Israel at 75: The Long Way to Statehood

An exhibition of posters and rare documents from the private collection of Rabbi Chaim and Doreen Seidler-Feller.

Thursday, April 20, 2023
6:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Hillel at UCLA
Gindi Gallery
574 Hilgard Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90024

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This event is hosted by The Dortort Center for Creativity in the Arts at Hillel at UCLA.

About the Event

The original items in this exhibition highlight key moments in the history of the State of Israel, from the early days of Zionism, to the Yishuv, to the formation of the state and its trajectory to present times. They illustrate the political, social, religious, and ethnic identities and divisions that are still being reconciled in Israel today. 

Among the featured documents are:

• A first edition of Theodore Herzl’s Der Judenstaat
• An original letter written by David Ben-Gurion related to the Altalena affair
• A early IDF Haggadah that Zionist Orthodox Rabbi Shlomo Goren asked David Ben Gurion to destroy
• An infamous poster defaming Yitzhak Rabin following the signing of the Oslo Accords
• A Stop Occupation poster by artist Igael Tumarkin (1933-2021), one of the most prominent and influential artists in the history of Israeli art

About the Speakers

Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller is a faculty member at Shalom Hartman Institute of North America. He was executive director of the Yitzhak Rabin Hillel Center for Jewish Life at UCLA for 40 years, and currently is director emeritus and also director of the Hartman Fellowship for Campus Professionals. He is a lecturer in the Departments of Sociology and Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at UCLA and in the Department of Theological Studies at Loyola Marymount University. He is also a faculty member of the Wexner Heritage Foundation and was a founding member of Americans for Peace Now. In 2014 he initiated a fact-finding mission for non-Jewish student leaders to Israel and the Palestine Authority which is now offered on 60 campuses across the country. The International Hillel Center granted him the Hillel Professional Recognition Award for "blending the love of Jewish tradition with the modern intellectual approach of the university." Rabbi Seidler-Feller was ordained at Yeshiva University where he completed a master's in rabbinic literature. Seidler-Feller was a rabbinic consultant to Barbra Streisand during the making of the film Yentl.

Margo Blank, curator of the exhibition, is a second-year masters student of library and information science with a focus on archival studies at UCLA. Margo graduated from Boston University in 2019 with a B.A. in history and political science. Margo is passionate about material culture, Jewish history, and listening to people’s life stories. These interests have culminated in her goal of working with archival material related to Jewish history following graduation in June. In her free time Margo enjoys baking, going to museums with her husband, and playing with her cat. 

DISCLAIMER: The views or opinions of our guest speakers and the content of their presentations do not necessarily reflect the views of the UCLA Younes and Soraya Nazarian Center for Israel Studies. Hosting speakers does not constitute an endorsement of the speaker's views or opinions.

Sponsor(s): Younes and Soraya Nazarian Center for Israel Studies, The Dortort Center for Creativity in the Arts at Hillel at UCLA