LITERATURE + LECTURES

The Center for Jewish Living and Learning at the Jewish Community Center of Houston presents Bagels & Grits: How Jews Built a Home in the South, Sunday, Dec 12 • 7:30 PM, a lecture by Dr. Stuart Rockoff, (pictured) Director of the History Department at the Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life.

Dr. Stuart Rockoff will trace the history of Jews in the South and show how they adjusted to the region’s unique culture while maintaining their own Jewish traditions. He will also explore how the Jewish South has been transformed over the last several decades, with the decline of small-town congregations and the rise of large Jewish communities like Houston.

Stuart Rockoff was born in Fort Worth and raised in Houston, Texas and graduated from Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut in 1991 with a BA in history.

He received his Ph.D. in US history from the University of Texas at Austin in 2000 with a special emphasis on immigration and American Jewish history. He has taught several history courses in American ethnic and Jewish history at UT-Austin, UT-San Antonio, Central Texas College, and Millsaps College. Since June of 2002, he has served as the director of the history department at the Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life and the Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience, where he is working to preserve and document the history of Southern Jews. He currently serves as the Vice-President of the Southern Jewish Historical Society and is working on a general history of Jewish life in the South.

For more information, contact Naomi Barancik at 713-729-3200 ext. 3288 or nbarancik@jcchouston.org.

This program was made possible in part with a grant from Humanities Texas, the state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The Jewish Community Center has founded the Center for Jewish Learning and Living, a collaborative process that brings together the arts and culture programming of the Center, such as the Book and Arts Fair, the Jewish Film Festival, and the Jewish Music Festival, and the education initiatives of the Center, such as the Florence Melton Adult Mini-School, and the Bunny and Leo Horvitz Scholar-in-Residence Program. In addition, this collaboration brings additional programs and staff to the Jewish initiatives of the JCC, with high hopes that more members of our community may be touched by meaningful Jewish experiences.