Westside JCC
5870 W. Olympic Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90036
May 27, 2009
7-9 p.m.
Dr. David E. Kaufman,
Associate Professor of American Jewish studies
Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Los Angeles
Lost and Found is a record of his first trip to Eastern Europe in the early 1990s and thus soon after Glasnost and the opening up of that world to researchers and other interested parties.
His discovery of the abandoned synagogues and Jewish cemeteries of the area (primarily southeastern Poland, and the later the Ukraine as well) was revelatory, a sensation that is retold in his 'travelogue' lecture.
Dr. David E. Kaufman has a B.A. from Columbia College with majors in architecture and Hebrew literature, an M.A. in Jewish education from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, and a Ph.D. in American Jewish history from Brandeis University. Prior to joining the faculty of HUC, he taught as an adjunct professor at Brown University, University of Massachusetts/Amherst, Hebrew College, the New School, and the City University of New York (at its Baruch, Queens, and York College campuses).
His publications include numerous articles on the social, religious, and architectural history of the American synagogue; a history of the seminal school of Jewish education in America, the Teachers Institute; and a major study of early 20th century Jewish communal institutions, Shul with a Pool: The "Synagogue-Center" in American Jewish History (UPNE, 1999). In 2000 he curated "Cornerstones of Community," an exhibition of historic synagogues at the Jewish Museum of Maryland. His current research interests include the contemporary trend of "synagogue transformation," the Jewish role in American popular culture of the early 1960s, and the role of hero- and celebrity- worship in Jewish education and community life.
