Guest Speakers

Festival Welcome
Frederick M. Lawrence
President of Brandeis University. An accomplished scholar, teacher and attorney, Mr. Lawrence is one of the nation’s leading experts on civil rights, free expression and bias crimes.

Gannit Ankori
Chair in Israeli Art in the Schusterman Center for Israeli Studies at Brandeis University. Her most recent book is Frida Kahlo.

Joyce Antler
Samuel Lane Professor of American Jewish History and Culture at Brandeis University. She is the author most recently of the book You Never Call! You Never Write! A History of the Jewish Mother.

Susan Bachrach
Historian in the exhibitions division of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and curator of the exhibition “Deadly Medicine.”

Sylvia Barack Fishman
Joseph and Esther Foster Professor in Judaic Studies at Brandeis University and Chair of the Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies.

Jeffrey Gantz
Arts Editor for 20 years at the Boston Phoenix, during which time he wrote more than 1000 articles. Hi is the author of two translations for Penguin Classics: The Mabinogion and Early Irish Myths and Sagas.

Detlef Gericke-Schönhagen
Director of the Goethe-Institut Boston, prior to which he was coordinating director of the Goethe-Instituts’ international film and television programs at the Goethe-Institut head office in Munich

Gerry Gregg
Filmmaker, Dubliner and director of Till the Tenth Generation

Jonathan Gruber
Filmmaker and director of Jewish Soldiers in Blue and Gray

Robert Leikind
Director of the American Jewish Committee, Boston

Dr. Robert Jay Lifton
World-renowned psychiatrist and key partiipant in the film Nazi Doctors, which is based on his book The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide.

Anne Miller
Cultural Attachée, Consulate General of France in Boston

Karin Oehlenschläger
Program Coordinator, Goethe-Institut Boston

One Ring Zero
Brooklyn-based band. They wrote and performed a live score for the Russian silent film Jewish Luck.

Charles Radin
Director of News and Communications at Brandeis University and former Middle East bureau chief for The Boston Globe.

Tomi Reichental
Dubliner, Holocaust survivor & film protagonist of Till the Tenth Generation

Lilly Rivlin
Filmmaker and director of Grace Paley: Collected Shorts

Sharon Pucker Rivo
Executive Director & Co-Founder of The National Center for Jewish Film (NCJF). She is a member of the Brandeis University faculty lectures widely on the history of Jews in cinema, a field she helped pioneer.

Lisa Rivo
Associate Director of NCJF. She holds degrees in art history and visual culture and was Associate Director & Senior Writer of African American National Biography.

Jonathan Sarna
Joseph H. and Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History at Brandeis University. Author most recently of the books When Grant Expelled The Jews and Jews and the Civil War: A Reader.

Ilan Troen
Stoll Family Chair in Israel Studies and Director of the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies at Brandeis Univeristy. He is the author of 11 books in and founding editor of the journal Israel Studies.