March 29, 2024

Jewish Cultural Celebration Events Nov. 5-9

The Jewish Cultural Celebration will be held Nov. 5-9 and will feature traditional Jewish food, a movie night and speakers.

For a complete list of events, visit https://students.umw.edu/multicultural/programs/jewish-cultural-awareness-week/.

Dr. Mark Naison, professor of history and African American studies at Fordham University, will deliver a keynote address on Thursday, Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. in Lee Hall, Room 411.

Naison is the author of seven books and more than 300 articles on African American politics, labor history, popular culture, and education policy. A member of the Congress of Racial Equality and Students for a Democratic Society in the 1960s, his first book, Communists in Harlem in the Depression, published in 1983, is still in print and is used in graduate courses around the nation.

Dr. Naison is the founder of the Bronx African American History Project (BAAHP), one of the largest community-based oral history projects in the nation, and has brought his research into more than 30 Bronx schools, Bronx-based cultural organizations, and NGO’s. In recent years, the BAAHP’s research has led to granting landmark status to several streets with historic significance, as well as the founding of a cultural center honoring the Bronx’s musical heritage. A co-founder of the Bronx Berlin Youth exchange, Dr. Naison has published articles about Bronx music and Bronx culture in German, Spanish, Catalan, and Portuguese as well as English, and given talks about these subjects in Germany, Spain, and Italy. He recently published a novel, Pure Bronx, co-written with his former student Melissa Castillo-Garsow, and a book of essays on educational policy and Bronx history, Badass Teachers Unite. His seventh book is Before the Fires, An Oral History of African American Life in the Bronx From the 1930s to the 1960s.