Date and time:
2018-05-30 17:00 - 2018-05-30 19:00
Location:
VU Azijos ir transkultūrinių studijų institutas, Universiteto g. 5, Vilnius
“Jewish Lithuanian writers discovering India: Textual, Personal and Political Journey” by Dr. Shimon Lev. Public lectures will be held on 30 of May 2018 at 17:00 at the Institute of Asian and Transcultural Studies, Vilnius University, Hindi k. room (Universiteto Str. 5, Vilnius).
While working on my major research focusing on the textual, personal and political encounter between the Jewish and Zionist world with India and its culture, I noticed the relatively large amount of publications about India by Jewish Lithuanian writers and travelers. These phenomena started from the Haskala movement (Enlightenment) till the establishment of the states of India and Israel respectively. In my lecture I will discuss the contribution of these intellectuals and travelers and the role they played in “discovering” India to the Jewish world in Europe and later to the Jewish population in Palestine.
Dr. Shimon Lev is an artist, curator and researcher in Indian studies focousing on Gandhi, Tagore and the encounter between the Jewish and Zionist world and India. Lev published widely, curated and exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions. He received his PhD at the Hebrew University in 2016 entitled: Clear Are the Paths of India: The Cultural and Political Encounter between Indians and Jews in the Context of the Growth of their Respective National Movements. In 2016 he curated the exhibition the Camera man: Women and Men Photograph Jerusalem 1900-1950. (Tower of David Museum, Jerusalem). These days he works on the second exhibition which will deal with the history of photography in Jerusalem 1949 -1977. His publications include (partial list): The Camera man: Women and Men Photograph Jerusalem 1900-1950 Tower of David Museum, 2016). The Story of Mahatma Gandhi and Hermann Kallenbach (New Delhi: Orient BlackSwan 2012), Vesheyodea Lishol, Tel Aviv: Xargol Publisher, 1998, (Heb.). He was also the academic editor of the Hebrew edition of M. K. Gandhi: Satyagraha in South Africa (Tel Aviv: Babel, 2014) and M. K. Gandhi: Hind Swaraj (Tel Aviv: Adam Veolam, 2016), Clear are the Paths of Indis, The Cultural and Political Encounter Between Indians and Jews in the Context of their Respective National Movement, (Tel Aviv: Gama, 2018), From Lithuania to Santiniketan: Schlomith Flaum, and Rabindranath Tagore, (New Delhi-Vilnius, 2018). Lev teaches in Hadassah Academic College in Jerusalem in the department of Photography Communication.