Ithaca College

Join Hillel in the Gathering Hall of Muller Chapel for its last Global Faces of Judaism speaker on Tuesday, March 26th at 5pm. A vegetarian, Iraqi-inspired dinner will be provided. 

The speaker for the evening will be Cynthia Kaplan Shamash, who is a leading advocate for the preservation of Iraqi Jewish history. Cynthia has spoken at many venues about this topic including the United Nations. She is also the author of The Strangers We Became: Lessons in Exile from One of Iraq's Last Jews.

Cynthia's family left Iraq in the early 1970s. They were among the last Jewish residents of Baghdad, a city that had been over 25% Jewish just a few decades before. Like tens of thousands of other Jews, Cynthia's family was forced out of Iraq due to state-sponsored persecution. This persecution ultimately put an end to the world's oldest Diaspora community, but not the memory or traditions of Iraqi Jews. 

Individuals with disabilities requiring accommodations should contact Austin Reid at areid1@ithaca.edu. We ask that requests for accommodations be made as soon as possible.