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Sept. 11 , 2006
Fall lineup at Schatten Gallery and MARBL

BY Elaine justice

A new exhibit titled “Jews at Emory: Faces of a Changing University” chronicles the history of the Jewish presence at Emory. The exhibit will be on view through Jan. 6 at the Manuscript, Archives and Rare Book Library (MARBL) on the 10th floor of Woodruff Library.

Cosponsored by Emory University Archives, MARBL, Emory’s Rabbi Donald A. Tam Institute for Jewish Studies, and the Transforming Communities Project, MARBL initially decided to stage the exhibition as a means to highlight its collection of Geffen Family Papers, contributed by Emory alumnus Rabbi David Geffen, a grandson of Rabbi Tobias Geffen and the son of Louis Geffen, an early Jewish graduate of the University.
At Geffen’s encouragement, the curator of the exhibit, American Jewish history professor Eric Goldstein, broadened his focus, deciding to use the family papers as a starting point for exploring the larger history of Emory’s Jewish experience, with a Geffen story as one if its centerpieces.

Using sources from the Emory Archives, as well as items from the Geffen Family Papers and items loaned by alumni, the exhibit traces Emory’s Jewish history from the arrival of the first Jewish students through the emergence of a rich tapestry of Jewish campus life in the 1970s and the founding of one of the South’s premier Jewish Studies programs.

An exhibit-related program celebrating 30 years of Jewish studies at Emory will be held at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 18, in the Jones Room of the Woodruff Library.

Opening Sept. 30 at Schatten Main Gallery, “The Mind of Carter G. Woodson, as Reflected in the Books He Owned, Read and Published” will be on view through Dec. 20. The library of Woodson (1875–1950) and of the association he founded in 1915 to advance the study of African American life and history is one of Emory’s most distinguished holdings. It contains rare volumes, many privately published by African American authors and inscribed to Woodson. It includes pro-slavery as well as anti-slavery texts; books on economics, literature, politics, art and culture; and books dealing with the history of Russia, India and Europe, as well as Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America. It also includes most of the books Woodson published through the Associated Publishers. The exhibition will shed new light on the “Father of Negro History” as an intellect, political actor, organizer and educator.

Closing Oct. 15. and on view in the Schatten Corridor Gallery, is the “The Blur of War: Images of World War II by Combat Photographer Dennis E. Wile,” featuring the photography of U.S. Army serviceman Dennis E. Wile, who was commissioned to photodocument the military bridge building of his regiment in Europe during World War II but captured many other scenes and historical moments as well. This exhibition, curated by his son, professional photographer Dennis Wile, captures the essence of the war experience for his father.
For more information, call 404-727-5050 or go to web.library.emory.edu.

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