Sullaluna and Centro Primo Levi invite you to join a book club discussion of The Trunk, a novella by Alberto Vigevani (translated by Will Schutt), on May 8th at 6:30 pm. The event is free, and seats are limited. Please RSVP at this link. Copies of The Trunk can be purchased at Sullaluna or ordered from CPL Editions. Sullaluna, is an independent bookshop, Italian bistro, and cultural space in the West Village featuring classic drinks and a menu of mainly vegetarian and vegan dishes. Alberto...

Bookhouse: American Sephardi Federation, Centro Primo Levi, Dan Wyman Books, a cooperative initiative. The people Nurith Aviv invites to speak in her films speak several languages. Like the filmmaker, they live between languages. They are exiled Jews who became Israeli citizens and had to unlearn their first languages ​​to acquire Hebrew; they are Palestinians who speak between Arabic and Hebrew. They are Deaf people who are forced to vocalize and who, in private, express themselves in sign lan...

Bookhouse: American Sephardi Federation, Centro Primo Levi, Dan Wyman Books, a cooperative initiative. One day, when we were five or six years old, my friend Ilan told me: "You know Nurith, we are not allowed to pronounce the name of God." Then he pronounced it anyway and spat on the ground, to ward off bad luck. A little later at school, a secular school in Tel Aviv, when we were taught to read, we were taught at the same time not to pronounce the name of God. We had to say other names instead...

Nurith Aviv in conversation with Ofer Dynes, Aviya Kushner, Jacques Lezra, and Moulie Vidas. For centuries, Hebrew was the language of Scripture, liturgy, and rabbinic commentaries. Then, by force of national and political will, it was reborn as a language of daily life in the early 20th century. Writers and artists from Israel explore their intimate, often conflicted relationship with Hebrew’s layered past, reflecting on what has been forgotten or repressed and what needs to resurface. Their...

A four-day tribute to Nurith Aviv presented jointly with Fordham Center for Jewish Studies, Fordham Center for Religion and Culture. Post-screening discussion: Nurith Aviv in conversation with Aviya Kushner, Jacques Lezra, James Redfield. In this Babelic film, translators from different corners of the world speak in their own tongues, recounting their encounters with Hebrew literature across the centuries—from the Midrash and medieval poetry to contemporary fiction. They speak with fervor,...

Bookhouse: American Sephardi Federation, Centro Primo Levi, Dan Wyman Books, a cooperative initiative. Gil Anidjar, author of On the Sovereignty of Mothers: The Political as Maternal, Columbia University Press, 2024, will discuss the political dimension of the “maternal” in a series of finely woven meditations on slavery, sovereignty, and the social contract. Anidjar identifies a maternal sovereignty and a maternal contract, proposing that without motherhood, there could be no constitution, pre...

Bookhouse: American Sephardi Federation, Centro Primo Levi, Dan Wyman Books, a cooperative initiative. Join us for Judith Cohen's presentation and performance of little-known musical gems handed down through word of mouth, research, and the legacy of Alan Lomax's work. Introduction by Isabelle Levy (Columbia University). Dr. Judith Cohen is a Canadian ethnomusicologist, medievalist, singer, and storyteller. She teaches at York University in Toronto and is the editor and consultant for Alan L...

Bookhouse: American Sephardi Federation, Centro Primo Levi, Dan Wyman Books, a cooperative initiative. Jonathan Kaplan (Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Fellow, Center For European Studies, University of Verona) presents his research in progress. The concept of “coming to terms with the past” has increasingly emerged as a central component in European postwar historiography. Moreover, starting in the early 1990s, the debates on memory and the historical past, totalitarianism, anti-Fascism, and...