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Nina Spiegel is Curator at the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia. She holds a Ph.D. from Stanford University in modern Jewish history and dance history and a B.A. in Judaic Studies and Religious Studies from Brown University. Her research explores the connections between dance and modern Jewish life in Israel and in the United States and examines such themes as the interpretation of folk and concert dance, comparisons between Israeli and American Jewish cultures, understandings of Jewish authenticity, and the invention of tradition. Her publications include the prize-winning article, "Cultural Formulation in Eretz Israel : The National Dance Competition of 1937" (Jewish Folklore and Ethnology Review) and her dissertation, "Jewish Cultural Celebrations and Competitions in Mandatory Palestine, 1920-1947: Body, Beauty, and the Search for Authenticity."

Judah M. Cohen is a Dorot Assistant Professor/Faculty Fellow at New York University. Recent publications of his include "Modes of Tradition?: Negotiating 'Jewishness' and Modernity in the Synagogue Music of Isadore Freed and Fredrick Piket" (Jewish History and Culture), and he has forthcoming essays on music in Jewish summer camps and "The Postmodern Landscape of 'Jewish' Music." In addition, he has conducted extensive research on Jewish life and history in the Caribbean, which was the subject of his first book, Through the Sands of Time: A History of the Jewish Community of St. Thomas, U. S. Virgin Islands (Brandeis University Press, 2004) as well as other forthcoming work on Jews in the Caribbean and Latin America. This fall, he will move to Indiana University to assume the Lou and Sybil Mervis Chair of Jewish Culture.

For information on this or other events of the Jewish Music Forum, please see the website: www.jewishmusicforum.org, call 212-294-8328 or Posted by Ari Davidow on February 10, 2006 10:00 AM | Permalink