BOCA RATON — Florida Atlantic University’s Raddock Family Eminent Scholar in Holocaust Studies in the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters presents a series of lectures on the Holocaust and Judaic Studies. All lectures are free with no res
ervations required. They will be held in the Performing Arts Building, room 101, at FAU Boca Raton, unless otherwise noted.
The first lecture, “Chiune Sugihara – The Japanese Schindler,” will take place on Sunday, Jan. 6 at 4 p.m., presented by Yoshiji Hirose, professor of American Literature at Notre Dame Seishin University in Okayama, Japan. Hirose reads, writes, and speaks Yiddish fluently and has studied in Israel. His specialty is modern American literature. His articles appear in Yiddish journals and newspapers, such asYiddish Forward, Afn Shvel, and Zukunft.
The second lecture, entitled “The Ten Commandments on the Court House Lawn and Elsewhere,” will take place on Sunday, Jan. 13 at 2 p.m. and is presented by Paul Finkelman, a specialist in American legal history, constitutional law and race and the law. He is the author of more than 150 scholarly articles and more than 30 books. His op-eds and shorter pieces have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, USA Today, and on the Huffington Post. He has also appeared on C-Span, PBS and the History Channel.
On Sunday, Jan. 20 at 4 p.m., the Raddock Center presents the Erna F. And Henry S. Rubinstein Memorial Lecture in Holocaust Studies. The lecture, “My Holocaust Experience,” will be presented by Fred Ferber, who was born in Swietchlowice, Poland in 1930. In March 1941, the Ferbers were forced into the Kraków Ghetto in Podgorze, a suburb of Krakow. In 1943, the family was rounded-up and sent to the Płaszów forced labor camp on the outskirts of Kraków. Fred was liberated from Mathausen by the American Army on May 8, 1945.
Following liberation he returned to Poland to find his family and in July of 1945 the young Ferber was reunited with his mother in Krakow. In December of 1947, he immigrated to America, under the Youth Quota Program.
While in America, Fred was placed in an orphanage in San Francisco, where he attended high school and the City College of San Francisco. In 1950 he continued his education at Wayne State University. In 1952 he was awarded a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Electronics.
For the fourth lecture, on Sunday, Jan. 27 at 7:30 p.m., the Raddock Center presents the May Smith Lecture on Post-Holocaust Christian Jewish Dialogue titled “The Shoah, the Covenant and Religious Responsibility:
Reflecting on the Future for Christians and Jews.” This lecture, which will take place in FAU’s new Engineering Building, room 106, and will be presented by Rabbi Eugene Korn, Ph. D., American director of The Center for Jewish-Christian Understanding and Cooperation in Israel, where he co-directs the Center’s Institute for Theological Inquiry. He is also Senior Research Fellow at Beit Morasha of Jerusalem’s Institute for Religion and Society and editor of the on-line journal, “Meorot—A Forum for Modern Orthodox Discourse.”
For the final lecture, on Sunday, Feb. 10 at 4 p.m., Sam Lehman-Wilzig will present “Elections from November to November: 2012 American Results and 2013 Israeli Prognosis.” Lehman-Wilzig teaches at Bar-Ilan University (BIU) Israel. He served as Lipinsky Visiting Scholar at San Diego State University, 1989-90 and as the Schusterman Visiting Israeli Scholar at Brown University (Program in Judaic Studies) 2008-09.
For more information about any of the lectures, call 561-297-2979.