News Release

Photo link: http://www.unc.edu/news/pics/releases/kempner_aviva.jpg

Screening of film on Jewish baseball star opens fall 2007 lecture series

CHAPEL HILL — The life and times of America’s first Jewish baseball star will be the topic of a film screening and discussion Sept. 23 at 4 p.m. at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The event kicks off the fall 2007 lecture series of the Carolina Center for Jewish Studies.
 
Aviva Kempner, scriptwriter, director and producer, will screen her award-winning film, “The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg,” in the auditorium of the School of Social Work’s Tate-Turner-Kuralt Building, 325 Pittsboro St. The documentary examines how America’s first Jewish baseball star was a beacon of hope to American Jews who faced bigotry during the Depression and World War II.

On Sept. 24 at 7:30 p.m., Kempner will give a sneak peek into her current project, “Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg” in the theater of Carolina’s Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History. The film will feature the life and career of Gertrude Berg, the creator, writer and star of “The Goldbergs,” a popular 1930s radio show and weekly television program.

The screening and lecture are made possible by a grant from the Charles H. Revson Foundation in honor of Eli N. Evans, a 1958 UNC alumnus, and co-sponsored by the curriculum in American studies.

The Jewish studies center, based in UNC’s College of Arts and Sciences, provides scholars and students with an understanding of Judaism and the historic Jewish experience. The center brings together faculty from a range of academic departments including American studies, English, Germanic languages, history, religious studies and Slavic languages and literatures.

All lectures, free to the public, will be held at 7:30 p.m. in the theater of the Sonja Haynes Stone Center at 150 South Road (with the exception of the Sept. 23 film screening in the Tate-Turner-Kuralt Building).

Besides Kempner, fall speakers will include: 

• Oct. 11: “Just Jewish Enough: Thinking Jewish in the Self-Portraits of Rafael Goldchain.” Jonathan Boyarin, newly hired Leonard and Tobee Kaplan Distinguished Professor of Modern Jewish Thought at UNC, will examine the fascinating self-portraits of Jewish photographer Rafael Goldchain. 

• Oct. 29: “G.I. Jews: How World War II Changed a Generation,” the inaugural Eli N. Evans Distinguished Lectureship. Deborah Dash Moore, director of the Frankel Center for Jewish Studies and Frederick G. L. Huetwell Professor of History at the University of Michigan, gives an unprecedented view of the multiple struggles GI Jews faced, having to fight not only the enemy, but also the prejudices of their fellow soldiers. 

• Nov. 13: “A Poet’s Life in Warsaw.” Polish poet, essayist and translator Piotr Sommer will read from his poetry and tell of growing up in a small town outside Warsaw.

The lectures are co-sponsored by a variety of other campus units, including the School of Social Work, Center for the Study of the American South, department of religious studies, department of history, Carolina Center for the Study of the Middle East and Muslim Civilizations and the Center for Slavic, Eurasian and East European Studies.

Note: For information, visit http://ccjs.unc.edu or call (919) 962-1509.

Carolina Center for Jewish Studies contact: Jonathan Hess, (919) 843-9160, jmhess@email.unc.edu
College of Arts and Sciences contact: Kim Spurr, (919) 962-4093, spurrk@email.unc.edu