Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism - Faculty

Joan Bieder

SENIOR LECTURER & ASSOCIATE DEAN

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Phone: (510) 642-4798

TEACHING Joan Bieder teaches core courses in television reporting and producing. Before coming to Berkeley, she taught print and broadcast journalism at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism in New York and spent a decade as a producer at ABC-TV Network News. In her Introductory and Advanced Television sequence at Berkeley, students learn the basic skills of reporting, producing, shooting, editing and writing for non-fiction television. She also teaches the two-semester Long Form Television course where second year students produce their Masters project required for graduation as well as a freshman seminar on Aspects of Television News. Over the past few years graduate students in these classes have traveled widely: to Afghanistan, Mexico, France, New Zealand, China, India, Ramallah, Ecuador, Cuba, Bolivia, Guatemala, Burma, Sierre Leone, Italy and Ghana; as well as throughout the United States to report and shoot their stories.

RESEARCH Joan Bieder spent several summers working as a consultant to television news companies in Singapore where she trained reporters and producers. In Singapore she began an historical study of a minority community that resulted in a book, The Jews of Singapore, published by Suntree Media in November 2007. The Jews of Singapore traces the roots of Singapore Jewry from is biblical Baghdadi Sephardic origins to its Singapore beginnings around 1830 to the present. Her research was supported by grants from UC Berkeley and the Jacob Ballas Estate. She has produced a video on Singapore Jewry and presented numerous papers on the topic at academic conferences and Jewish Book Fairs in the United States, Canada, Israel and Singapore. She will present papers entitled: "A Century of Changing Identities: Jewish Women of Singapore" at the Western Jewish Studies Conference in Denver in April 2009 and at the 15th Annual Jewish Studies Congress in Jerusalem in August 2009.

Books by Joan Bieder

The Jews of Singapore

Many would be surprised to learn that Singapore has been home to a thriving Jewish community for almost 170 years - and even more surprised to hear that the community traces its roots to Baghdad. Iraq. What brought this group of Jewish pioneers from Baghdad to an Asian Island in the South Pacific? How did a group of Judeo-Arab speaking immigrants in long exotic robes get along with their Malayan, Chinese, Indian and Indonesian neighbors? How did they survive World War II as prisoners in Japanese internment camps, even forming a camp "university" for a time, and why was it that, when the survivors emerged ragged and starved from the camps, a former Jewish prisoner led the colony to independence from British rule?

Joan weaves together information from interviews, oral histories, memoirs, personal letters, family documents, photographs, correspondence and government records from Singapore, Israeli, Dutch and British archives, and traces the history of its larger-than-life leaders and its everyday families through almost two centuries of trials and triumphs. The book reveals how Jewish community members in Singapore suffered, survived and prospered to the present time.

For information about purchasing the book in the United States, please send email.

View the PDF book brochure

View full book jacket as PDF

Sr. Lecturer Joan Bieder Publishes Book on the Jews of Singapore Sr. Lecturer Joan Bieder's new book, "The Jews of Singapore," documents the history and heritage of the Sephardic Jewish community that immigrated to Singapore from Baghdad 170 years ago. Illustrated with 450 images, maps and documents,the book is a detailed account of the orthodox Baghdadi community that still thrives in Singapore today and the contributions members made both to the colony and the Republic. The author tells the story by weaving together information from interviews, oral histories, memoirs, personal letters, family documents photographs, correspondence and government records from Singapore, Israeli, Dutch and British archives.

REVIEW by Select Books, Singapore (Jan 2008)
"...a substantial addition to Jewish and Singaporean heritage literature. Archival documents and photographs, family records and memories, personal interviews, and research locally and abroad are incorporated in the account of the history of Singapore's Jews and the part they have played in the country's life and development. The Community's background and beginnings are traced from the arrival of the first known Jewish merchant in the 1830s and the 1841 successful application of "six Jewish merchants from Baghdad" to establish a place of worship (along today's Synagogue Street) and a cemetery. The 18 chapters explore many aspects of Jewish life including: why Jews emigrated to - and at times from - Singapore; Jewish identity in Singapore; the rich/poor and other social stratifications; occupations and lifestyles of both the mega-rich and the sometimes very poor majority; Jewish experience in World War I and World War II in the hardships of internment and afterwards; the lives of women; the significance within and outside the Community of notable personalities including Abraham Solomon (1798-1884), Sir Manasseh Meyer (1843-1930), David Marshall (1908-1995), Jacob Ballas (1920-2000), and Mozelle Nissim (1883-1975); Jewish rites, beliefs, and buildings; and also the recent growth and revitalisation of Jewish education and life in Singapore. With bibliography and references."

Stories by Joan Bieder

Einstein in Singapore
For onthepage.org, Senior Lecturer Joan Bieder covers her discovery of a little-known and long forgotten trip that Professor Albert Einstein made to the Jewish community of Singapore in 1922. With accompanying photograph.
Posted August 30, 2006

Dispatch from Burma
For FRONTLINE/World, Professor Joan Bieder's dispatch from Burma titled "Can US Sanctions Bring Democracy to Burma." Includes text and photos of her reporting trip to Myanmar in summer 2004.
Posted August 31, 2004

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