Dialogue and Celebration," the fourth annual summer festival of Jewish culture sponsored by Monmouth University in West Long Branch, will take place on the campus from June 3 through 22.

The festival will include an exhibit of the works of Jacob Landau, an Israeli dance show led by dance master Steve Weintraub, and the screening of The Couple, a film about a German-Jewish industrialist in Nazi Germany.

The festival will also include a panel discussion, "Visions and Divisions in American Jewish Life: Perspectives and Dialogue." Panelists include Rabbi Adam Mintz, a visiting lecturer in Jewish history at Queens College in New York and a doctoral candidate in early modern Jewish history at New York University; Rabbi Neil Gillman, a scholar-in-residence in many Conservative and Reform congregations and a member of the Commission on the Philosophy of Conservative Judaism; Rabbi Richard Hirsh, the executive director of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association; and Rabbi Ruth Gais, director of New York Kollel and the Hebrew Union College Center for Adult Jewish Study.

The panel will be moderated by Rabbi Robert Fine, interim rabbi at Temple Beth Torah in Ocean Township.

The Jacob Landau exhibit is part of a collaboration between Monmouth University and the Jacob Landau Institute in Roosevelt.

"We all need exposure to art, and that is becoming more difficult as public programs are cut back," said MU president Paul G. Gaffney II. "That is why this show is such a terrific opportunity. As Jacob Landau so memorably said, ‘Without art, we are an endangered and endangering species.'"

Landau, who died in 2001 at age 85, studied at the Philadelphia College of Art, the New School in New York, and the Academies Julian and Grande Chamiere in Paris. In 1955, Landau became part of an artists' enclave in Roosevelt, where he lived and worked for the rest of his life. His work has been displayed in exhibitions throughout the world and is included in the permanent collections of educational institutions and museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum, the Biblioteque Nationale, the National Gallery, and the Library of Congress.

The university's Jewish Culture Festival presents a model that embraces the Jewish and non-Jewish communities, according to Prof. Saliba Sarsar, associate vice president of academic program initiatives and a program coordinator of the festival.

"We try to embrace diversity," he said. "Diversity is a powerful voice that can bring people together."

The program, now in its fourth year, offers a showcase of religious values, culture, art, and personal stories, Sarsar added.

The festival was organized by Monmouth University's Jewish Culture Program and department of academic program initiatives and Temple Beth El and was funded by the university, ARAMARK Charitable Trust, Amboy National Bank, Temple Beth El, and the B'nai Sholom/Beth El Foundation.

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Festival highlights