From Lithuania to Santiniketan: Schlomith Flaum and Rabindranath Tagore

 

A presentation and discussion around the new book

 

 

 

Speakers: Dr. Shimon Lev, author, writer, researcher and author of Soulmates: The Story of Mahatma Gandhi and Hermann Kallenbach (2012); Prof. Radha Chakravarty, writer, critic & translator, co-editor of The Essential Tagore; Faina Kukliansky, Chair of the Lithuanian Jewish Community; and Sharon Lowen, well-known Odissi dancer

 

 

 

Welcome address: H.E. Mr. Daniel Carmon, Ambassador of Israel; and H.E. Mr. Laimonas Talat-Kelpša, Ambassador of Lithuania

 

 

 

Moderator: Dr. Vidya Shankar Aiyar, media expert and independent analyst

 

 

 

Schlomith Flaum (1893 – 1963) was an educator and kindergarten teacher, who during her extensive travels to the Middle East, Europe, North America, South Africa and Asia, mainly focused on studying modern methods of education for young children. Her journeys led her to meeting many important and exceptional personalities, however, it was the Rabindranath Tagore who became the most important and influential figure in her life. Her stay of almost two years in India and Santiniketan saw her deeply involved in the world of creativity and intellectual thinking and devoted most of her publications to Tagore.

 

 

 

Unfortunately, Schlomith Flaum’s name is probably known today only by a few scholars around the world. Her accounts have been recently published in English and gives a vivid, first-hand account of Tagore, Santiniketan and Visva Bharati. She emerges as an exceptional woman of Jewish Lithuanian origin who discovered her “true identity” as an “Asiatic” during her stay with Tagore and Santiniketan

 

 

 

(Collaboration: Embassy of Lithuania; Embassy of Israel)