Centre for Jewish Studies presents: You Were Adam

You Were Adam explores the triumphs and disappointments of divine and human creativity.

Drawing on the Bible and Jewish thought, Marina Zilbergerts imagines creation through the lens of relationships – metaphysical, erotic, and devotional. Ranging across spiritual and biographical space, from Zhitomir, Ukraine to the suburbs of Toronto her poems breathe the consciousness of connection into the broken and everyday experience of the world.

Join us for a conversation between CJS fellows Dr. Zilbergerts and Dr. Liat Naeh about eros, holiness, immigration, and language and a short reading from the book.

Dr. Marina Zilbergerts is a scholar of Jewish literature and thought. She is the author of The Yeshiva and the Rise of Modern Hebrew Literature (Indiana University Press). From 2016-2022, she was the Lipton Assistant Professor of Eastern European Jewish Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She grew up in Zhitomir, Tel Aviv, and Toronto and received her Ph.D. from Stanford University. Her first book of poetry, a series of retellings of Genesis called You Were Adam appeared with Wipf & Stock. Marina is currently a research associate at York’s Centre for Jewish Studies, where she is working on a new book about narrative voice in the Hebrew Bible. Her articles have appeared in Prooftexts and Tradition.

Dr. Liat Naeh is a poet and author of short stories in Hebrew, published in venues such as Ha’aretz and Granta, and recently also in her first, award-winning collection of poems. She is a scholar and a museum professional focusing on the art and archaeology of the Middle East during the Bronze and Iron Ages and has held post-doctoral fellowships at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and at the Bard Graduate Center, both in New York. She is currently teaching at the University of Toronto.

Light kosher (dairy) refreshments will be served.