Great Jewish Writers Series continues on Feb. 28 with lecture on Leah Goldberg and Else Lasker-Schueler

The Judaic Studies Program in Syracuse University’s College of Arts and Sciences and the Jewish Federation of Central New York continue their Great Jewish Writers lecture series with a special program on poets Leah Goldberg and Else Lasker-Schueler, on Feb. 28.

Sarah Wobick-Segev, postdoctoral teaching fellow in Judaic studies, will deliver the lecture at The Oaks (18 Arbor Lane, DeWitt), at 7:30 p.m. The event is open to the public.

Goldberg (1911-1970) was born in Konigsberg, East Prussia (now Kaliningrad, Russia), and started writing Hebrew verse as a schoolgirl in Kovno. She received a Ph.D. in semitic languages from Bonn University, and immigrated to pre-state Israel in 1935.

Her poems are known for their melancholy subjects with positive messages. Her themes include wounded love, as well as a yearning for love and light. A renowned poet, as well as a successful children’s author, theater critic, translator and editor, she published nine books of poetry, two novels, three plays, six books of non-fiction, and 20 books for children. 

Goldberg was awarded many prizes, including the Israel Prize for Literature in 1970, and established the Department of Comparative Literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1952. 

Else Lasker-Schueler (1869-1945) settled in Berlin in 1894, where she frequented avant-garde literary circles, and her lyric poems and short stories began appearing in periodicals. 

Lasker-Schueler’s poems exploit a rich vein of fantasy and symbolism and alternate between pathos and ecstasy in their intensely personal evocation of her childhood and parents, romantic passion, art, religion and other themes. Many of her short stories reinterpret Arabian nights tales in a mode of modern fantasy that is rich with visual images. 

Lecturer Wobick-Segev is the Jim Joseph fellow in Judaic Studies. She completed her master’s degree and Ph.D. in history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Toronto. She studies modern European Jewish history, the history of the family, urban history, 20th century European history, gender studies, religious studies and the history of leisure and consumption. 

Future lectures in the Great Jewish Writers Series this spring include “Shmuel Yosef Agnon” by Erella Brown, assistant professor of languages, literatures and linguistics (April 23); and “David Grossman” by Miriam Elman, associate professor of political science (April 25).