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"Re-reading the Binding of Isaac and Israeli Society in Albert Swissa's <i>Aqud</i>" an Academic Panel

Wednesday, March 28, 2012
12:00 AM
3222 Angell Hall

Speakers: Professor Gil Hochberg, University of California Los Angeles; Professor Ruth Tsoffar, University of Michigan; Ramon Stern, PhD Candidate at the University of Michigan. Respondents: Professor Anton Shammas, University of Michigan and Professor Gil Anidjar, Columbia University.
Albert Swissa was born in Casablanca in 1959 and migrated to Israel in 1963. As a child he resided first in the “Asbestonim” transit camp and then in the “Ir Ganim Gimel” housing project in the south of Jeru-salem. Swissa grew up in an ultra-orthodox family and studied as a young boy in yeshivas. When the first Lebanon War broke out in 1982, Swissa left behind his religious life and emigrated to Paris, where he studied theater and dance. In 1991 he wrote the novel Aqud (Bound) in Paris and won the Bernstein Prize for young writers. He returned to Jerusalem in 1997, and for many years worked as a journalist and columnist at the local newspaper Kol Ha’Ir. In 1998 he opened Café Zigmond, which he continues to run to this day. Sponsored by: OVPR, Comparative