UNCA to Host Three-Day Conference on "Understanding Israel"

UNC Asheville will host a three-day conference on "Understanding Israel" Saturday-Monday, Feb. 2-Feb. 4. The conference will feature lectures and presentations on Israel and the Middle East by noted scholars and authors. "Understanding Israel" is one of a series of conferences designed to broaden the campus community’s perspective on the world and enhance cultural diversity. All events are free and open to the public. The program is sponsored by UNCA’s Humanities Program and the Center for Jewish Studies.

The conference opens with Kenneth Stein’s talk on "The History of Zionism and the Modern State of Israel" at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 2, in UNCA’s Owen Conference Center. Stein, a noted scholar, is the William E. Schatten Professor of Contemporary Middle Eastern History and Israel Studies at Emory University and was appointed the Middle East Fellow at the Carter Center in Atlanta in 1982.

Sunday’s events begin with Adina Hoffman’s discussion of "Jerusalem in Miniature: Against the Macrocosm" at 1:30 p.m. in UNCA’s Owen Conference Center. Author of "House of Windows: Portraits from a Jerusalem Neighborhood," Hoffman is a film critic and senior correspondent at the American Prospect and film critic for the Jerusalem Post.

Stein will return to the podium for a talk on "Arab/Israel Negotiations" at 3:30 p.m. in UNCA’s Owen Conference Center.

Sunday’s program will wrap up with "Against the Grain: The Other Contemporary Israeli Literature," a talk by Peter Cole at 6:30 p.m. in UNCA’s Owen Conference Center. Award-winning poet and author of numerous translations, Cole has published two collections of poetry, "Rift" and "Hymns and Qualms." His books of translations from medieval and contemporary Hebrew have received high acclaim.

Monday’s lineup opens with presentations by three UNCA students who will share their recent experiences in Israel at 2:45 p.m. in the Private Dining Room of UNCA’s Dining Hall. Senior literature and language majors Katie Machalek and Miranda Volborth participated in the North Carolina/Israel Exchange Program (NCIEP) last year, which allowed them to study at Ben Gurion University in Beer Sheva. Junior economics major Avi Mechanic participated in Marva, an Israeli Army program, last summer. He will attend Haifa University through the NCIEP program this year.

Author and naturalist Michal Strutin will discuss "From Water to Wolves to Wildflowers: Managing Nature in Israel" at 3:30 p.m. in the Private Dining Room of UNCA’s Dining Hall. Strutin is the author of "Discovering Natural Israel: From the Coral Reefs of Eilat to the Emerald Crown of Mount Carmel."

Eric Meyers will close the program with his talk, "Israel and Its Neighbors Then and Now: Revisionist History and the Quest for Legitimacy in the Middle East Today," at 7 p.m. in UNCA’s Humanities Lecture Hall. This talk is the 2002 Phyllis Freed Sollod Memorial Lecture. Meyers is the Bernice and Morton Lerner Professor of Judaic Studies at Duke University where he directs the graduate program in religion. He is the author or co-author of nine books in the fields of Hebrew Bible, biblical archaeology and the Second Temple Judaism.

For more information, call William Spellman, director of UNCA’s Humanities Program, at 828/251-6808 or Richard Chess, director of UNCA’s Center for Jewish Studies, at 828/251-6576.

Speaker Biographies

** Peter Cole -- Poet and author of numerous translations, Peter Cole has published two collections of poetry, "Rift" and "Hymns and Qualms." His books of translations from medieval and contemporary Hebrew include "Selected Poems of Shmuel HaNagid," "Selected Poems of Solomon Ibn Gabirol," "Love and Selected Poems of Aharon Shabtai," "From Island to Island" and "Qasida" by Harold Schimmel and the "The Heart is Katmandu" by Yoel Hoffman. Cole has received numerous awards for his poetry and translation, including the M.L.A. Scaglione Prize for Translation of "Selected Poems of Shmuel HaNagid," the TLS Porjes Translation Prize for "Selected Poems of Solomon Ibn Gabirol, the GE Foundation Award for Younger Poets, fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts, the Marie Syrkin Award for Jewish Belles Lettres and the Gerbode Prize for Poetry. Fourth-coming works include "The Poetry of Kabbalah" from Penn State University Press and "The Collected Poems of Avraham Ben Yitzhak" from Ibis Editions. Cole lives in Jerusalem.

** Adina Hoffman -- Author of "House of Windows: Portraits from a Jerusalem Neighborhood," Adina Hoffman is a regular film critic and senior correspondent at the American Prospect and film critic for the Jerusalem Post. Her essays and criticism have appeared in New York Newsday, Tin House, CoExist Magazine and on the World Service of the BBC. An editor and teacher, she is a former visiting professor at Middlebury College and Wesleyan University. She lives in Jerusalem.

** Eric Meyers -- Eric Meyers is the Bernice and Morton Lerner Professor of Judaic Studies at Duke University, where he directs the graduate program of religion. He is the author or co-author of nine books in the fields of Hebrew Bible, biblical archaeology and the Second Temple Judaism. Among his publications in Hebrew Bible are two Anchor Bible commentaries with Carol L. Meyers, Haggai-Zechariah 1-8 (1987) and Zechariah 9-14 (1993). He was editor-in-chief of the five-volume work published in 1997 by Oxford University Press, "The Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East," and is co-author of the 1997 "Cambridge Companion to the Bible," published by Cambridge University Press. President of the American Schools of Oriental Research from 1990-97, Meyers has directed or co-directed digs in Israel and Italy for more than 30 years.

** Kenneth Stein -- The William E. Schatten Professor of Contemporary Middle Eastern History and Israeli Studies at Emory University, Kenneth Stein is also the Middle East Fellow at the Carter Center in Atlanta, appointed in 1982. He established the Middle East Research Program at Emory University in 1992 and the Institute for the Study of Modern Israel in 1997, which is an integral part of Emory’s Institute for Jewish Studies. His scholarly publications focus on the origins of modern Israel, the Palestinian community, the Arab-Israeli peace process and the modern Arab world. They include "Heroic Diplomacy: Sadat, Kissinger, Carter, Begin and the Quest for Arab-Israeli Peace;" "Making Peace Among Arabs and Israelis: Lessons from Fifty Years of Negotiating Experiences;" "The Blood of Abraham: Insights into the Middle East" in collaboration with former President Carter; and "The Land Question in Palestine, 1917-1939." He writes the annual chapter of the Arab-Israeli peace process in Middle East Contemporary Survey and a monthly syndicated newspaper column.

** Michal Strutin -- Writer and naturalist Michal Strutin is the author of "Discovering Natural Israel: From the Coral Reefs of Eilat to the Emerald Crown of Mount Carmel." Her love of the outdoors has taken her to backcountry areas across America, the Himalayas and Israel. She has written two "Smithsonian Guides to Natural America," "Florida State Parks" and the award-winning "Places of Grace: The Natural Landscapes of the American Midwest." Her books "Chaco: A Cultural Legacy" and "A Guide to Northern Plains Indians" focus on cultural history. She has worked for Outside, Rolling Stone and National Parks magazines. She lives with her husband near the Great Smoky Mountains in Tennessee.

Media Contacts:

• Dr. Richard Chess, UNCA Center for Jewish Studies Director, 828/251-6576
• Dr. William Spellman, UNCA’s Humanities Program Director, 828/251-6808
• Jill Yarnall, UNCA Public Information Assistant Director, 828/251-6526