Thomas Mann House Events
Presentation and Conversation with “ALFA - A Land for All”
Thomas Mann House
Language: English ・ Only by Invitation
Info
2025 Thomas Mann Fellow and Islamic Studies scholar Sonja Hegasy will be in conversation with Omar Dajani and Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller to talk about the initiative “A Land for All: Two States, One Homeland,” founded in 2012. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A.
“A Land for All” (ALFA) is a joint Israeli-Palestinian political initiative founded by people who know the conflict in their daily life. Together, they have crafted a new shared political vision rejecting zero-sum thinking on complex issues like Jerusalem, settlements, and refugees. ALFA proposes a confederation model with gradual steps toward freedom of movement and residence for all Israelis and Palestinians across a shared homeland. The model offers national self-determination without domination, shared governance without erasing identity, and security without subjugation.
Participants
Sonja Hegasy is Deputy Director of the Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient in Berlin. She studied Arabic and Islamic Studies at Columbia University and completed her doctorate in political science at FU Berlin. In 2019–2021, she held the professorship for Postcolonial Studies at the Barenboim-Said Akademie in Berlin. In 2023, she was a Senior Fellow at the M.S. Merian – R. Tagore International Centre of Advanced Studies “Metamorphoses of the Political” in Delhi.
Omar M. Dajani is the Carol Olson Professor of International Law at McGeorge School of Law, University of the Pacific in California. He is also the immediate past co-chair of the joint board of A Land for All, on which he continues to serve. Previously, Omar served as a legal adviser to the Palestinian negotiating team in peace talks with Israel from 1999 to 2001, participating in the summits at Camp David and Taba. He received his B.A. from Northwestern University and his J.D. from Yale Law School.
Chaim Seidler-Feller has been associated with Hillel for over 50 years and has celebrated forty years of working with students and faculty as the Executive Director of the Yitzhak Rabin Hillel Center for Jewish Life at UCLA. He is currently Director Emeritus. He is currently a faculty member of the Shalom Hartman Institute, North America and is an organizer for "A Land for All" in the U.S. He was a founding member of Americans for Peace Now. Chaim is the author most recently of “The God of Possibilities: From Being to Becoming,” "'Twas the Best of Times, ‘Twas the Worst of Times: Antisemitism, Israel and the Politics of Resentment on the Campus Today,” and “A Return to a Zionism for the Future.”
What is Home? An Interactive Workshop
Los Angeles Poverty Department (250 S Broadway, Los Angeles, CA 90012)
Language: English ・ By invitation only
Info
Participants
Susanne Beyer studied German literature, history and journalism in Bamberg and Vienna. After her vocational training at Deutsche Journalistenschule (DJS), she initially worked as a culture editor at SPIEGEL, a German weekly news magazine and one of the largest such publications in Europe, where she was deputy head of department. She was deputy editor-in-chief of SPIEGEL for four years, then worked as a journalist in SPIEGEL's Berlin office and now writes for the editorial team. Alongside her job, Susanne Beyer is currently training to become a mediator. Beyer is a 2025 Thomas Mann Fellow.
Bjorn Krondorfer has worked with different groups in interactive settings exploring sensitive issues, including memory and trauma relating to the Holocaust, racial diversity on university campuses, and Palestinian/Israeli encounter groups (pre-October 5). He is Regents’ Professor and Director of the Martin-Springer Institute at Northen Arizona University in Flagstaff.
Los Angeles Poverty Department, founded in 1985 by director, performer, and activist John Malpede, is the first arts organization in the nation created by and with people experiencing homelessness, and the first cultural program of any kind for Skid Row, Los Angeles. Rooted in the conviction that the imagination and creativity of Skid Row residents are vital forces for change, LAPD uses theater and other arts to challenge stereotypes, amplify community voices, and address pressing social issues such as housing, drug policy, mass incarceration, and displacement. Through performances, festivals, parades, exhibitions, and its Skid Row History Museum & Archive, LAPD celebrates the resilience and achievements of neighborhood residents while shaping broader policy conversations around poverty and urban development. Its pioneering work has inspired service providers, informed public policy, and created a model for grassroots, arts-based civic engagement recognized nationally and internationally.
Partner
This event is co-presented by the Los Angeles Angeles Poverty Department
In Search of a Common Cause
Los Angeles Public Library (630 W 5th St, Los Angeles, CA 90071)
Language: English
Info
"In Search of a Common Cause: A Conversation with Krista Tippett and Navid Kermani" will feature two renowned thinkers discussing literature, politics, and spirituality in a free and open exchange. Krista Tippett, author and award–winning host of the renowned podcast On Being, has spent her career exploring the spiritual and aesthetic dimensions of life. Navid Kermani, one of Germany’s most acclaimed writers, has recently visited some of the world’s conflict zones, not as a political analyst, but as a literary observer. Their far-ranging conversation will touch on what it means to be a writer in a polarized world, how the concept of “the West” is changing, and how literature, poetry, and religion can foster solidarity in a fractured world. This thought-provoking conversation will be followed by a reception that continues the discussion.
This event will take place at the Mark Taper Auditorium -Central Library, 630 W. Fifth St., Los Angeles, CA 90071.
This event is open to the public and free of charge. Please register here.
This program will be translated by a live ASL interpreter. For ADA accommodations, please call (213) 228-7430 at least 72 hours prior to the event.
Participants
Krista Tippett is a Peabody-award winning broadcaster, National Humanities Medalist, and New York Times bestselling author. She created the groundbreaking public radio show and podcast On Being, which pursues deep thinking, moral imagination, social creativity, and joy towards the renewal of inner life, outer life, and life together. It has won the highest honors in broadcast, Internet and podcasting, and been downloaded over 450 million times. The On Being Project, which Krista founded in 2013, also engages “quiet conversations” to accompany the generative people and possibilities within this tender, tumultuous time to be alive. She received the National Humanities Medal at the White House in 2014 for "thoughtfully delving into the mysteries of human existence. On air and in print, Ms. Tippett avoids easy answers, embracing complexity and inviting people of every background to join her conversation about faith, ethics, and moral wisdom."
Krista grew up in a small town in Oklahoma, attended Brown University, worked as a young journalist and diplomat in Cold War Berlin, and later received a Master of Divinity from Yale. She is the author of three books, most recently Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living.
Navid Kermani is an independent German writer living in Cologne. He studied Middle Eastern Studies, Philosophy, and Theater in Cologne, Cairo, and Bonn, where he received the post-doctoral degree (“Habilitation”). For his literary and academic work, he was awarded numerous prices, inluding the Hannah-Arendt-Price, the Kleist-Price, the Joseph-Breitbach-Preis, the Peace Price of the German Book Trade, the Hölderlin-Price and the Thomas Mann-Price. His literary books are published by Carl Hanser Verlag (German) and Seagull Books (English), his academic and non-fictional works by C. H. Beck (German) and Polity Press (English).
Partner
This event is organized with the Los Angeles Public Library.
