January 16, 2022

Tu B’Shevat, The New Year of Trees

The celebration of Tu B’Shevat is the New Year of Trees, which is one of the four New Years referenced in the Mishnah or Mishna. This is a minor Jewish Holiday in modern times serving as a tree planting festival and celebration.

January 18, 2022

Let Me Be Myself, an exhibit at the UI Old Capitol Museum

Curated by the Anne Frank Center USA, this exhibit provides an in-depth history of Frank and her family and connects Anne’s experiences to those of contemporary teens who have experienced prejudice and discrimination. Later in the spring, the exhibit will travel to half a dozen Iowa communities, courtesy of funding from UI International Programs.

January 27, 2022

International Holocaust Remembrance Day

The United Nations General Assembly designated January 27—the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau—as International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

On this annual day of commemoration, the UN urges every member state to honor the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust and millions of other victims of Nazism and to develop educational programs to help prevent future genocides.

Share your reflections about International Holocaust Remembrance Day on social media using #WeRemember.

February 28, 2022

Writing Contest Deadline

The Iowa Youth Writing Project is overseeing a worldwide writing competition that uses Frank’s experience of being in hiding as a prompt for teenaged authors: “Write about a time when you felt isolated or trapped. How did you work through that time, and what did you learn from the experience?”

February 28, 2022

WorldCanvass: Teaching Anne Frank

UI International Programs’ WorldCanvass series, hosted by Joan Kjaer, engages guests from diverse disciplines in thoughtful conversation about questions and issues of global reach and personal impact. On February 28, from 5:30 to 7:00 p.m., an expert panel will address questions about the place of Anne Frank’s personal experience in public history and reflect on the ways in which her story helps educate 21st century students not only to a better understanding of history but to thoughtful consideration of today’s human rights issues. Panelists will include Ronald Leopold, director of the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam; Doyle Stevick of the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Understanding at the University of South Carolina; Stephanie Morris of the Refugee Alliance of Central Iowa; and UI faculty members Kirsten Kumpf Baele, Lisa Heineman, and others.

The event is free and open to the public and will be live-streamed (in-person location TBD).

February 28–March 2, 2022

Provost’s Global Forum: Teaching Anne Frank

The Provost’s Global Forum (PGF), sponsored by UI International Programs, is the premier annual event on campus focused on international and global issues. The forum brings faculty experts together with national and international thought teachers from a variety of fields to raise awareness about and contribute to debate on the foremost issues of the day. The forum’s keynote, the Joel Barkan Memorial Lecture (March 2, 5:30 p.m.), will be given by Ronald Leopold, director of the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. More information will available on the PGF website as it becomes available. 

All PGF events are free and open to the public.

March 1, 2022

Women’s History Month Lecture by Jeannette Gabrielle

The Iowa Women’s Archives (IWA) will host its annual Women’s History Month lecture with a focus on Jewish history. Jeannette Gabrielle, Director of the Schwalb Center for Israel and Jewish Studies at the University of Nebraska Omaha, started the Jewish Women in Iowa Project as a graduate assistant with the IWA. She spent several years collecting materials and building relationships with Jewish families in Iowa and neighboring Midwestern states. Her talk, tentatively titled “Welcoming the Immigrants: Refugee Resettlement in Jewish Iowa,” will be given at the Iowa City Public Library on March 1 at 4:00 p.m.

TBA

In Line for Anne Frank Film Screening

Details forthcoming.

April 29, 2022

Tree Planting Ceremony

The Anne Frank Sapling will be planted on Arbor Day 2022 on the University of Iowa Pentacrest. The planting ceremony will be a public event. For more details, visit the Planting Ceremony page.