Alumnus, CBS Correspondent to Open Lecture Series

Posted on Aug. 21, 2006

A 1982 alumnus who works as a correspondent for CBS News will lead an upcoming discussion at Carolina about growing up in a Jewish community in Robeson County.

Drew Levinson ’82, who was raised in Fairmont, has been based in New York since October 2002. He explores the history of his Jewish community in “Lasting Impressions,” a 47-minute documentary that will be the topic of a film screening and discussion on Sept. 12. The story reveals how the Jewish people of Robeson County existed as both insiders and outsiders among their Christian neighbors.

The program will be the first in the fall 2006 lecture series presented by UNC’s Carolina Center for Jewish Studies. The lectures are free to the public and begin at 7:30 p.m. in the Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History at 150 South Road.

The Sept. 12 screening and discussion are made possible by a grant from the Charles H. Revson Foundation in honor of Eli N. Evans ’58 and co-sponsored by UNC’s Center for the Study of the American South. Through the Jewish studies center’s statewide Revson outreach program, Levinson also will speak at UNC-Asheville on Sept. 13.

The Jewish studies center, based in UNC’s College of Arts and Sciences, provides scholars and students with an understanding of Judaism and the historic Jewish experience. The center brings together faculty from academic departments including American studies, English, Germanic languages, history, religious studies and Slavic languages and literatures.

Besides Levinson, fall speakers will include:

• Sept. 26: “Gender, Antisemitism and Modern Jewish Identity.” Paula Hyman, Lucy Moses professor of modern Jewish history at Yale University, will explore how Jewish men and women fashioned their identities at the turn of the 20th century, an era that challenged their most basic assumptions about the place of Jews in state and society.
• Oct. 16: “The (Harry) Golden Era of Civil Rights.” The Sylvia and Irving Margolis Lectureship on the Jewish Experience in the American South. Stephen Whitfield, professor of American studies at Brandeis University, will discuss the colorful life of Harry Golden, a Charlotte journalist and transplanted liberal New Yorker who felt at home in North Carolina.
• Oct. 25: “The Son of Man: A Jewish Life.” Daniel Boyarin, Hermann P. and Sophia Taubman professor of Talmudic culture at the University of California, Berkeley, will discuss how the Son of Man figure in the Gospels may provide important clues for unlocking the mysteries of rabbinic and non-rabbinic Judaism and Christianity.
• Nov. 16: “Midrash as Visualization: Depicting the Binding of Isaac in Text and Image.” Marc Bregman, Herman and Zelda Bernard distinguished professor of Jewish studies in the department of religious studies at UNC-Greensboro, explores how Jewish biblical interpretation invites its readers to visualize the narratives of the Bible.

The lectures are co-sponsored by a variety of campus units, including the Center for the Study of the American South and the religious studies department.

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