The fellowship will last from September 2013 through June 2014.

Grantees include: Mika Ahuvia (Princeton University, Religious Studies), who analyzes Jewish conceptions of angels in rabbinic literature in order to uncover social dynamics in ancient Jewish communities;  Daniel Viragh’s thesis (University of California-Berkeley, History Dept.) will be the first major, sustained look at Jewish acculturation to Hungarian identity during the formative period of late 19^th/early 20^th centuries. And Lillian Wohl (University of Chicago, Music) examines musical performances in Buenos Aires through the lens of both cultural memory and ethnomusicology.

Mika Ahuvia (Princeton University, Religious Studies)

“Israel Among the Angels: a study of Angels in Jewish texts from the fourth to eighth century CE”

In her thesis, Mika Ahuvia analyzes Jewish conceptions of angels in rabbinic literature, mystical Hekahlot texts, the poetry of the synagogue, etc., in order to uncover social dynamics in ancient Jewish communities, seeing in these writings the attempts by early Jews to strike a balance between their local religious environment (whether Roman, Christian, or Zoroastrian) and biblical or rabbinic traditions. Saying that the thesis “promises to be a real contribution to the field,” one enthusiastic evaluator wrote, “[Ahuvia’s] prospectus displays an impressive control of the different genres of rabbinic and ancient Jewish literature and the scholarship on each genre relating to her topic, as well as methodological sophistication: she clearly knows the reigning theories and is able to use them without jargon or heavy-handed pretension.”

Daniel Viragh (University of California-Berkeley, History Dept.)

“Becoming Hungarian: The Creation of a Hungarian-Language Jewish Cultural Sphere in Budapest, 1867-1914”

Daniel Viragh’s thesis will look at Jewish acculturation to Hungarian language, symbols and national identity during the formative period of late 19^th/early 20^th centuries. The project is an ambitious look at modern Jewish history, ethnicity, and nationalism, comparing Hungarian-Jewish acculturation with other examples to hegemonic cultures including the German, Czech, French, and Austrian ones. In selecting Viragh as a recipient of the Doctoral Dissertation fellowship, the selection committee noted that in addition to his important work in the field, Viragh is among relatively few historians of Hungary, due in part to the demanding language skill set required.

Lillian Wohl (University of Chicago, Music)

“Mucho Ojo!: Spectacles of Jewish Memory, Ethnicity and Religion in Contemporary Musical Performance in Buenos Aires”

Lillian Wohl’s thesis examines musical performances in Buenos Aires through the lens of both cultural memory and ethnomusicology. Building off the scholarly notion of “scenario,” she has created the idea of “sonario” to highlight performances that explore the Jewish relationship to memory and identity in Latin America. She analyzes shows, songs and themes within Jewish social networks to describe how memory shapes musical representations of Jewish heritage to create social reality that also takes in contemporary concerns about ethnicity and religion. The selection committee was struck by the cross-cultural importance of her work. As one evaluator wrote, “Ms. Wohl’s research is methodologically sophisticated and her outline suggests that she will challenge numerous aspects of the cannon in Jewish and Latin American Studies. Her language skills (Spanish, Hebrew, Yiddish, and Ladino) mean that she has done research in many contexts that are often ignored by scholars who only work in the national language.”

***

Fellowship grants are made on the recommendation of the FJC’s Academic Advisory Committee.  The selection committee included: Dr. Beth Wenger (University of Pennsylvania) and Dr. Christine Hayes (Yale University) Co-Chairs. The selection panel also included: Dr. Jeremy Dauber (Columbia University), an expert in early modern and modern Yiddish literature, Dr. Benjamin Gampel (JTS), a scholar of medieval Jewish history, and Dr. Antony Polonsky (Brandeis University), a historian of Eastern European history with a specialization in Polish Jewry. Dr. Wenger and Dr. Gampel are former Doctoral Dissertation fellowship recipients, and Dr. Polonsky won the 2007 Gantz Zahler Prize for Nonfiction.

***

Applications for 2014-2015 will be posted by September 1, 2013. To download the guidelines please click here. For more information on the Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship, click here.

Purchase Your Tickets On-Line Now

Learn more about this year’s gala

The FJC has opened the submission process to its 2013 Kroll Documentary Film Fund. Filmmakers can receive between $15,000 and $35,000 to finish a documentary on some aspect of Jewish history, culture, and identity. Documentaries must be in post-production. The deadline for applications to the 2013 Kroll Film Fund is July 16, 2013.

Learn more about the 2013 Kroll Film Fund and applications here.

Monday, June 10th

2013 Jewish Cultural Achievement Awards at The TimesCenter 

Honorees include:

Pulitzer Prize-winning Author Michael Chabon (The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay)

Film Producer and Philanthropist Scott Berrie (Jerusalem, I Love You)

Award-Winning Historian Dr. Deborah Dash Moore

The 100-year-old Lower East Side institution Russ & Daughters

And Bard College President and Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra conductor Leon Botstein

Photo Credit: Steve J. Sherman

Details coming soon

Click here to see all our past Jewish Cultural Achievement Award honorees!

ARTS

Visual Arts

San Diego Museum of Art (1986)

George Segal (1990)

Larry Rivers (1991)

R.B. Kitaj (1992)

The Jewish Museum (1993)

Leonard Baskin (1994)

Leon Golub (1995)

Art Spiegelman (1996)

Maurice Sendak (1998)

Archie Rand (1999)

Nancy Spero (2000)

Jack Levine (2001)

Helene Aylon (2002)

Mierle Ukeles (2003)

Tobi Kahn (2004)

Frederic Brenner (2005)

Shimon Attie (2006)

Ruth Weisberg (2011)

Performing Arts

Anna Sokolow (1985)

Gordon Davidson (1986)

Fiddler on the Roof: Jerry Bock, Sheldon Harnick, Joseph Stein (1990)

Hugo Weisgall (1990)

Pearl Lang (1992)

Itzhak Perlman (1992)

Joseph and Chana Mlotek (1993)

Steve Reich (1994)

Shlomo Carlebach (1995)

Elizabeth Swados (1996)

Omus Hirshbein (1997)

Roberta Peters (1997)

Joseph Wiseman (1998)

A Traveling Jewish Theatre (1999)

Tony Kushner (2000)

John Zorn (2001)

Debbie Freidman (2002)

Leonard Nimoy (2003)

Wendy Wasserstein (2004)

Liz Lerman (2005)

Tovah Feldshuh (2006)

Ohad Naharin (2008)

Literary Arts

Cynthia Ozick (1991)

Elie Wiesel (1992)

Philip Roth (1993)

Grace Paley (1994)

Arthur Miller (1995)

Aaron Lansky, National Yiddish

BookCenter (1996)

Chaim Potok (1997)

Saul Bellow (1998)

Allegra Goodman (1999)

Stanley Kunitz (2000)

E. L. Doctorow (2001)

Theodore Solatoroff (2002)

Adrienne Rich (2003)

Anne Roiphe (2004)

Donald Margulies (2005)

Robert Pinsky (2006)

Media Arts

National Center for Jewish Film (1990)

Milton Krents (1991)

Agnieszka Holland (1993)

Dan Talbot (1994)

Joan Micklin Silver (1995)

Eleanor Antin (1998)

Sidney Lumet (1999)

Aviva Kempner (2001)

Alan Berliner (2002)

David Isay (2003)

Lifetime Achievement Award in the Arts

Theodore Bikel (1997)

Will Eisner (2002)

Cultural Leadership

Richard Siegel (2004)

Doug and Dale Anderson (2006) Architecture

James Ingo Freed (1994)

Moshe Safdie (1997)

Special Citation for Service

Macy B. Hart (2008)

SCHOLARSHIP

Contemporary Jewish Thought

Geoffrey H. Hartman (1997)

Charles Liebman (1998)

David N. Myers (2011)

Social, Literary, and Cultural Studies

Leonard Fein (1994)

Robert Alter (1995)

Eugene Borowitz (1996)

Charles Liebman (1998)

Vivian B. Mann (1999)

Arnold J. Band (2000)

Arthur Hertzberg (2001)

Daniel Boyarin (2002)

Sidney Goldstein (2002)

Dan Miron (2003)

Raymond P. Scheindlin (2004)

Arthur Green (2005)

Mark Slobin (2006)

Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett (2008)

Historical Studies

Jacob Rader Marcus (1994)

Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi (1995)

Michael Meyer (1996)

Naomi W. Cohen (1997)

Arthur Goren (1998)

Robert Chazan (1999)

Saul Friedlander (2000)

David Ruderman (2001)

Ismar Schorsch (2003)

Paula E. Hyman (2004)

Ezra Mendelsohn (2005)

Haym Soloveitchik (2006)

Textual Studies

Nahum M. Sarna (1994)

David Weiss Halivni (1995)

Judah Goldin (1996)

Yochanan Muffs (1997)

Baruch A. Levine (1998)

Arthur Hyman (1999)

Moshe Greenberg (2000)

Ruth R. Wisse (2001)

Jacob Milgrom (2002)

Louis Feldman (2003)

Frank Moore Cross (2004)

Lawrence Schiffman (2005)

Michael Fishbane (2006)

JCAA Patron Honorees

The National Endowment for the Humanities (1986)

The Charles H. Revson Foundation,

Eli Evans, President (1991)

Audrey Skirball Kenis (1992)

Herman Spertus (1993)

Representative Sidney Yates (1993)

Erica Jesselson (1994)

Florence Zack Melton (1995)

Joan and Robert Arnow (1996)

Sanford Solender (1997)

Pearl and Mike Zeltzer (1998)

The Jewish Community Endowment Fund of San Francisco (1999)

Ruthie and Herb Wander (2000)

Ronnie Heyman (2001)

Joyce Sloane (2001)

Carol Brennglass Spinner (2002)

Lynn Korda Kroll (2003)

Daryl Roth (2004)

George Blumenthal (2005)

Andrea and Charles Bronfman (2006)

Nancy Berman (2011)

Jean Cohen Friedman (2011) ]]> http://jewishculture.org/jewish-cultural-achievement-awards-honorees/feed/ 0 http://jewishculture.org/application-for-new-jewish-culture-networks-2013-commission-now-opens-for-musicians/ http://jewishculture.org/application-for-new-jewish-culture-networks-2013-commission-now-opens-for-musicians/#comments Wed, 20 Mar 2013 23:18:44 +0000 paul http://jewishculture.org/?p=2178 read more »]]> Learn more about the New Jewish Culture Network (NJCN), which awards $10,000 to a musician/composer each year to develop a new touring project.

The NJCN is a pipeline for contemporary performing arts that explore the Jewish experience, a collaborative commissioning and touring program represented by a select league of performing arts presenters. Past commissions recipients include Alicia Svigals for The Yellow Ticket (2012) and Galeet Dardasthi for Monajat (2011).

For more information on the NCJN, guidelines, and to apply please visit the NCJN page.

Approximately 70 top young Jewish artists from around the world gathered in Garrison, NY, March 3-5, for an unprecedented retreat exploring global Jewish culture.

Asylum: International Jewish Artist Retreat, is a first-ever gathering of emerging Jewish artists of this caliber. The retreat, which is a collaboration between the Six Points Fellowship for Emerging Jewish Artists and the ROI Community, provided networking and training for international artists.

“By bringing together the most talented and innovative young Jews and giving them professional support and tools to help their projects succeed, we create a strong community of these young Jewish artists, which ultimately will serve to strengthen the Jewish future,” says Rebecca Guber, the Director of Six Points and the creator of Asylum.

Attendants include visual artists, playwrights, choreographers, musicians, composers, photographers, filmmakers, screenwriters, poets, and writers. Artists were selected for outstanding work in their field to date. Participants include Jason Hutt, director of Orthodox Stance, and Lacey Schwartz, director of Outside the Box. Both are previous recipients of the FJC’s Kroll Film Fund.

Hot off its first two shows–in New York and Vancouver–The Yellow Ticket will be coming to Miami on Sunday, March 3rd, presented by Next@19 at Coral Gables Art Cinema in collaboration with the Miami International Film Festival.

The Yellow Ticket – a live multimedia concert event featuring the eponymous 1918 Pola Negri silent film with a performance of an original score by Alicia Svigals, one of the world’s foremost klezmer fiddlers. The score is the newest commission from the Foundation’s New Jewish Culture Network (NJCN) and marks the first feature-length film composition by Svigals who will perform live with virtuoso pianist Marilyn Lerner at each of the screenings of this cinema classic.

Read more about the 2013 New Jewish Culture Network and upcoming shows of The Yellow Ticket, including performances in Boston, Philadelphia, and Houston.

Director Dan Edelstyn life takes an unexpected vodka-infused turn after he discovers his grandfather’s journals.

This week brings the opportunity to catch a number of FJC-supported docs in the theater–and right to your very own computer or TV.

The FJC-sponsored documentary How to Re-establish a Vodka Empire will be screened at the JCC in Manhattan on Tues., Feb 5. Director Dan Edelstyn will be interviewed by Skype, to answer questions about his charming quest to reconnect with his Jewish-Ukrainian roots and re-launch his great-grandfather’s once glorious vodka empire.

Another FJC-sponsored doc, Brave Miss World, will be shown in an exclusive Sneak Preview at the Athena Film Festival on the Barnard campus in New York, this coming Sunday, Feb. 10th. Brave Miss World is the story of Linor Abargil, Israel’s Miss World, who after experiencing a violent abduction and rape, battles for justice and devotes her life to helping other survivors. Visit the Athena Film Festival website for screening details.

Naturally, you don’t need to live anywhere near New York City to enjoy great films. The inspiring doc Budrus, about a contested Palestinian village, is now available via streaming to services including iTunes and Amazon Instant Video. And as of February 15, it’ll be available on Netflix and Hulu as well.

The Foundation for Jewish Culture granted $80,000 in finishing funds to five exemplary documentaries, ensuring their delivery to film festivals, television, and other distribution outlets. The grants, which range between $10,000 and $20,000 each, will enable filmmakers to complete additional editing and shooting, pay license fees for music and archival footage, and reach a wider audience through outreach and engagement strategies.

This year’s grantees of the Foundation’s Lynn and Jules Kroll Fund for Jewish Documentary Film include:

Dancing in Jaffa (US/Israel, directed and produced by Hilla Medalia), a film about Israeli and Palestinian schoolchildren performing and learning together;

Sidney Lumet: The Moral Lens (US, directed and produced by Daniel Anker), the story of one of the last century’s  greatest filmmakers;

Sukkah City (US, Director and Producer: Jason Hutt), an in-depth account of a provocative public art competition and exhibition in New York City.

The Jewish Partisans (US, directed and produced by Julia Mintz), a portrait of World War II resistance fighters;

The Rosenwald Schools (US, directed and produced by Aviva Kempner), a look at a visionary philanthropist’s efforts to improve African-American education;

This year the Foundation received 79 completed applications from around the world for documentary film post-production support. A rigorous, two-tiered panel of scholars, critics, filmmakers, and curators reviewed submissions and recommended grantees. Panelists included, Brian Ackerman, Andrew Catauro, Olga Gershenson, Tracie Holder, Andrew Ingall, Annette Insdorf and Daphne Merkin.