NYU Conference February 2007

A Jewish Feminine Mystique?
Jewish Women in Postwar America

February 25 - 27, 2007

All conference panels will be held in the Screening Room at New York University
King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center, 53 Washington Square South.
Locations of Evening Programs are noted in schedule below.

SUNDAY FEBRUARY 25th
Opening Remarks and Keynote Address
9:30 - 11:00 am
Daniel Horowitz, the Sylvia Dlugasch Bauman Professor of American Studies at Smith College and
Director of American Studies at Smith College.
Panel 1: Courting Change: Jewish Women and Legal Activism
11:15am - 12:30pm
Chair - Daniel Horowitz, Smith College

Leandra Zarnow, University of California at Santa Barbara
'A very simple sense of justice': Bella Azbug's Quest for 'Tikkun Olam' in the Law during the Early Cold War.

Jennifer Armiger, University of Delaware
Unpacking the Postwar Period: The Law and the Roots of Jewish Women's Professional Activism

Jane De Hart, University of California at Santa Barbara
Mothers, Minyuns, Jobs and Books: Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the Making of a Feminist Advocate
Panel 2: Buying into the Postwar Era: Consumer Culture
1:30pm - 3:00pm
Chair - Marion Kaplan, New York University

Jenna Weissman Joselit, Princeton University
It's A Girl Thing: The Material Culture of Jewish Adolescence in Postwar America

Aleisa Fishman, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Choosing Identity: Jewish Women and Domestic Ideals in 1950s Suburbia

Riv-Ellen Prell, University of Minnesota
Re-drawing the Map of Post War American Jewish Culture: Suburbanization, Women, and the Consumer Culture
Panel 3: Building Community: Jewish Women and New Communal Roles
3:00pm - 4:30pm
Chair - Melissa Klapper, Rowan University

Karla Goldman, Jewish Women's Archive
Cincinnati's Jewish Women and the Reshaping of Community

Deborah Waxman, Temple University
Gender, Ethnicity, and Space: A Case Study of Women's Involvement in Urban and Suburban Synagogue in the Postwar Years

Rebecca Boim-Wolf, New York University
Ladies Who Lunch: Marjorie Morningstar and the Women of Hadassah.

Lara Rabinovitch, New York University
Communal Cookbooks of Jewish Suburbia
Evening Program
Motherhood, Power, and Politics: Screening Ethel Rosenberg and Molly Goldberg
8pm - King Juan Carlos Center Screening Room
Moderator - Joyce Antler
Presenter - Ivy Meeropol, filmmaker
Presenter - Aviva Kemperer, filmmaker
This event is presented by the Jewish Women's Archive


MONDAY FEBRUARY 26th
Panel 4: Wielding the Pen: Jewish Women and Literature
9:30am - 11:00am
Chair - Anne Lapidus Lerner, The Jewish Theological Seminary

Respondant - Jennifer Glaser, University of Pennsylvania

Megan Williams, University of Kansas
'A Color with No Precise Name': Representations of Jewish Women Married to Black Men in Postwar Narratives

Barbara Sicherman, Trinity College
Reading Marjorie Morningstar: Then and Now

Ann Shapiro, State University of New York - Farmingdale
When Edna Ferber Was Accused of Communist Propaganda

Panel 5: Coming to America: Immigration
11:15am - 12:45pm
Chair - Hasia Diner, New York University

Ruth Behar, University of Michigan
Latina and Americana: Jewish-Cuban Women Reinventing Their Identity in Miami

Zachary P. Levine, New York University
The 1956 Hungarian Refugee Crisis and the AJJDC

Sibylle Quack, New York University
Reconstructing Cultural Identity: German Jewish Women in the Immigrant Community After World War II

Audrey Nasar, Independent Scholar
Negotiating New Terrain: Egyptian Women in America
Panel 6: ICONS
2:15pm - 3:45pm
Chair - Gail Levin, Baruch College

Rachel Kranson, New York University
Jennie Grossinger and the Jewish Feminine Mystique, 1950 - 1972.

Kirstin Fermaglich, Michigan State University
Responses to Betty Friedan's 'Feminine Mystique.'

Shuly Schwartz, The Jewish Theological Seminary
Henrietta Szold

Francine Klagsburg, Independent Scholar
Golda Meier

Panel 7: Teach Diligently To Your Children: Women and Jewish Education
4:00pm - 5:30pm
Chair - Rona Sheramy, Association for Jewish Studies

Carol Ingall, The Jewish Theological Seminary
'Hava N'halela': Tzipora Jochsberger and the Hebrew Arts School

Leslie Ginsparg, New York University
Outside Ideologies in an Insular Community: Gender Expectations and Orthodox Girls' Schooling in the Post-War Era

Ofra Backenroth, The Jewish Theological Seminary
Temima Gezari: An Artist and a Pioneer in Jewish Education

Evening Program
Bobby Socks and Bat Mitzvahs: Growing Up Jewish and Female in the 1950s
8pm - The Jewish Theological Seminary
Moderator - Joan Jacobs Brumberg
Panelists - Ruth Abram, Anne Lapidus Lerner, Alix Kates Shulman and Judith Shapiro
This event is presented by the Jewish Women's Archive


TUESDAY FEBRUARY 27th
Panel 8: The Stage and Silver Screen: Jewish Women and Performance
9:30am - 10:45am
Chair - Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, New York University

Edna Nahshon, The Jewish Theological Seminary
Between Heroism and Assimilation: Overwriting Shakespeare's Jessica in the Yiddish Art Theatre Postwar Production of 'Shylock and his Daughter.'

Judith Smith, University of Massachusetts - Boston
Judy Holliday's Urban Working Girl Characters in 1950s Hollywood Film

Giovanna Del Negro, Texas A&M University
The Bad Girls of Jewish Comedy

Josh Perelman, National Museum of American Jewish History / University of Pennsylvania
"It Takes a Village": Jewish Womanhood in Sophie Maslow's "The Village I Knew" (1951)

Panel 9: On the Front Line: Jewish Women as Activists
10:45am - noon
Chair - Hadassah Kosak, Yeshiva University

Raymond Mohl, University of Alabama - Birmingham
Peace, Civil Rights, and Jewish Activism in Miami, 1945-1970

Vicki Gabriner, Union Institute and University
'Peak Time': Progressive Jewish Mothers, the Red Scare Years, and the Parent Teacher Association of PS 153 (Brooklyn, NY).

Kathleen Laughlin, Metropolitan State University
'Unfinished Business': The Progressive Agenda of the National Council of Jewish Women after World War II.

Closing Remarks
12:15pm - 1:00pm
Joyce Antler, Brandeis University.

This conference is sponsored by
The Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies
The Jewish Theological Seminary of America
with the support of
The Goldstein-Goren Center for American Jewish History

We acknowledge the generous support of the following:
New York University Graduate School of Arts and Science
The Jewish Women's Studies Program at JTSA
The History Department, New York University
The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at New York University

The evening programs were made possible by:
Jewish Women's Archive

The Conference Media Sponsor is:
Lilith Magazine

Organizing Committee
Shira Kohn and Rachel Kranson
PhD Candidates
Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies
New York University

Hasia Diner
Paul S. Sylvia Steinberg Professor of American Jewish History
Director, Goldstein Goren Center for American Jewish History
New York University

Anne Lapidus Lerner
Director, Jewish Women's Studies Program
Assistant professor of Jewish Literature
Jewish Theological Seminary of America

Shuly Rubin-Schwartz
Irving Lehrman Research Associate Professor of American Jewish History
Dean of the Albert A. List College of Jewish Studies
Jewish Theological Seminary of America


Please call 212-998-8981 or email Shayne Figueroa to reserve a place at the conference.