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The Tenenbaum Family Lecture Series

Tenenbaum Family Lecture Series in Judaic Studies

About the Lecture Series | 2010 Tenenbaum Lecture

Lecturers to date:

Saul Friedlander (2009)
University of California, Los Angeles
"The Voices of the Witness in the History of the Shoah"

Leon Wieseltier (2008)
Literary editor of New Republic
"A Passion for Waiting: Messianism and the Jews"

Professor Baruch Brody (2007)
Baylor College of Medicine
"One Tradition, Many Voices: Jewish Bioethics as a Model for Contemporary Society"

Professor Ruth Wisse (2006)
Harvard University
"Yiddish at the Center; English at the Margins"

Professor Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi (2005)
Columbia University
"Servants of Kings and Not Servants of Servants: Some Aspects of the Political History of the Jews"

Professor Stephen Whitfield (3 of 3 in the 2003-2004 series)
Brandeis University
"The 'South' and its Jews: Shifting Meanings, Shifting Identities"

Professor Hasia Diner (2 of 3 in the 2003-2004 series)
New York University
"Wandering Jews: Peddlers in the American South"

Professor Jonathan Sarna (1 of 3 in the 2003-2004 series)
Brandeis University
"Strangers in a Strange Land: Jews Confront a New World"

Professor Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, 2003
New York University
"Kodak Moments, Flashbulb Memories: Jewish Responses to September 11"

James Carroll, 2002
Harvard Divinity School
"Constantine's Sword: The Church and the Jews - A History"

Michael Bar-Zohar, 2001
Tel Aviv, Israel
"Beyond Hitler's Grasp"

Professor Deborah E. Lipstadt, 2000
Emory University
"The Holocaust and Jewish Identity: Surviving the Survivors"

Professor Charles Liebman, 2000
Bar Ilan University, Israel
"Prospects for Religious Pluralism in Israel"

Professor Judith Hauptmann, 1999
Jewish Theological Seminary
"Rereading the Rabbis: A Woman's Voice"

Professor Isaiah M. Gafni, 1998
Hebrew University, Jerusalem
"Jews, Judaism, and the Hellenistic World: Confrontation or Accomodation?"

Professor Menahem Ben-Sasson, 1997
Dean, Hebrew University, Jerusalem
"When Books Aren't Enough: Jewish History from Fragments"

Tenenbaum Family Lectureship

The Tenenbaum Family Lectureship in Judaic Studies salutes the family of the late Meyer W. Tenenbaum '31C-'32L of Savannah, Georgia. Meyer Tenenbaum came to Savannah from Poland at thirteen along with his parents, Samuel and Bailee, his two brothers, Albert and Ralph, and his sister, Shirley. Knowing no English, Meyer was placed in first grade. He made quick progress and graduated from the Emory School of Law eleven years later.

Meyer loved Emory and credited it for much of the good fortune he enjoyed in his life. His son Samuel has said, "After my father's family and faith came Emory University. And sometimes I think that Emory was his first love, because it helped him get his start in life. Education is so important to our family." In that tradition, Samuel's wife, Inez Moore Tenenbaum, was elected in 1998 to the office of superintendent of education for the state of South Carolina and re-elected overwhelmingly in 2002.

Meyer joined his brothers in the scrap iron business in 1942 after having practiced law for ten years. He helped to build, and eventually presided over, the Chatham Steel Corporation. It is now a major steel service center with headquarters in Savannah and branch facilities in Orlando, Jacksonville, Birmingham, Durham, and Columbia. In 1998 it was purchased by the Reliance Steel & Aluminum Corporation of Los Angeles. Meyer and his brothers, Albert and Ralph, have been succeeded at Chatham Steel by their sons and son-in-law.

While Meyer's son Samuel has been its driving force, the lectureship honors the entire family and its ethos of citizenship and public service.