Gender and the German-Jewish Migration to Mandatory Palestine
Oct 15, 2024 | 5 - 6:30 pm PT
Lecture at UC Berkeley (223 Philosophy Hall)| Speaker: Viola Alianov-Rautenberg (German Historical Institute Washington | Pacific Office Berkeley), Moderator: Rebecca Golbert (Helen Diller Institute for Jewish Law and Israel Studies)
Sponsor(s): Institute of European Studies, German Historical Institute Washington | Pacific Office Berkeley
Co-sponsors: Center for Jewish Studies, Helen Diller Institute for Jewish Law and Israel Studies
For the sixty thousand German Jews who escaped Nazi Germany and found refuge in Mandatory Palestine between 1933 and 1940, migration meant radical changes: it transformed their professional and cultural lives and confronted them with a new language, climate, and society. In her talk, Viola Alianov-Rautenberg will tell the story of German-Jewish migration to Mandatory Palestine/Eretz Israel as gender history. She will argue that this migration was shaped and structured by gendered policies and ideologies and experienced by men and women in a gendered form—from the decision to immigrate and the anticipation of change, through the outcomes for family and domestic life, body, self-image, and sexuality.
Dr. Viola Alianov-Rautenberg joined the GHI Pacific Office as a Research Fellow in 2024. She is a historian of German, Jewish, and Israeli history of the 19th and 20th century with a particular interest in questions of gender, home, and migration as well as sound and music. Her first book, No Longer Ladies and Gentlemen: Gender and the German-Jewish Migration to Mandatory Palestine, was published by Stanford University Press in 2023. Before joining the GHI, Viola has been a research fellow at the Koebner Minerva Center for German History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Bucerius Institute for the Research of Contemporary German History and Society at the University of Haifa, and the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Her current research project explores songs and singing in Jewish migration.
If you require an accommodation for effective communication (ASL interpreting/CART captioning, alternative media formats, etc.) or information about campus mobility access features in order to fully participate in this event, please contact Ray Savord at rsavord@berkeley.edu or (510) 642-4555 with as much advance notice as possible and at least 7-10 days before the event.