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

"Circus Jews Under National Socialism"

Stav Meishar, a circus artist and academic, has spent over seven years of extensively researching the history of Jewish circus families in Germany from 1880-1945.
Tracing those legacies back to the golden age of circus, this lecture focuses on the three main players in the German-Jewish circus landscape — the families Lorch, Blumenfeld and Strassburger. Together we will chart their successes, their tours and their specialty acts, and discover their fates as the Nazi party rose to power. Telling their stories with sensitivity and humor, this lecture includes photos from personal albums, recorded testimonies, and personal stories.
Meishar weaves this historic lecture with excerpts from her show "The Escape Act: A Holocaust Memoir", which is based on one of the stories she researched — that of Irene Danner-Storm, a Jewish acrobat whose family survived the Holocaust hiding in a German circus, offering insight into the process of transforming historical research into performance.
Join us for a glimpse into a little-known colorful and fascinating world of Jewish circus artistry!

"LGBTQ+ Jews in Film & TV"

From "Angels in America" to "Transparent", from "Bent" to "Yentl", we will explore the intersection of Jewish identities and queer identities in 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 (may contain spoilers) and analyse these questions together using biblical, contemporary and academic texts.

*This talk is also available as a 8-12 week course for high school or university students, extending into film, TV, theater and musical theatre.

"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!

"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.

"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.