Professor Jeff Blutinger at podium
Last September, the President’s office began contacting CSULB faculty members about participating in the planning of the President’s International Forum on Human Rights: Modern Genocides and Global Responsibilities. Earlier that summer, President Alexander decided the campus should host such a forum, and invited Dr. Jeffrey Blutinger, Co-Director of the Jewish Studies Program, to be on the committee because he teaches the subject.
One of the first suggestions Dr. Blutinger made was to organize the conference thematically. Rather than have a Holocaust panel, a Cambodian panel, and a Rwandan panel, the forum should be presented by topics that would span different genocides. The idea was that people may come to the forum because of their interest in a particular genocide and only go to that panel. But if the panels covered a variety of killings, then attendees would come to recognize the similarities in experience across the spectrum. In the end, the forum had a mix: some of the panels were thematic, such as the survivor panel, while others were genocide specific, such as the panel on the Armenian genocide.
The Armenian genocide panel was by far the ‘hottest’ of the topics. There is an active denialist campaign that objects to any presentation of the massacre of the Armenians as genocide, and the organizers of the forum in general, and the historians organizing that panel in particular, faced significant personal attacks. Thankfully, the University stood firm, and those who attended heard a remarkable presentation from Professor Taner Akçam and Professor Richard Hovannisian.
From the beginning, Dr. Blutinger suggested that the first panel be focused on problematizing the concept of genocide and that was the panel with which he was most involved. In addition to Dr. Blutinger, the panel consisted of Dr. Sam Edelman from American Jewish University, and Dr. Cynthia Alvitre from CSULB’s American Indian Studies Program. Dr. Blutinger spoke about how the concept of genocide was developed by Raphael Lemkin, first in reaction to the massacres of the Armenians and then later in response to the Holocaust. He also discussed the problems with the UN definition. Dr. Edelman then spoke about the common qualities of genocide and how one recognizes it. Finally, Dr. Alvitre raised the question of how individuals respond to living and teaching on the site of genocide (there was a systematic campaign in California in the 1800s to exterminate the local population).
Dr. Sauceda, from the CSULB Multicultural Center, argued early on for the need to expand the program from presentations by scholars to include artistic responses to genocide. He organized a program involving forensic speakers to read excerpts from the works of several of our featured speakers. Dr. Blutinger contacted Dr. Yale Strom, who is currently teaching at San Diego State University. In addition to being an accomplished musician, Dr. Strom has researched the musical traditions of Jews and Roma (gypsy) in Central and Eastern Europe. He performed a selection of musical pieces created by Jewish and Roma survivors that conveyed without words the pain of the Holocaust and Porrajmos (the Roma word for the Nazi genocide).
The organizers took great pains to bring students into the forum. In fact, students participated in the planning, organizing, and publicity for the forum, with students in the arts designing the banners, website, and the campus art installation. The latter consisted of thousands of red stakes, hammered into the ground around campus and in the quad in particular. The idea was that these stakes would interrupt the daily routines of people on campus. In some areas, only a few stakes could be seen, in other areas, several, and in the main quad, there was a whole field of stakes. Several students said that it was the stakes that first drew their attention to the forum.
The forum itself was very well attended, with many students from on and off campus. Many faculty members encouraged their students to come and some professors, including Dr. Blutinger, cancelled classes that day and required the students to attend the forum.
Dr. Blutinger’s work on this forum flowed out of his larger responsibilities as Co-Director of CSULB’s Jewish Studies Program. Founded in 1999, the Jewish Studies Program has grown by leaps and bounds. This semester, for example, the Program is offering 9 courses, with a total enrollment of 250 students, including 22 students in Beginning Hebrew class. The Jewish Studies Program offers both a major and a minor, and the Program is very pleased that they can finally begin to assist students financially with annual awards. Most of the Jewish Studies students work full or part time, so this sort of assistance is greatly needed.
In addition to the courses, the Jewish Studies Program also sponsors a series of 4 public lectures a semester as part of a speakers’ series. They are also co-organizers and co-sponsors of the annual Long Beach Jewish Film Festival, which was held in February at CSULB’s University Theater. The Film Festival screens four feature films and one short. This year’s event sold approximately a thousand tickets. The Jewish Studies Program is currently organizing a panel on hate groups and hate speech in Southern California, which will be held in April at the University Student Union.
