Public Speaking

Stav is an accomplished historian, researcher and academic, experienced at public speaking both in-person and online. She has presented her talks in academic conferences, festivals, museums, synagogues and institutions worldwide, such as the Leo Baeck Institute (NY), Manchester Jewish Museum (UK), University of Sheffield (UK), Paideia – The European Institute for Jewish Studies (Sweden), and many more.
Stav can be booked to present the following talks in her unique style, blending historical knowledge and little-known anecdotes with mini-performances.

לחצו כאן למידע על ההרצאות בעברית

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"Circus Jews Under National Socialism"

Stav Meishar, a circus artist and academic, has spent the last decade extensively researching the history of Jewish circus families in Germany from before and during the Nazi regime.
Tracing their legacies back to the golden age of circus, this talk charts the successes of the Jewish circus families, their tours and their specialty acts, painting a vivid picture of their legacies. Together we will discover their fates, as people and as businesses, throughout the years of the Nazi regime Telling these stories with sensitivity and humor, the talk includes photos from personal albums, recorded testimonies, and personal stories.
This historic talk is woven with excerpts from Stav's show "The Escape Act: A Holocaust Memoir", is based on one of these stories — that of Irene Danner-Storm, a Jewish acrobat whose family survived WWII hiding in a German circus, offering insight into the process of transforming historic research into performance. 

"Oy Slay! The History of Jewish Drag"

The TV show RuPaul's Drag Race brought drag culture to the mainstream, and with it some fierce Jewish queens such as Sasha Velour and Jinkx Monsoon. But this art form has a long and diverse history going back centuries and across many cultures - as a performance practice, as personal expression, as survival, as rebellion and revolution. 
Going back to biblical times we will trace the subversive roots of cross-dressing in ancient texts, move through the traditions of drag queens and kings in Yiddish diaspora theatre, visit modern day gender-bending drag in prime-time TV and examine sabra drag among the LGBTQIA+ Israeli community.
Expect Torah study alongside lip-sync performances, comedy sketches side-by-side with yiddishkeit, and a butt load of educational, enlightening, entertaining queer fun!
To hear a radio interview with Stav about this talk click here.

"SwastiKabaret: Nazi Representations
in Musical Theatre"

In 1959 came "The Sounds of Music": a sweet tale of a singing family, but also a first portrayal of the Nazi threat at a time when it was still uncommon to address its memory. In 1966 the revolutionary musical "Cabaret" went a step further by putting these atrocities at its center, utilising bold tools to defy Nazi propaganda. A few decades later Mel Brooks adapted his film "The Producers" (1967) into a musical, getting revenge on Hitler using a weapon that he had used his entire life - humor.
What disagreements arose about the display of swastikas on the stage of "Sound of Music"? Why were the Jewish creators of "Cabaret" accused of antisemitism? And is there any possibility to regard Hitler with humor? We will watch excerpts from these works and analyse these questions together. 
Stav holds a BFA in Musical Theatre and will weave her musical skills into the program - and you, too, are invited to sing along!

"LGBTQ+ Jews
in Film & Television"

From "Angels in America" to "Transparent", from "Bent" to "Yentl", we will set out to explore the intersection of Jewish identities and queer identities in fictional characters from the worlds of film and television.
​Are these identities separate or influence each other? Do they stand in juxtaposition or do they complement each other? What does it mean for these characters to be Jewish AND Queer, and how does it shape their trajectories?
​We will watch excerpts from these works (warning: contains spoilers!) and analyse these questions together using biblical, contemporary and academic texts, layering Jewish history, Jewish thought, midrash and more in our deconstructing and reconstructing of these characters' journeys.
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*This talk is also available as a 8-12 week course.

"The Jewish Storytellers of Broadway: Musicals' Jewish Lyricists & Composers"

A fascinating and entertaining talk exploring Jewish composers and lyricists in Musical Theatre, from the early 20th century through to today. Together we will learn about the Jewish roots of Musicals and the life stories of the visionaries who shaped the genre and influenced it, in ways both visible and invisible. How did these artists' Jewish heritage find its way into their creations? What was the wider societal context of their groundbreaking work, as experienced then and re-examined now? Alongside historic and cultural analysis expect many delightful viewings of songs and scenes from the repertoire of these Jewish legends. Stav holds a BFA in Musical Theatre and will occasionally weave her musical skills into the program - and you, too, are invited to sing along!

*This talk is also available as a 8-12 week course .

"Papa Can You Queer Me: Funny Girl, Yentl and Barbra Through a Queer Lens"

Growing up in Brooklyn, the Jewish singer-actor-comedienne Barbra Streisand burst onto the screen in Funny Girl (1968) with a performance that went on to enshrine a persona and catapult her to fame. Fifteen years later Streisand would produce, write, and step into the director's chair for the very first time with Yentl (1983). An adaptation of an Isaac Bashevis Singer story, its heroine Yentl disguises herself as a man in order to study Torah. Whereas the short story can be read as a transgender narrative, the movie erases much of this gender-queerness by taking on more of a feminist approach. 
Can Yentl be read from a polyamorous gaze? Can Funny Girl trace something of the stakes for Jewish women's bodies? By examining Streisand's status as a camp and gay icon, we will argue the subjectivities of the queer-Jew connection. 

"The Borscht Belt: Memories
​of Jewish America's Vacation Eden"

The Borscht Belt was the colloquial term for the Jewish resorts and bungalow colonies that dotted the Catskill Mountains in NY, providing a popular vacation spot for New York City Jews from the 1920s through the 1960s. Famously revisited as the setting for Dirty Dancing (1987) and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (2018), the Borscht Belt once offered a wide range of options for Jewish families seeking to escape the city during the hot summer months, and kickstarted the careers of legendary Jewish comedians like Woody Allen, Mel Brooks, and Joan Rivers. By the late 1950s many began closing, with most gone by the 1970. Left for nature to reclaim, urban photographers came and captured the decay and abandonment.
This lecture explores the history of these resorts within an anthropological and historical context; reconstructs its worlds of leisure, comedic entertainment, and socialization; and examines its cultural effects on film, TV and comedy today.

"Ziratron: The First Israeli Circus"

New young country, national ethos, pilgrims, something out of nothing, blooming the desert...

​https://www.maariv.co.il/culture/theater-art/Article-891682

"Jewish Roots of Surrealism and Dadaism"

Marcel Janko co-founder of Dada, Man Ray... Lee Miller? Talk to mom

"Queer Jewish Visual Artists"

Gluck (Hannah Gluckstein), Claude Cahun, Ralph Lauren?, Yael Bartana, Diane Arbus, Annie Leibowitz, Lisette Model, Nicole Eisenman,