New York University will host “Immigration and Cultural Exchange: German Jewish Presences in the U.S. and Post Cold War Germany,” March 25-27, at the Leo Baeck Institute (March 25 & 27), located at 15 West 16th Street, and NYU’s Kimmel Center for University Life (March 26), located at 60 Washington Square South, Room 914.
Among the speakers are former New York Times Executive Editor Max Frankel and Madeleine Kunin, former U.S. ambassador to Switzerland and former governor of Vermont. The event is free and open to the public. For more information, call 212-998-3838. For a complete schedule of events, go to http://www.cems.as.nyu.edu/object/cems.ne.mar07conf.html
Reporters interested in attending should contact James Devitt, Office of Public Affairs, at 212.998.6808 or james.devitt@nyu.edu.
Subways for Leo Baeck Institute: 1, 9, 2, or 3 (14th Street/7th Avenue); A, C, E 14th Street/8th Avenue); Subways for Kimmel Center: A, B, C, D, E, F, V (West 4th Street)
The conference will highlight experiences of Jewish refugees from Germany and Central Europe who immigrated to the United States before and during World War II; explore their impact on the American culture, society and scholarship; and examine how the refugees and their following generations were shaped by the American environment. Immigration and cultural exchange will also be studied with respect to the growing Jewish community in contemporary Germany; its dialogue with the Turkish immigrant population in Germany; and the work of American Jews addressing German Jewish issues in Berlin.
Keynote address will be given by historian Peter Gay. Other attendees include Henry Feingold, professor emeritus of American Jewish History, City University of New York, and Robin Hirsch, founder and owner of the Cornelia Street Café and Cabaret, who will perform “The Man who danced with Marlene Dietrich.”
The event is sponsored by NYU’s Center for European and Mediterranean Studies and the Leo Baeck Institute, and co-sponsored by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, NYU’s Department of History and its Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies.