Established in 1988 by the late Sheldon Feinberg, a former trustee of Whittier College, and his wife, Betty, the Feinberg Endowed Lecture Series brought scholars to the College to discuss broad historic, religious and political issues encompassed by Judaism and its role in a changing world.
Speakers for the series were nominated by the Whittier College community at large, and the final candidate was chosen by a selection committee made up of faculty in the history, political science, and religion departments and invited to speak by the President. Lecturers were asked to deliver a keynote lecture, and if available, to participate in classes and small discussion groups.
In 2021, President Linda Oubre, discontinued the Feinberg Lecture Series. The following year, the Board of Trustees approved the return of the endowment to the Feinberg family.
List of Feinberg Lecturers (listed chronologically)
1991-1992
The inaugural Feinberg Lecture was given on April 6, 1992, by Seymour Martin Lipset, Hazel Professor of Public Policy at the Institute of Public Policy at George Mason University, who discussed “Jews and American Politics.”
1992-1993
William Helmreich, professor of sociology and Judaic studies at City University Graduate Center and City College of New York.
1993-1994 through 1996-1997
During these four academic years, speakers in the Feinberg Lecture Series included Robin Helzner, musician and ambassador of World Jewish Music; John Loftus, prosecutor of Nazi war criminals; First Air Force Staff Judge Advocate Lt. Col. Robin Kimmelman; and Rabbi Reuven Kimelman, professor of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies at Brandies University. Specific information on their lecture topics and dates of their talks is not available.
1997-1998
Radio commentator Dennis Prager spoke on the topic “Happiness as a Serious Problem” on March 16, 1998.
1998-1999
Rodger Kamenetz, bestselling author of The Jew in the Lotus discussed “What I Learned about Judaism from the Dalai Lama” on April 14, 1999.
1999-2000
Radio commentator Dennis Prager returned to Whittier College to talk about the “Similarities and Differences between Judaism and Christianity,” on May 26, 1999. (This event was co-sponsored with the Shannon Center for the Performing Arts.)
2000-2001
There was no Feinberg Lecture this year, due to an unsuccessful attempt to secure Academy Award winning actor and activist Richard Dreyfuss.
2001-2002
David Myers, professor of Jewish history at UCLA, discussed “Beyond Despair: the Israel-Palestine Conflict Today on April 20, 2002.
2002-2003
John Rothmann ’71, political and foreign policy consultant, radio talk-show host on KGO radio in San Francisco, discussed “What an Undergraduate Needs to Know About the Middle East” on April 10, 2003. He also gave lectures in two classes while he was on campus.
2003-2004
Professor David Myers, Professor of Jewish History at UCLA, spoke on “Beyond Despair: The Israel-Palestine Conflict Today,” on April 20, 2004.
2004-2005
Leonard Greenspoon, Klutznick Professor of Jewish Civilization at Creighton University, was scheduled to discuss “Religion and Popular Culture” on February 15, 2005 in the Ruth B. Shannon Center for the Performing Arts. His appearance was canceled at the last moment due to his illness with cancer. He was rescheduled for April 16, 2006 to speak on “Translation and the Hebrew Bible” but his appearance was again canceled due to his continued battle with the disease.
2005-2006
Musician and activist Peter Yarrow served in a four-day residence as the 2006 Feinberg Lecturer. His topic for discussion on Feb. 22, 2006, was “Jewish Culture and Its Relationship to Operation Respect (OR).” OR is his nationally implemented program for character education in K-12 schools. In addition to presenting an OR workshop for faculty and staff at Whittier, Yarrow headlined a special concert that included his daughter Bethany Yarrow and Rufus Cappadocia, a cello and voice duo, on Feb. 24, 2006.
2006-2007
Under new academic leadership, the Feinberg Lecture Series began to expand the number of speakers per year in 2006-2007. The roster included a public lecture by Holocaust survivor Leon Leyson in September 2006; a public lecture by Henry Kissinger co-sponsored with the Office of the President and the Nixon Fellowship program on January 27, 2007; a public discussion with poets Stanley Moss and Willis Barnstone on “Judaism and Poetry” on February 14, 2007; a lecture-demonstration by Yuval Ron and his musical group on “Music and Divine Trance in Hassidic Jewish and Sufi Musical Performance” on March 27, 2007; and a lecture by Professor Peter Brier on “A Nobel Prize Writer and the Sizzling Hyphen: Saul Bellow as Jewish-American Writer” in May 2007.
2007-2008
The Honorable Richard J. Goldstone, a human rights advocate and retired justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa, presented the 2008 Feinberg Lecture. Justice Goldstone spent a full day on campus, speaking to children at the Broadoaks School about apartheid, meeting with undergraduates involved in the Model UN program, and receiving a joint Honorary Degree from Whittier College and Whittier Law School prior to his public talk on “The Current State of International Criminal Justice.”
2008-2009
The 2009 Feinberg Lecture was delivered by Dr. Judea Pearl, a member of the UCLA Computer Science faculty, Director of the Cognitive System Laboratory, and father of slain Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. Dr. Pearl is co-founder and president of the Daniel Pearl Foundation, established “to continue Daniel’s life-work of dialogue and understanding and to address the root causes of his tragedy,” and co-founder of the Daniel Pearl Dialogue for Muslim-Jewish Understanding. His talk is entitled, “Being Jewish, American, Western in the Post-911 Era.”
2009-2010
Nationally recognized performance artist, playwright and musician Claudia Stevens spoke and presented her original show, An Evening with Madame F, a play about female musicians at Auschwitz. An Evening with Madame F stands among a handful of Holocaust-related theatrical pieces that give artistic expression to a catastrophe that defies comprehension, and since 1990, Stevens has performed this one-woman show at more than 100 venues across the country as well as public television.
2010-2011
U.S. Ambassador to Israel and Egypt Daniel C. Kurtzer was the 2011 Feinberg Lecture speaker. Kurtzer’s career in the United States Foreign Service spanned 29 years. In addition to serving as ambassador, he held numerous senior policy and diplomatic positions, was political officer at the American embassies in Cairo and Tel Aviv, speechwriter for Secretary of State George P. Shultz, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs, and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Intelligence and Research. Throughout, he was instrumental in formulating and executing American policy in the Middle East peace process.
2011-2012
Former Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell, who served as U.S. Special Envoy for Middle East Peace in the Obama Administration, was the 2012 Feinberg Lecture speaker. Mitchell’s lecture, The Implications of the Arab Spring for Peace in the Middle East, dealt with timely current issues related to Arab states. Most recently Mitchell served as U.S. Special Envoy for Middle East Peace from January 2009 to May 2011. Prior to this, he has had a distinguished career in public service spanning three decades.
2012-2013
Dr. Deborah Lipstadt, a member of the prestigious American Academy of Jewish Research, was the 2013 Feinberg Lecture speaker. Lipstadt is an internationally prominent historian of the Jewish Holocaust and a staunch advocate for preservation of its critical place in world history.
2014-2015
Mosab Hassan Yousef, an author whose life was the subject of the documentary The Green Prince, and the autobiography Son of Hamas was the 2015 Feinberg Lecture speaker. Hassan is a Palesinian and the eldest son of Hamas leader and founder, Sheikh Hassan Yousef. The younger Yousef worked undercover for Israel’s internal security service Shin Bet from 1997 to 2007. The information Yousef supplied prevented dozens of suicide attacks and assassinations of Israelis, exposed numerous Hamas cells, and assisted Israel in hunting down many militants, including his own father, a Hamas leader. In 1999, Yousef converted to Christianity, and in 2007 he moved to the United States. His request for political asylum was granted in 2010.
2015-2016
Robin Wright, foreign correspondent and television commentator, addressed the Whittier College community as the 2016 Feinberg Lecture speaker. Wright’s most recent book Rock the Casbah: Rage and Rebellion Across the Islamic World, tells the stunning personal stories behind the rejection of both autocrats and extremists in the Muslim world. Wright profiles young techies mobilizing political uprisings, clerics publicly repudiating Osama bin Laden, Muslim comedians ridiculing militancy, hip hop artists rapping against guns and bombs, playwrights and poets redefining jihad, feminists reinterpreting the Koran, and militants denouncing violence.
2016-2017
Professor Kenneth W. Stein of Emory University delivered the 2017 Feinberg Lecture, Arab-Israeli Negotiations: Why they worked in the ’70s but not now. His expertise focuses on American foreign policy to the Middle East, Arab politics, the origins of modern Israel, and Arab-Israeli negotiations.
2017-2018
Joanna Mendelson, the senior investigative researcher and director of special projects for the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) Center on Extremism, delivered the 2018 Feinberg Lecture, The Normalization of Hatred and Bigotry – The State of Hate in California.
2018-2019
Author, musician, and activist Daryl Davis will deliver the 2019 Feinberg Lecture, Dismantling the KKK, One Conversation at a Time. Davis is the author of the book Klan-Destine Relationships, which he wrote after becoming the first black author to travel the country speaking with leaders and members of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK).
2019-2020
Holocaust survivor Dr. Jacob Eisenbach delivered the 2020 Feinberg Lecture, Surviving and Remembering the Holocaust: A Lesson on Genocide. Special guest, Shaya Ben Yehuda, managing director of the International Relations Division of Yad Vashem, The World Holocaust Remembrance Center (Jerusalem) will introduce Eisenbach.
2020-2021
Whittier College, under the leadership of President Linda Oubre, discontinued the Feinberg Lecture Series in 2021. The following year, the Board of Trustees approved the return of the endowment to the Feinberg family.