The Reclamation of The Papers of Naftali Herts Kon

Ruth Gay Seminar in Jewish Studies Inaugurated in 2008 thanks to a major gift from the family of Ruth Gay, the Ruth Gay Seminar in Jewish Studies was established in honor of Ruth Gay (1922-2006), the noted American Jewish historian and writer. This series is given by scholars who use the YIVO Archives and wish to share their research with the public. Admission: Free Watch the video

Ina Lancman, daughter of Naftali Herts Kon, well-known Yiddish poet and writer, will give a presentation together with Polish attorney Tomasz T. Koncewicz. Lancman will focus on Naftali Herts Kon’s literary career and the stirring story of his persecution and the confiscations of his papers under the Soviet and communist Poland regimes. Koncewicz will present the legal side of the successful court battles he lead on behalf of Ina and her sister Vita Serf to reclaim their father's remaining confiscated papers from the post-communist Polish government. The presentation will be illustrated with manuscript samples and photographs. Ina Lancman and Vita Serf have donated the reclaimed papers to the YIVO Archives.  

About the Speakers

Ina Lancman, a graduate of Warsaw University, Poland, holds a MSc degree in Chemistry. Currently retired, she had enjoyed a long career in the medical field, and is now writing a biography of Natftali Herts Kon.

Tomasz T. Koncewicz, 2017-2018 LAPA Crane Fellow, Program in Law and Public Policy, Princeton University, and Professor of Law and Director of the Department of European and Comparative Law at the Faculty of Law and Administration, University of Gdańsk, specializes in strategic litigation before supranational and the constitutional courts and pleaded test cases, on among others, transitional justice, judicial independence, property restitution, right to court, right to privacy and family life, freedom of expression, non-retroactivity of the law, presumption of innocence, registered partnerships and detention incommunicado. Professor Koncewicz writes extensively on constitutional law, constitutionalism, EU law, human rights, the role of courts in the process of European integration and procedural law. He has authored more than 200 papers and nine books, most recently, Law with the Human Face (2015). His extensive experience in European law includes serving as the référendaire at the Court of the EU in Luxembourg, and as the legal adviser to the Office of the Polish Constitutional Court. Recently he was a Fulbright Visiting Professor at University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, where he co-taught comparative constitutional law; 2017 Visiting Professor at the Radzyner Law School at the Interdisciplinary Centre Herzliya, Israel. Professor Koncewicz received law degrees from the University of Wroclaw and Edinburgh, and is also a graduate of the Academy of European Law in Florence and the Europäische Rechts Akademie in Trier ("Defense Counsel before the International Criminal Court"). His project while at LAPA is entitled, “The politics of resentment, European disintegration and constitutional capture: Rethinking the European overlapping consensus?”