Between Two Worlds: Jewish War Brides After the Holocaust - Robin Judd

Facing the harrowing task of rebuilding a life in the wake of the Holocaust, many Jewish survivors, community and religious leaders, and Allied soldiers viewed marriage between Jews and military personnel as a way to move forward after unspeakable loss. Proponents believed that these unions were more than a ticket out of war-torn Europe: they would help the Jewish people repopulate after their attempted annihilation. Historian Robin Judd, whose grandmother survived the Holocaust and married an American soldier after liberation, introduces us to the survivors who lived through genocide and went on to wed military personnel after the war. She offers an intimate portrait of how these unions emerged and developed—from meeting and courtship to marriage and immigration to life in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom—and shows how they helped shape the postwar world. The stories Judd tells capture how the exhilaration of the early romances coexisted with survivor’s guilt, grief, and apprehension at the challenges of starting a new life in a new land.

Robin Judd is a professor of History at The Ohio State University where she teaches courses in Holocaust studies, the history of antisemitism, and the history of leadership, and directs the Hoffman Leaders and Leadership in History program. She is the author of Contested Rituals: Circumcision, Kosher Butchering, and German-Jewish Political Life in Germany, 1843-1933 and Between Two Worlds: Jewish War Brides After the Holocaust, which garnered two National Jewish Book Awards and was named a finalist for the 2024 Ohioana non-fiction award. In recognition of her work in Holocaust studies, Governor Dewine appointed her to Ohio’s Holocaust and Genocide Memorial and Education Commission in 2021. Professor Judd is now Chair of the Leo Baeck Institute’s Faculty Advisory Board and past President of the Association for Jewish Studies.

Tuesday, May 13, 2025 • 314 Royce Hall • 2 PM
Between Two Worlds: Jewish War Brides After the Holocaust
The 1939 Society Program in Holocaust Studies

Robin Judd (Ohio State University)
Moderator: Jared McBride (UCLA)