10th Contact Day

• 9.15-9.30        Registration and coffee
   
• 9:30-9.45        Welcome:  Karin Hofmeester (IISH Amsterdam and University of Antwerp) & Veerle Vanden Daelen (Kazerne Dossin and University of Antwerp)
   
• 9:45-11:15      Session 1:  Network and Communities
  Chair: Barbara Dickschen (Foundation of Contemporary Memory and ULB, Brussels)
  • Henk Looijesteijn (IISH, Amsterdam)
    Agency and Identity in the Age of Exploration. A Case Study of a Western Sephardic Family in the 17th and 18th Centuries
  • Tsila Radecker (University of Groningen)
    The Struggle for a Better Life. Dina Sanson as Social Worker and Feminist, 1902-1910
  • Huibert Schijf (em. University of Amsterdam)
    Russian Jewish Immigrants in two Amsterdam Streets, 1850 -1914
     
• 11:15-11:30    Coffee break
   
• 11:30-13:00    Session 2: Microhistory and the Shoah: Jewish-Gentile Relations in the Low Countries through the Lens of a Microscope
  Chair Pim Griffioen (Institute of Advanced Study, Konstanz)
  • Geraldien von Frijtag Drabbe Künzel (Utrecht University)
    Being and Belonging: Three Stories of Jewish Life in Amsterdam before, during and after the Shoah
  • Veerle Vanden Daelen (Kazerne Dossin and University of Antwerp)
    Living together in the “Yidishe gas” around the Diamond District - Antwerp (Belgium), 1930-1950
  • Gerben Zaagsma (Göttingen Institute of Advanced Study)
    Help, Betrayal and the Importance of Networks – Jews in Hiding in the Netherlands and the Case of Anne Frank
     
• 13:00 – 14:00  Lunch break with book presentations
  • Gertjan Desmet (State Archives of Belgium)
    Pierre-Alain Tallier, Gertjan Desmet, Pascale Falek-Alhadeff, Bronnen voor de geschiedenis van de Joden en het Jodendom in België, 19de - 21ste eeuw
  • Evelien Gans (em. University of Amsterdam and NIOD)
    Remco Ensel, Evelien Gans (eds), The Holocaust, Israel and 'the Jew'. Histories of Antisemitism in Postwar Dutch Society and Remco Ensel (ed.), Sjacheren met Stereotypen. Essays over 'de Jood' als Sjabloon
     
• 14:00 – 15:30  Session 3: The Dutch ‘Diamond Jews’ in Bergen-Belsen
  Chair: Dienke Hondius (Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam and Anne Frank House)
  • Pim Griffioen (Institute of Advanced Study, Konstanz)
    The Fate of the ‘Diamond Jews’ of Antwerp and Amsterdam, 1940–1945: A Historical Comparative Overview
  • Dawn Skorczewski (Brandeis University)
    The Asschers and the Soeps in Bergen-Belsen: A Tale of Privilege, Guilt, and Suffering
  • Bettine Siertsema (Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam)
    Testimonies of the Diamond Workers’ Children on Their Rescuing “Angel”
     
• 15:30-15:45    Coffee break
   
• 15:45-17:15    Session 4: Crossing Borders and Transmitting Memory
  Chair: Pascale Falek-Alhadeff (Jewish Museum, Brussels)
  • Bieke Van Camp (Université Paul-Valéry, Montpellier)
    Remembering the Persecution of the Jews in the Netherlands : Publication Policies (1943-2016)
  • Rosa de Jong (University of Amsterdam)
    The Voyage of the Nyassa
  • Ludo Verbist (Kazerne Dossin)
    The Fate of the Jews at the “Green Border”
     
• 17:15-17:30    Closing remarks (Karin Hofmeester & Veerle Vanden Daelen)

Participants to the Contact Day are kindly invited to the evening lecture
“Yiddish Exceptionalism: Lynching, Race, and Racism in American Yiddish Fiction”
by Prof. dr. Marc Caplan (Yale University) on Monday 15 May 2017 at 20h, followed by a reception.

To register for this lecture, click here.

Venue of the evening lecture: University of Antwerp, Rodestraat 14, 2000 Antwerpen. Room R.013

Joseph Opatoshu’s story Lintsheray (“Lynching,” 1923) offers the most intense exposition of race relations between American whites and Blacks in Yiddish literature; indeed, it features one of the most graphic and detailed descriptions of a lynching in American literature of any language. Confronting the most urgent political and moral issue facing American society at the beginning of the 20th century, the story demonstrates its author’s ability to depict the American experience with the full range of his stylistic resources in the Yiddish language. There are nevertheless several factors that complicate this narrative: its physical description of Black characters draws on racist typologies of (white) American popular fiction, whereas the dialogue among these characters mimics the rhetoric of Yiddish fiction depicting traditional Jews of the shtetl. If the ambition of Opatoshu’s fiction is to capture a social panorama, then the incompatible details in this narrative signify the author’s dislocation from the situation he attempts to dramatize. This lecture will focus on Lintsheray in the context of other American Yiddish literary and journalistic sources, and contemporaneous depictions in African-American fiction. Rather than dismissing it as a failed story, this analysis will consider the author’s misidentifications as offering its own comment on the moral and social status of Yiddish in the United States.

Click here to read the abstracts of the speakers.

To register for the 10th Contact Day, click here.

Accommodation

Directions

Location:
Contact Day 16 May: University of Antwerp, city campus, building D, room D.013, Grote Kauwenberg 18, 2000 Antwerp
Evening lecture 15 May: University of Antwerp, city campus, building R, room R.013, Rodestraat 14, 2000 Antwerp

CALL FOR PAPERS

10th Contact Day Jewish Studies on the Low Countries
Institute of Jewish Studies - University of Antwerp
Tuesday 16 May 2017

The Institute of Jewish Studies organizes for the tenth time an interdisciplinary conference at the University of Antwerp concerning Jewish Studies on the Low Countries. The purpose of the conference is to facilitate contacts between researchers working within this area of study. We especially encourage young researchers to participate in the workshop. We also hope for contributions from more established researchers, in order to establish a positive exchange between different research generations. We especially invite papers and/or sessions that are explicitly comparative in character, and welcome themes and disciplines within Jewish Studies concerning the Low Countries. Proposals need not be limited to a specific historical period and presentations may include works in progress. Both individual and panel proposals are possible. The conference language is English. The conference organizers do not foresee financial support to cover travel and accommodation of presenters or participants. Please submit an abstract of maximally 400 words and a short CV by 15 January 2017.

For further information please contact:
Karin Hofmeester: kho@iisg.nl
Veerle Vanden Daelen: veerle.vandendaelen@kazernedossin.eu