Lively performances, interactive demonstrations, and presentations by scholars and artists coalesce around the theme of "diaspora" at the fifth biennial Conney Conference, held April 9-12 at UW Hillel.
This year's keynote speaker is Josh Kun, director of the Popular Music Project at USC Annenberg. The conference will also include a performance of Bob Skloot's If the Whole Body Dies: Raphael Lemkin and the Treaty Against Genocide.
Coffeehouses drew European Jews out of the home and into society in the late 19th century, offering a way to create community outside religious institutions.
Junior Jacob Beckert traded Bucky Badger and State Street for a mountain-top view at Israel's University of Haifa.
Beckert, who received the 2012 Tobias Major/Certificate Scholarship Award for general excellence in Jewish studies, wants to study Israeli history and society. There is no better way, he says, than immersion.
