Scholar-in-Residence: Prof. Naomi Sokoloff
I joined the faculty at the University of Washington in 1985, and I have served as Chair of the Jewish Studies Program and as Chair of the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilization. My courses in Comparative Literature have included Literature and the Holocaust; Prayer and Poetry: Jewish and Islamic Traditions; Jewish Life in Literature and Film; and Literature of Emerging Nations: Israel and Palestine. I am preparing a new course on Autobiography.
My research interests cover a range of modern Jewish writing. My publications include Imagining the Child in Modern Jewish Fiction (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992) and a number of edited volumes: Gender and Text in Modern Hebrew and Yiddish Literature (The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1992); Infant Tongues: The Voice of the Child in Literature (Wayne State University Press, 1994); Israel and America: Cross Cultural Encounters and the Literary Imagination (a special issue of the journal Shofar, 1998); Traditions and Transitions in Israel Studies: Books on Israel, Vol. VI (SUNY Press , 2002); The Jewish Presence in Children’s Literature (a special issue of The Lion and the Unicorn, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003); and Boundaries of Jewish Identity (with Susan A. Glenn; UW Press, 2010). I have served on the editorial boards of Prooftexts, Shofar, and Hebrew Studies.
One of my current projects is a volume of essays that consider distinctive challenges facing the field of Hebrew language and culture at North American universities, as well as the experience of Americans who have traversed the cultural distance from English to Hebrew. Why do they do it? What have they gained? How does the embattled position of Hebrew reflect the broader challenges of language arts and humanities education today? The book, co-edited with my colleague Nancy E. Berg, is called What We Talk About When We Talk About Hebrew (And What It Means to Americans) and was published by UW Press in 2018. For more information, see http://jewishstudies.washington.edu/hebrew-humanities-symposium/
My research interests cover a range of modern Jewish writing. My publications include Imagining the Child in Modern Jewish Fiction (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992) and a number of edited volumes: Gender and Text in Modern Hebrew and Yiddish Literature (The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1992); Infant Tongues: The Voice of the Child in Literature (Wayne State University Press, 1994); Israel and America: Cross Cultural Encounters and the Literary Imagination (a special issue of the journal Shofar, 1998); Traditions and Transitions in Israel Studies: Books on Israel, Vol. VI (SUNY Press , 2002); The Jewish Presence in Children’s Literature (a special issue of The Lion and the Unicorn, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003); and Boundaries of Jewish Identity (with Susan A. Glenn; UW Press, 2010). I have served on the editorial boards of Prooftexts, Shofar, and Hebrew Studies.
One of my current projects is a volume of essays that consider distinctive challenges facing the field of Hebrew language and culture at North American universities, as well as the experience of Americans who have traversed the cultural distance from English to Hebrew. Why do they do it? What have they gained? How does the embattled position of Hebrew reflect the broader challenges of language arts and humanities education today? The book, co-edited with my colleague Nancy E. Berg, is called What We Talk About When We Talk About Hebrew (And What It Means to Americans) and was published by UW Press in 2018. For more information, see http://jewishstudies.washington.edu/hebrew-humanities-symposium/
Service Leader: Ilene Safyan
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Ilene Safyan is an award winning recording artist and composer. Since her arrival in Portland, Oregon, she has shared her music throughout the Jewish community, and the Portland community, at large. She was voted one of 3 "best new voices in Jewish Music" in the Jewish Forward’s 2016 "Soundtrack of Our Spirit" competition singing her original composition, “Hashkivenu.” She has received critical acclaim from the American Library Assn., Entertainment Weekly and Parents’ Choice Magazine for her recordings of Jewish Music. Her CDs, “Just in Time for Chanukah” and “Where Dreams are Born” were awarded the Gold and Silver Medals for excellence in children’s media. She is a “Shalshelet Composer,” and her composition, “P’tach Lanu Sha’ar” has been selected by The Shalshelet Foundation, an organization dedicated to finding the best new Jewish liturgical music.. Working with the Institute for Judaic Stiudies in 2017, she organized and co-produced “A Broken Hallelujah," a tribute to the music of Leonard Cohen, with Cantor Ida Rae Cahana. Ilene has taught and performed nationally and internationally. Ilene currently serves as Cantorial Soloist at both Neveh Shalom and Havurah Shalom in Portland, Oregon.
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