The City Without Jews
A Live Music and Silent Movie Event
Original score composed and performed by Alicia Svigals and Donald Sosin
Sunday | April 7th, 2024 | 7:30-9 p.m. | Binghamton University’s Casadesus Recital Hall
Performance is free and open to the public
Join us for the second in our silent movie and live music series for H K Breslauer’s The City Without Jews (Die Stadt Ohne Juden, 1924) featuring the musical accompaniment of world-renowned klezmer violinist Alicia Svigals – of Klezmatics fame – and Donald Sosin, the celebrated silent film pianist.
Set in the fictitious city of Utopia (a thinly-disguised stand-in for Vienna), this satirical film follows the political and personal consequences of an anti-Semitic law forcing all Jews to leave the country. After an initial wave of enthusiasm, the citizens of Utopia are faced with the consequences, as they watch over their own economic and cultural decline in a "City Without Jews". Facing a political backlash, their government must decide whether or not to revoke its earlier expulsion decree.
Darkly comedic in tone, Breslauer's film has an ominous prophetic resonance for today's audience. Intended as a sharp critique of Nazism, it was banned after 1933 (all complete prints were thought to be destroyed). Now, thanks to the serendipitous discovery of a nitrate print in a Parisian flea market in 2015, as well as to the restoration efforts of the Filmarchiv Austria, this previously “lost” classic of early twentieth century cinema can once again be appreciated in its ever-relevant entirety.
This program is underwritten by a generous grant from the Sunrise Foundation for Education and the Arts, La Jolla, California.
More information and updates @ binghamton.edu/judaic-studies/events
9:00 am - 10:30 am
LN 2200
Session 2: Israeli trails and environmental politics
10:50 am - 12:30 pm
University Union 324
Solar Eclipse and Nature Walk
2:30 pm - 3:30 pm
Meet in front of Library Tower Pegasus Sculpture
Session 3: Israeli trails, land, and national identity
4 pm - 5:30 pm
IASH Conference Room (LN 1106)
Mission
The Center for Israel Studies hosts three core, and a range of affiliated faculty who
carry out rigorous and interdisciplinary scholarship on various aspects of Israel and
Palestine and apply it to undergraduate education. Recognizing the value of
complex questions, we emphasize critical thinking and perspectives on topics
including Zionism, Israel, and Palestine. We do so in an independent and
non-partisan scholarly space, which does not engage in advocacy.
Co-sponsored by the Center for Middle East and North African Studies at
Binghamton University
Friday | May 10th, 2024 | 2 - 4 p.m. | LT 1310
Refreshments will be served
We will hand out a present to each of our graduating students, certificates, and graduation cords.
The Judaic Studies Alumni Council invites you to a lecture by Binghamton University Professor Jonathan Karp, followed by a networking reception. Dietary laws will be observed. Registration details will follow.
5:30 – 8 p.m. Thursday 16 May
SUNY Global Center
116 E. 55 St., Manhattan
"White Jews and the Yearning for Blackness"
In American society, Jews have been identified as white, even if at times tentatively and grudgingly. The debate about Jews and whiteness has focused attention on questions of race and ethnicity in American Jewish communities. While white status often affords privilege, some Jews have found being identified as white to be oppressive and limiting. In this talk Professor Jon Karp tells the story of three American Jews who have identified as black to examine the resistance to being identified as white, and the sense of longing for and belonging to Black cultural community.
About the Alumni Council
The Binghamton University Judaic Studies Council supports the mission of the Judaic Studies Departments and its students’ advancement. The Judaic Studies Council advises the Department in developing strategic partnerships and long-term planning, expanding the network of opportunities for current students and recent graduates, providing learning opportunities for alumni and friends, assisting in recruiting students to Binghamton.
More information about the Judaic Studies Alumni Council can be found here.
Jonathan Karp is an associate professor of Judaic studies and history at Binghamton University of the State University of New York (SUNY). He is the author of The Politics of Jewish Commerce: Economic Thought and Emancipation in Europe (Cambridge University Press, 2008) and editor or co-editor of seven volumes, including Beyond Whiteness: Revisiting Jews in Ethnic America (Purdue University Press, 2023); World War I and the Jews (Berghahn Books, 2018) with Marsha L. Rozenblit; and The Cambridge History of Judaism in the Early Modern World (Cambridge University Press, 2017) with Adam Sutcliffe. His work explores the roles that Jews have played in modern economic life and the images and stereotypes that have accompanied them. His forthcoming book is Jews and Blacks in the Business of American Popular Music. Karp is the recipient of the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Faculty Service. From 2010 to 2013 he served as executive director of the American Jewish Historical Society.