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Little White Lie: Conversation & Film Screening

LITTLE WHITE LIE

Monday, November 18

4:00 pm Jewish Diversity Today: A Conversation with Filmmaker Lacey Schwartz

Sam & Helen Stahl Center for Jewish Studies • 3367 N. Downer Ave.

As a Jewish woman of color, filmmaker, and outreach strategist, Lacey Schwartz has long been deeply engaged with issues of racial, ethnic, and cultural diversity in the Jewish community. Her film projects and advocacy work have helped make her a national leader on questions related to Jewish diversity. This session provides a unique opportunity to hear her perspective on these questions, in an informal discussion moderated by Shahanna McKinney-Baldon, a seasoned educator and activist on matters of Jewish diversity, and founder and project director of Edot Midwest. Kosher refreshments will be served.


7:00 pm Film Screening & Talkback with Director Lacey Schwartz

51 Union Cinema • 2200 E. 51.

Little White Lie tells Lacey Schwartz’s story of growing up in a middle-class Jewish household, with loving parents and Jewish identity — until she discovers that her biological father is actually a black man with whom her mother had an affair. What defines our identity, our family of origin, or the family that raises us? How do we come to terms with the sins and mistakes of our parents? Little White Lie is a personal documentary about the legacy of family secrets, denial, and redemption.


Lacey Schwartz Delgado is an award-winning producer, writer, and director who creates compelling stories that span documentary and fiction. She is the CEO of Truth Aid, which produces multimedia content to effect social change, and the Director of Outreach North America for Be’chol Lashon, which addresses racial, ethnic, and cultural diversity in the Jewish community. She directed, produced, and co-wrote the critically acclaimed documentary Little White Lie; executive produced the narrative film DIFRET, the first film to win audience awards at both the Sundance and Berlin Film Festivals; and directed and produced the digital series The Loving Generation. Lacey’s work stems from the belief that storytelling is the most powerful tool we can use to bridge societal divides in our world.

Both events are free and open to the public, thanks to generous support from Bader Philanthropies for the Stahl Center’s “Colors of Jewishness” series.

View poster for Little White Lie (PDF)

2019 Faye Sigman “Woman of Valor” Lecture: The Magid Chronicles

Veretski Pass with Joel Rubin: The Magid Chronicles


Veretski Pass in collaboration with Joel Rubin proudly present The Magid Chronicles, an instrumental collection based on pieces collected by Sofia Magid. Next to the instrumentals and songs collected by Magid, the quartet performs music collected by Magid’s Kiev counterpart, Moyshe Beregovski, and music from Turkey, Greece and Rumania. The result combines archival work with new compositions, arrangements and improvisations. Sometimes raucous, sometimes meditative, this program is a true melding of past, present, and future.

Free and open to the public.

Event Flyer

2019 Faye Sigman “Woman of Valor” Lecture: The Making of the Magid Chronicles

The Making of The Magid Chronicles


A behind-the-scenes look at the making of The Magid Chronicles by Veretski Pass, in collaboration with Joel Rubin. This presentation details their project development based on the field work of Sofia Magid, the Jewish ethnographer who worked intensively to document Jewish music in Belarus and Ukraine during Stalin’s regime in the 1920s and 30s. Magid’s 600 recordings contain rare examples of women’s songs and instrumental pieces from these regions, which form the nucleus of this fascinating event.

Free and open to the public.

Event Flyer

No Room for Hate at 51

On May 6th a student held up a sign of a swastika at a public event celebrating Israeli Independence Day in Spaights Plaza, at the heart of UW-Milwaukee’s main campus. While free speech protects the student’s right to express even the most loathsome views, we use our free speech to denounce the presence at 51 of this hateful Nazi symbol. The Nazis targeted every Jewish man, woman, and child for murder, and were responsible for the murder of six million Jews, and millions of other human beings, during the Holocaust.

To see this hateful symbol displayed so prominently on our campus in the shadow of the murders at the Poway synagogue in San Diego and the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh is particularly painful and reprehensible. These attacks, along with recent mass murders at churches and mosques, are a sobering reminder that each of us has a responsibility to speak out against hatred.

We stand together as a 51 community to affirm that there is no room for hate at 51. We applaud the university community for speaking out, and especially those students who voiced their resistance to the message of this symbol.

 
The Sam & Helen Stahl Center for Jewish Studies, UW-Milwaukee
Jewish Studies Advisory Committee, UW-Milwaukee
Joel Berkowitz, Director of the Sam & Helen Stahl Center for Jewish Studies
Rachel Baum, Deputy Director of the Sam & Helen Stahl Center for Jewish Studies
Yael Gal Ben-yitschak
Gregory Jay
Dana Margolis
Lisa Silverman
Marc Tasman
Kathy Wheatley
Max Yela

Michael Twitty, author of “The Cooking Gene”, at 51

Culinary Historian Michael Twitty, author of the award-winning novel “The Cooking Gene”, was recently a part of a panel discussion held by the Sam and Helen Stahl Center for Jewish Studies at 51.

Soon, he will be headed to Africa with a group chefs to learn about African culture. “We’re going as learners, we’re going as ambassadors,” Twitty said. “We’re going as people who will hopefully come back with knowledge we can bring back to our respective communities.”

Visiting Authors: Debra Caplan and Alyssa Quint

Debra Caplan, “Yiddish Empire” and Alyssa Quint, “This Rise of the Modern Yiddish Theater.”

Please join Professor Joel Berkowitz in conversation with Debra Caplan and Alyssa Quint for this celebration of two recent books by members of the Digital Yiddish Theater Project. This event is free and open to the public.

Click here to view the event flyer


During World War I, a motley group of amateurs, refugees, and out-of-work actors revolutionized the Yiddish stage. Achieving unlikely success, the Vilna Troupe would go on to earn the attention of theatergoers worldwide. Yiddish Empire tells the story of how these performers became the interwar equivalent of a viral sensation.
The Rise of the Modern Yiddish Theater focuses on the life and work of Avrom Goldfaden, one of the most colorful figures in the history of the Yiddish stage. Quint explores how the actors who performed his plays absorbed theater into their everyday lives, and paints a vivid picture of Jewish religion, politics, and daily life in late Imperial Russia.

Victoria Smolkin on Soviet Atheism

Join us for Historian of Wesleyan University on Soviet Atheism. Smolkin is the author of the book, A Sacred Space Is Never Empty: A History of Soviet Atheism, published by Princeton University Press in 2018. She is a scholar of Communism, the Cold War, and atheism and religion in Russia and the former Soviet Union. Smolkin’s expertise also covers religious politics and secularism and the Soviet space program.

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Anthony Russell and Sarah Aroeste: Yiddish Meets Ladino

Ladino vocalist Sarah Aroeste and Yiddish vocalist Anthony Mordechai Tzvi Russell join forces to explore common themes and approaches in Ladino and Yiddish music. Accompanied by pianist/accordionist Dmitri Gaskin (of Tsvey Brider) and guitarist Rob Sanzone, Sarah and Anthony will musically reconcile these long lost cousins of Jewish music.

Tuesday, April 30 2019 at 7:00 pm

Free and open to the public.

Download the Aroeste & Russell poster

Tsvey Brider – Anthony Russell and Dimitri Gaskin

Diverse idioms, styles and periods contrast and combine in Tsvey Brider (Two Brothers), creating contemporary, idiosyncratic and unique interpretations of music in the Yiddish language. Recent winners of the Concorso Internacional de Canciones en Idish (Der Idisher Idol) the members of Tsvey Brider have performed and recorded with such noted artists as Anthony Coleman, Daniel Kahn, Michael Winograd, Michael Alpert, Alan Bern, Yale Strom & Hot Pastrami and Veretski Pass.

Download the Aroeste & Russell poster

Sarah Aroeste: The Sephardic Experience in Ladino Song: from Past to Present


International Ladino (Judeo-Spanish) singer/songwriter Sarah Aroeste weaves stories from her personal family history, together with son, in this multi-media presentation. Using sound clips, videos, and live music, Aroeste demonstrates with her unique linguistic interpretations, modern technologies, and contemporary musical arrangements how Ladino culture is developing today and still has a vibrant life ahead.

Free and open to the public.

Download the Aroeste & Russell poster