The Jewish Studies Center is pleased to announce the acceptance of a generous donation that will fund its Lunch Lectures series for the spring semester.
The popular series will be renamed after Professor Robert Seltzer, in whose honor the anonymous donation was made. Robert Seltzer is considered a leading authority on Jewish Studies and teaches history at Hunter College and the CUNY Graduate Center.
Seltzer was one of many audience members present at a Lunch Lecture on Wednesday, October 30, when Program Director Leah Garrett announced the donation to great applause.
“As a public university, our Jewish Studies program relies on generous contributions like this wonderful gift,” said Garrett. “We are so thrilled to be able to continue our programming for the community.”
The popular events have drawn a loyal audience and helped the Center illuminate the Jewish experience, connecting the past to the present.
The October 30 lecture, co-sponsored by the Hunter College Asian American Studies Program, focused on parallels between Asians and Jews in contemporary American society and was led by historian Jonathan Karp, whose work explores the roles Jews have played in modern economic life and the images and stereotypes that have accompanied them.
Past Lunch Lectures have featured such notable speakers as photographer Judy Glickman Lauder and author Eddy Portnoy.
The Robert Seltzer Lunch Series kicks off on February 26, 2020, in the President’s Conference Room, with social and cultural historian Daniel J. Walkowitz, who will discuss the paradigm of new Jewish history and the making of a modern Jewish identity.
