April 18, 2010 Latin-American Jewish Studies Subject of May 17 Lecture at the Library of Congress

Latin-American Jewish Studies has become an increasingly popular area of academic inquiry, with a growing number of institutions offering classes in related subjects.

History professors Raanan Rein and Jeffrey Lesser will deliver a joint lecture at the Library of Congress titled “Jewish-Latin American Historiography: The Challenges Ahead.” The lecture will be held at noon on Monday, May 17, in the Mary Pickford Theater, located on the third floor of the Library’s James Madison Building at 101 Independence Ave. S.E., Washington, D.C.

The program, which is free and open to the public, is sponsored jointly by the Library’s Hispanic Division and the Hebrew Language Table in cooperation with the Embassy of Argentina and the Embassy of Israel. Reservations are not required.

Raanan Rein is the Sourasky Professor of Latin American and Spanish History and head of the S. Daniel Abraham Center for International and Regional Studies at Tel Aviv University. Rein is the author and editor of more than 20 books and several dozen articles published in academic journals. He is co-president of the Latin American Jewish Studies Association and a member of Argentina’s National Academy of History. For his contributions to Argentine culture, the Argentine government awarded him the title of Commander in the Order of the Liberator San Martin.

Jeffrey Lesser is Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of History and director of the Tam Institute for Jewish Studies at Emory University. He is the author of “A Discontented Diaspora: Japanese-Brazilians and the Meanings of Ethnic Militancy, 1960-1980,” “Negotiating National Identity: Minorities, Immigrants and the Struggle for Ethnicity in Brazil” and “Welcoming the Undesirables: Brazil and the Jewish Question.” Lesser was a Fulbright Senior Scholar at the University of São Paulo in 2001-2002 and held the Fulbright Distinguished Chair of the Humanities at Tel Aviv University during the 2006-7 academic year. He is the former president of the Conference on Latin American History, the American Historical Association’s largest affiliate organization.

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