Allison B. Wolf

With all the chaos in the world at the moment, California State University, Northridge’s sixth annual Maurice Amado Foundation Lecture in Jewish Ethics will explore why the injustice currently occurring in U.S. immigration facilities deserves attention.

Respected feminist ethicist Allison B. Wolf notes that between 2010 and 2018, 74 people died in U.S. immigration detention facilities, and at least 10 women miscarried due to their treatment while in custody in those same facilities. Wolf’s lecture on Thursday, Feb. 7,  will explore why the Jewish community has a special obligation to condemn these incidents and take action to ensure they don’t happen again.

“Immigration is at the center of recent American political discourse, and often, what we hear in the news does not help us understand the depth and breadth of the issue,” said associate professor Jennifer Thompson, CSUN’s Maurice Amado Professor of Applied Jewish Ethics and Civic Engagement. “We hear only a sentence or two from people who are for it and people who are against it. Professor Wolf will help the audience grasp what is at stake for individuals directly involved in immigration to the U.S., as well as what is at stake for us as moral human beings.”

The Amado Lecture, which is free and open to the public, is scheduled to take place at 7:30 p.m. at Valley Beth Shalom Synagogue, located at 15739 Ventura Blvd. in Encino.

Wolf, a San Fernando Valley native, has taught and lectured in Costa Rica, Colombia and Argentina and across the United States. A professor of philosophy at Simpson College in Iowa, Wolf has published widely on feminist medical ethics, feminist comparative philosophy and feminist immigration justice. She is writing a book on immigration justice in the Americas.

The Amado Lecture is part of the mission of the CSUN Jewish Studies Interdisciplinary Program’s endowed professorship, which was created to promote teaching and scholarship that draws on Sephardic, Ashkenazi and other Jewish traditions.

CSUN offers a major and minor in Jewish studies. The program explores the rich heritage of the Jewish people. Using the methods of different academic disciplines, it examines the experiences of Jews in the many lands in which they have lived over the past 4,000 years, as well as contemporary Jewish life in Israel, Europe, Asia and the Americas.

To reserve a seat or for more information about the Amado Lecture, call (818) 677-4742 or email jewish.studies@csun.edu.

Allison B. Wolf, Immigration, Immigration and Injustice, Jewish interdisciplinary studies program, Maurice Amado Foundation Lecture