Michael Casper Granted Prestigious Fellowship at The Center for Jewish History in New York City

PRESS RELEASE

Michael Casper awarded the Lillian Goldman Fellowship for the 2015 – 2016 academic year

NEW YORK – July 14, 2015 – Michael Casper, a doctoral candidate in History at the University of California, Los Angeles, has been named a 2015 – 2016 Lillian Goldman Fellow at the Center for Jewish History – the home to the world’s largest and most comprehensive archive of the modern Jewish experience outside of Israel. Casper will use his new position to conduct original research on Jewish politics and culture in interwar Lithuania for a period of ten months.

A former Fulbright fellow in Lithuania, Casper’s research will explore Jewish national belonging in Lithuania’s interwar period, a time notable for the autonomy extended to minorities.

“I congratulate this new class of Fellows and invite them to use our more than five miles of collection materials to enrich their studies,” said Joel Levy, president and CEO of the Center for Jewish History. “The Center for Jewish History is a unique institution, and these Fellowships offer an extraordinary opportunity to help promising individuals –focused on Jewish studies and beyond – learn and grow as scholars.”

Now in its 14th year, the Center’s Fellowship program offers financial support to humanities scholars, across different stages of their careers. This distinguished community of scholars has used the Center’s resources to produce scholarship that adds to historical knowledge and advances the field of Jewish Studies. Fellows have published their work in leading presses and journals and hold positions at prestigious universities and cultural institutions in the US, Europe, and Israel.

Fellows work on their individual projects, while attending weekly meetings. They present the results of their research through an informal seminar, and submit a final report upon completion of their assignment.

About the Center for Jewish History

The Center for Jewish History in New York City illuminates history, culture, and heritage. The Center provides a collaborative home for five partner organizations: American Jewish Historical Society, American Sephardi Federation, Leo Baeck Institute, Yeshiva University Museum, and YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.

The partners’ archives comprise the world’s largest and most comprehensive archive of the modern Jewish experience outside of Israel. The collections span 700 years, with more than 5 miles of archival documents (in dozens of languages and alphabet systems), more than 500,000 volumes, as well as thousands of artworks, textiles, ritual objects, recordings, films, and photographs.

The Center’s experts are leaders in unlocking archival material for a wide audience through the latest practices in digitization, library science, and public education. As one of the world’s foremost research institutions, the Center offers fellowships, a wide array of exhibitions, symposia, conferences and lectures. The Center is a Smithsonian Affiliate, and is a partner of the Google Cultural Institute.

The Center for Jewish History is home to the Lillian Goldman Reading Room, Ackman & Ziff Family Genealogy Institute, The David Berg Rare Book Room and The Collection Management & Conservation Wing. Public programs create opportunities for diverse audiences to explore the rich historical and cultural material that lives within the Center’s walls.