Monica Osborne
Monica Osborne is a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at UCLA, where she teaches Jewish American Fiction and courses on Midrash and the ethics of Holocaust representation. She has written for Studies in American Jewish Literature, Tikkun, Shofar, Jewcy, and Modern Fiction Studies. She has also taught a course on women re-imagining the Bible at the 92nd Street Y in New York City. Monica is currently working on a book project entitled "The Midrashic Impulse and the Contemporary Literary Response to Trauma."
Chavruta Learning With the Masters
- Friday 9:00 PM–10:15 PM Catalina Ballroom 1
Chavruta is the traditional Jewish method of one-to-one learning. Chavruta means "friendship" or "partnership" and involves two people exploring texts together. Follow along and join in as two master educators learn in chavruta on the topic of "One." Interact, ask questions, and pick up key techniques that you can bring to Chavruta Learning sessions throughout the Conference. No prior knowledge of Hebrew or Torah study is required.
The Burden of an Evolving Jewishness: Memory and Contemporary Jewish Identity in the Post-Holocaust Paintings of Samuel Bak
- Sunday 7:00 PM–8:15 PM Newport Beach 1
This session examines the work of post-Holocaust painter Samuel Bak, survivor of the Vilna Ghetto. Bak’s work depicts the convergence of Jewish religious tradition, cultural memory, and the diversity of contemporary sensibilities. It illuminates the tension between disaster and recovery in a way that refrains from questioning the importance of Jewish tradition, but insists on exploring how its resonance has been distorted or altered by the events of the Holocaust, as well as what that means to contemporary Jewish identity.