The Center for Jewish Civilization is pleased to announce its Spring 2020 Public events lineup! Any person with an accommodation request is welcome to email us at cjcinfo@georgetown.edu. We will try to meet these accommodation requests to the best of our ability.
January
“Rabbinic Practice in LGBTQ Allyship,” with Rabbi Mike Moskowitz
January 22, 3:30 PM – Arrupe Hall Multipurpose Room
This lecture will explore the general issues that homosexuality and transgender experiences raise for Orthodox Judaism and Jewish thought. It will also deal with the practical questions that are most commonly asked and the approaches that are currently being deployed in rabbinic allyship and Jewish Law.
Rabbi Mike Moskowitz has three ultra-orthodox rabbinic ordinations. He spent a decade in the largest yeshivas in the world and studied the entire Babylonian Talmud. He founded and headed a kollel – a sacred think tank, served as a rabbi at Columbia University, and of a congregation in Harlem. Rabbi Moskowitz explored academic Talmud at Yale and at Jewish Theological Seminary, where he is currently completing a Doctorate in Hebrew Literature. As one of the leading thinkers at the intersection of trans issues and Jewish thought, he is a sought after lecturer, educator, and researcher.
February
February 6, 3:30 PM – Intercultural Center, Room 301 (McGhee Library)
Stress is our internal response to an experience that our brain perceives as threatening or challenging. Trauma is our response to an experience in which we feel powerless or lacking agency. Until now, researchers have treated these conditions as different, but they actually lie along a continuum. Dr. Elizabeth Stanley explains the significance of this continuum, how it affects our resilience in the face of challenge, and why an event that’s stressful for one person can be traumatizing for another.
This groundbreaking book examines the cultural norms that impede resilience in America, especially our collective tendency to disconnect stress from its potentially extreme consequences and override our need to recover. It explains the science of how to direct our attention to perform under stress and recover from trauma.
Elizabeth A. Stanley, PhD, is an associate professor of security studies at Georgetown University. She is the creator of Mindfulness-Based Mind Fitness Training (MMFT)®, taught to thousands in civilian and military high-stress environments. MMFT® research has been featured on 60 Minutes, ABC Evening News, NPR, and in Time magazine and many other media outlets. An award-winning author and U.S. Army veteran with service in Asia and Europe, she holds degrees from Yale, Harvard, and MIT. She’s also is a certified practitioner of Somatic Experiencing, a body-based trauma therapy.
March
“Attitudes Towards Jews in Contemporary East Asia and Their Implications,” with Dr. Rotem Kowner
March 26, 3:30 PM – Mortara Center for International Studies
Dr. Rotem Kowner is a professor of Japanese history and culture at the University of Haifa, Israel. His background includes early childhood in a Kibbutz, military service as an executive officer aboard a missile boat, and work as a chef in an Italian restaurant in Melbourne. Kowner’s active interest in Japan has developed gradually. After majoring in East Asian studies and psychology in Jerusalem, he studied in Berlin and then moved to Tsukuba, Japan, where he obtained his Ph.D. Following postdoctoral studies at Stanford he returned to Israel to pursue an academic career. His research interests include wartime behavior in modern Japan, race and racism in East Asia, Asian Jewish communities, psychological aspects of intercultural encounters, and learning methods of Japanese scripts.
“Assassination of Lord Moyne and Palestine’s Lost Opportunity for Peace”
March 31, 5:00 PM – Mortara Center for International Studies
Dr. Bruce Hoffman has been studying terrorism and insurgency for over four decades. He is a tenured professor in Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service and until recently was director of its Center for Security Studies and Security Studies Program. Hoffman is also visiting Professor of Terrorism Studies at St Andrews University, Scotland. He previously held the Corporate Chair in Counterterrorism and Counterinsurgency at the RAND Corporation, where he was also director of RAND’s Washington Office and vice president for external affairs. Hoffman was appointed by the U.S. Congress as a commissioner on the 9/11 Review Commission and has been Scholar-in-Residence for Counterterrorism at the Central Intelligence Agency; adviser on counterterrorism to the Coalition Provisional Authority, Baghdad, Iraq; and, an adviser on counterinsurgency to Multi-National Forces-Iraq Headquarters, Baghdad, Iraq. Hoffman’s most recent books include The Evolution of the Global Terrorist Threat (2014); Anonymous Soldiers (2015); and, Inside Terrorism (3rd edition, 2017). Hoffman is currently a Wilson Center Global Fellow, a visiting senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a senior fellow at the U.S. Military Academy’s Combating Terrorism Center.