A leading authority in modern Jewish history will speak at the University of Aberdeen next week at an annual lecture held to promote a greater understanding and knowledge of the history and culture of Jewish people.
Professor of Modern Jewish History at University College London, Shirli Gilbert, will deliver the Hay of Seaton Lecture at King’s College Conference Centre (KCC) on Monday, September 23.
Professor Gilbert’s lecture, entitled ‘South African Jews, the Holocaust, Apartheid and Israel,’ will explore the diverse ways in which the history of Jewish persecution shaped Jews’ attitudes both to apartheid and the newly-formed state of Israel, from the 1940s to today’s multiracial democracy.
Professor Gilbert obtained her D.Phil. from the University of Oxford and was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Society of Fellows at the University of Michigan. Her publications include Music in the Holocaust: Confronting Life in the Nazi Ghettos and Camps (2005), From Things Lost: Forgotten Letters and the Legacy of the Holocaust (2017), and most recently, with Avril Alba, Holocaust Memory and Racism in the Postwar World (2019).
The Hay of Seaton Lecture was established in memory of Malcolm Hay of Seaton, a distinguished historian and the last Laird of Seaton in Aberdeen.
The massacre of the European Jews in wartime Germany deeply disturbed him and ignited a lifelong quest to highlight the history of anti-Semitism and the Jewish race.
After his death, his widow left a bequest in her own will in 1981 to the University of Aberdeen to establish a memorial lecture series to promote greater understanding of the Jewish people among the British and to combat anti-Semitism.
Anne-Michelle Slater from the University of Aberdeen Law School, who is organising this year’s event, said: “The purpose of the Hay of Seaton lecture series is to promote the better understanding and furtherance of the knowledge of the history and culture of the Jewish people.
“We are delighted to be able to welcome Professor Gilbert to the University of Aberdeen. The breadth and depth of her research will bring a new focus to the Hay of Seaton lectures, fulfilling the original bequest in a most engaging yet scholarly manner.”
This year the Hay of Seaton Memorial Lecture 2019 will take place on Monday, September 23 at KCC at 6pm.
The Hay of Seaton Lecture is free to attend, however booking is required. Please visit www. https://www.abdn.ac.uk/events/15074/ for more information.
