Conference | Second Conference of the Leiden Jewish Studies Network
Care and the Jewish Experience
- Date
- Tuesday 16 September 2025
- Time
- Address
- Hortus Botanicus / Faculty Club
Rapenburg 73
Leiden - Room
- Hortus Winter Garden Room / Faculty Club
Keynote lecture by Elisheva Baumgarten “The Kindness of Others: Jews, Christians and Early Childhood Care in Medieval Europe"
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Watch the video on the original website orSpeakers and respondents include many colleagues and former students from Leiden and The Netherlands as well as invited guests Mr. Konstanty Gebert, Professor Robin Judd, Professor Sarah Ifft-Decker, Professor Mary Fraser Kirsh and Dr. Eyal Levinson.
This event is generously supported by the Leiden Jewish Studies Network, the Leiden Institute for Area Studies, the Austria Centre Leiden and the European Research Council Starting Grant “A Century of Care: Invisible Work and Early Childcare in Central and Eastern Europe, 1905-2004.”
Programme
FIRST PART OF THE CONFERENCE TAKES PLACE AT THE HORTUS BOTANICUS, WINTER GARDEN ROOM
8:00-8:30 | Welcome by Prof. dr. J. Zangenberg and Prof. dr. S. Cramsey
COFFEE AND LIGHT BREAKFAST PROVIDED
8:30-9:45 | Visualizing Care: From the Assyrian Empire and Sasanian Babylonia to Modern Europe
Prof. dr. Caroline Waerzeggers (LIAS/NINO) | Care in visual scenes of terror in Assyrian state art
Prof. dr. Albert de Jong (LIAS/LUCSOR) | Supernatural child care in Sasanian Babylonia
Dr. Rebekka Grossmann (LUH) | Still Lives: Visualizing Care in 20th Century Jewish Spaces
Chair and Respondent: Dr. Jonathan Stokl (LIAS)
COFFEE BREAK
10:00-11:15 | The Work of Care: Aramaic Speakers in Egypt, The Hebrew Bible and The Anne Frank House Museum
Dr. Margaretha Folmer (LIAS/NINO) | Glimpses of caregiving in Aramaic documents from Egypt (5th c. BCE)
Ms. Nasreen Javanjoo (LIAS/LUCSOR) | Women of Valor: Tradwives, the Hebrew Bible, and the Sacralization of Domestic Care Work
Ms. Lotte-Sophie Groenendijk (LUH) | Places that Speak: Caring for Holocaust Remembrance Sites
Chair and Respondent: Mr. Nolke Tasma (LIAS/NINO)
COFFEE BREAK
11:30-12:45 | Caring Words? In letters, songs and literature
Dr. Lital Abazon (LIAS) | "Ummi Fi Shurl: On the Presence and Absence of Arabic Speaking Mothers in Modern Hebrew Literature"
Dr. Nicolette van den Bogerd, Ph.D. (Independent Researcher, NL) | “Sonic Caregiving during the Holocaust: Ilse Weber’s Songs at the Children’s Infirmary in Theresienstadt”
Dr. Mary Fraser Kirsh (The College of William and Mary in Virginia) | “Navigating Care: Relief Workers and Letter Writing in the Aftermath of the Shoah”
Chair and Respondent: Dr. Noa Schonmann (LIAS)
LUNCH BREAK
13:30-14:30 | Family Care: Jewish Mothers and Fathers in Medieval Europe
Dr. Sarah Ifft-Decker (Rhodes College) | “Recovering Care Through Contracts: Jewish Mothers and Children in Medieval Mediterranean Notarial Records”
Dr. Eyal Levinson (The Hebrew University in Jerusalem) | Fatherhood and care in medieval Ashkenaz
Chair and Respondent: Prof. dr. Jessica Roitman (VU)
COFFEE BREAK
14:45-16:00 | Care in the Aftermath: Tracing the impact of the Holocaust after the 1980s
Mr. Konstanty Gebert (Independent Scholar and Journalist, Warsaw, PL) | Finding mishpokhe, becoming mishpokhe. Poland’s ‘shipwrecked Jews’ after 1989
Dr. Kate Brackney (LUH) | Son of Saul: Breaking the Rules of Holocaust Representation
Prof. dr. Sarah Cramsey (LIAS/LUCSOR/LUH) | Reparations for the “Fetus”?: Caring for the Jewish Unborn during and after the Holocaust
Chair and Respondent: Prof. Robin Judd (The Ohio State University)
16:30 KEYNOTE ADDRESS AT THE FACULTY CLUB
Prof. Elisheva Baumgarten (The Hebrew University in Jerusalem) | “The Kindness of Others: Jews, Christians and Early Childhood Care in Medieval Europe”
Reception to follow at the Faculty Club
Questions? Email Sarah Cramsey.