Endowed Lectureships
The Philip M. and Ethel Klutznick Lectureship in Jewish Civilization has occurred annually since 1986 with the co-sponsorship of the University and the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago and serves as an important means for the campus and wider communities to share the findings of noted experts in the field. The most recent Klutznick lecturers were Irwin Cotler, April 7, 2011 "Human Rights Derailed:
Delegitimizing the State of Israel", Anthony Julius, May 3, 2010 “Anti-Semitism
in the 21st Century”, Tova Hartman, March 4, 2009, whose talk was entitled
"Gender, Judaism and Freud: Confessions of an Orthodox Jewish Feminist".
Hillel Halkin delivered a lecture entitled "After Post-Zionism: Building the Israel That Could Be" on March 12, 2008. Peter Gay, Sterling Professor of History Emeritus at Yale University, spoke on "Guenter Grass and My German Problem-Again" on April 17, 2007. Steven J. Zipperstein, Daniel E. Koshland Professor of Jewish Culture and History at Stanford Univeristy, whose talk on December 5, 2005 was entitled "Beyond Tevye: Rethinking the Jews of Tsarist Russia." Among the distinguished scholars who have delivered earlier Klutznick lectures are Shlomo Avineri, David Berger, Arnold Eisen, Jacob Lassner, Peter Machinist, David Patterson, Jehuda Reinharz, Elie Rekhess, and Kenneth Seeskin.
The Allan Harris Memorial Lecture in Jewish Studies was inaugurated in 1997 in honor of the generous support provided to Jewish Studies at Northwestern by Allan and Norma Harris and their daughter Penny Block. Renamed the The Allan and Norma Harris Memorial Lecture in 2011, the most recent speaker was Michael Brenner who's talk was entitled "German-Jewish Responses to the Rise of Hitler". Jonathan Sarna was the lecturer on May 17, 2011 and spoke on “The Cult of Synthesis in American Jewish Culture”. Moshe Rosman delivered the Harris lecture on March 1, 2010, entitled "How Jewish is Jewish History". Judith Baskin visited October 16, 2007 and spoke on "Four Approaches to Studying Women in Jewish History". Previous speakers have included Daniel Mendelsohn, the Charles Ranlett Flint Professor of Humanities at Bard College, whose talk was entitled "Lost Between Memory and History: Writing the Holocaust for the Next Generation"; Itamar Rabinovich, Professor of Middle East History at Tel Aviv University and a former Israeli Ambassador to the United States; Professor Pierre Vidal-Naquet of the University of Paris; Professor James Hoffmeier of Trinity International University; and Professor Gary Anderson of the University of Notre Dame.
