Dear Colleagues:
Bryan Cheyette, Nathan Abrams, and Keith Kahn-Harris invite you to an open forum at JW3 on March 31st from 16.00-18.45. The forum will be on the relationship between the ‘mainstream’ Jewish Community, and Jewish academics (many of whom are affiliated to communal organizations) and the Jewish cultural sector.
The forum will have no set agenda. The decision to organise it arose out of online discussions that revealed an unease amongst Jewish academics and ‘intellectuals’ regarding the distance between academia and the Jewish community and such communal events as Jewish Book Week among others.
We feel that this matter has a degree of urgency, epitomised by the demise of the Jewish Quarterly (JQ), which once provided a dialogue between all sides of the community since 1953.
We will be inviting expect an audience of around 40-60 people. Invitees include directors and members of Jewish Studies centres and institutes at universities, organizations such as BAJS, EAJS, and Jewish cultural institutions (in the broadest sense), as well as members of the Board of Deputies and other communal organisations.
The aims of the open forum are modest. We want to begin a dialogue between the Jewish community and Jewish academics that can be continued elsewhere (at Limmud? in universities? and in synagogues?). Above all, we want this to be a safe space to start a conversation. No press will be invited and ‘Chatham House rules’ will be followed.
Please can you indicate whether you would like to attend.
Warmly,
Bryan, Keith and Nathan