This lecture examines a particularly brutal wave a violence that occurred across hundreds of predominantly Polish and Ukrainian communities in the aftermath of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. The dominant explanations for pogrom violence center around three most frequently cited causes: endemic antisemitism in Eastern European societies, a desire for revenge for alleged...
The deaths and deportations that accompanied the destruction of the Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 587 BCE mark the turning point in the arc of biblical narrative. The book of Ezra-Nehemiah describes the reconstruction of life in Judah in the aftermath that catastrophe. It is the only book in the Hebrew Bible to depict this...
In Antisemitism, an American Tradition Pamela S. Nadell, the Patrick Clendenen Chair in Women's and Gender history at American University, recounts the powerful story of antisemitism in America and how it has shaped the lives of Jews for almost four centuries. Indeed, Jews have met antisemitism since first landing in New Amsterdam in 1654 when...
In this book, Steven Fraade explores the practice and conception of multilingualism and translation in ancient Judaism. Interrogating the deep and dialectical relationship between them, he situates representative scriptural and other texts within their broader synchronic - Greco-Roman context, as well as diachronic context - the history of Judaism and beyond. Neither systematic nor comprehensive,...
Frances Tanzer will discuss her new book, Vanishing Vienna: Modernism, Philosemitism, and Jews in a Postwar City (University of Pennsylvania Press), which traces the reconstruction of Viennese culture from the 1938 German Anschluss through the early 1960s. The book reveals continuity in Vienna’s cultural history across this period: a framework for interpreting Viennese culture that...
How did the cosmopolitan bourgeoisie of the Eastern Mediterranean navigate the transition from empire to nation-state in the early twentieth century? In this talk, Paris Papamichos Chronakis shows how the Jewish and Greek merchants of Salonica (present-day Thessaloniki) skillfully managed the tumultuous shift from Ottoman to Greek rule amidst rising ethnic tensions and heightened class...
Before 2010, there were no Israeli horror films. The next decade saw a blossoming of the genre by young Israeli filmmakers. New Israeli Horror is the first book to tell their story and analyze their films, from inception to reception. What triggered this sudden development? Why did Israeli filmmakers turn to horror? How do their...
Until recently, very few people knew about Rokhl Auerbach, a remarkable woman who survived the Holocaust and then dedicated her life to preserving the memories of its victims. Professor Samuel D. Kassow will discuss Auerbach’s memoir Warsaw Testament, which paints a vivid portrait of that city’s prewar Yiddish literary and artistic community atruction at the...
In a little-known chapter of World War II, Black people living in Nazi Germany and occupied Europe were subjected to ostracization, forced sterilization, and incarceration in internment and concentration camps. In the absence of public commemoration, Black writers and visual artists have preserved the stories of these forgotten victims of the Third Reich. Their works...
Through decades of research and powerful interviews, the Mitchell family—a team of disability studies scholars and filmmakers—investigates the Nazi Aktion T4 program, the first Nazi mass killing initiative and precursor to the Holocaust. Featuring conversations with memorial directors, disabled people, and descendants of victims, Disposable Humanity brings to light the forgotten truth that disabled people...