries but also for its Jewish sociability and infrastructure. The poets and writers who visited Marienbad and nearby Carlsbad on a regular basis assigned Jewish and Zionist images to the places. Judah Leib Gordon, David Frischmann, Sholem Aleichem, Rueben Brainin and Chaim Nachman Bialik paid considerable attention to the present Jewish groups, who represented almost every religious, cultural and social aspect of the Jewish nation at the time. Especially since the establishment of the Zionist congresses unofficial pre- and post-conventions of delegates in Marienbad and Carlsbad furthered the spas' character as places of intellectual Jewish encounters.
*This event was co-sponsored by the Department of History and the Institute of European Studies, University of California, Berkeley
LECTURE: Israeli Intellectuals and the Six-Day War
Noam Zadoff, University of Munich, Department of History
Thursday, September 22, 2011 - Moses Hall, UCB
The Six-Day War is considered a turning point in the history of the State of Israel, in the Jewish world and not least in international politics of the 20th century. Within less than a week the geographical and political reality of the Near East was changed radically, and the extreme events left their imprint on the society of the young state. An almost apocalyptic fear, which had prevailed in the Israeli public opinion before the war, was overnight replaced by a victor's euphoria. Many Israeli intellectuals confronted the new reality and reflected this turning point in history of the state in their writings.
This talk focused on three central Israeli intellectuals, who represented different political and ideological streams in intellectual circles of post-war Israel: the writer Moshe Shamir, the politician and journalist Uri Avneri and the poet and linguist Yonatan Ratosh.
*This event was co-sponsored by the Department of History and the Institute of European Studies, University of California, Berkeley.
LECTURE: Revolution and Change in the Middle East: Policy Challenges For The U.S.
Honorable Daniel C. Kurtzer, Former Ambassador to Israel and Egypt, S. Daniel Abraham Professor, Princeton University
Tuesday, August 30, 2011 - Moses Hall, UC Berkeley
Revolutions, counter-revolutions and peace-process stagnation are presenting unprecedented challenges for the U.S. in the Middle East. Can the U.S. influence change or is the "American era" in the region drawing to a close?
*This event was co-sponsored by the Institute of International Studies and the Miller Institute for Global Challenges and the Law.
Please click here to view the events archive/older events.