Jewish Studies Commons^™

Austrian Again Book Talk, Cardozo Law Institute In Holocaust And Human Rights (Clihhr), Anne Hand, Evelyn Konrad

2025–2026 Flyers

The Cardozo Law Institute in Holocaust and Human Rights hosted a special book talk featuring author Anne Hand, discussing her memoir Austrian Again. In her book, Hand explores her journey to uncover her family’s hidden history during the Holocaust while pursuing Austrian citizenship, tracing her Austrian and Czechoslovakian roots through personal stories and historical records.

The program also featured Evelyn Konrad, Cardozo alumna and Holocaust survivor, who joined the conversation and shared her personal reflections. Moderated by Konrad, the event examined themes of identity, migration, heritage, and historical memory.

The Religious Groups Of Mecca And Medina In The Sixth And Seventh Centuries Ce, Ilkka Linstedt

Abdou Filali-Ansary Occasional Paper Series

Ancient and modern urban centres have been important loci for encounters between individuals of different identities. In this article, I present Mecca and Medina as multi-religious towns in the pre-Islamic and early Islamic periods of the sixth and seventh centuries ce. Mecca was a very small town, but the Kaaba shrine there served as a regional pilgrimage site that drew people from different faith communities. Medina was a larger settlement with a significant Jewish population. Jews, Christians and others (‘pagans’) lived in both towns. Some of these ‘others’ had also adopted some of the basic ideas of monotheism, although they …

1) Sing And Rejoice, O Daughter Of Zion (Zechariah 2:14)- Studies In Pesiqta Rabbati, Rivka Ulmer

Faculty Books

Chapters focusing on different aspects of Pesiqta Rabbati, a midrashic homiletic work, encompassing semiotic theories, prophesies, apocalypticism, halakhic issues, Chanukah, global theories of midrash, Hebrew manuscripts. messiah, scriptural quotations, mashal, historical issues, Greek loanwords, Parma, Casanata, JTS, Genizah, Vienna, and versions.

Trauma Beyond Time: Temporal Constructs In Holocaust Testimonies, Sarah Seiselmyer-Snyder

Purdue University Press Books

Trauma Beyond Time: Temporal Constructs in Holocaust Testimonies challenges our understanding of what it means to be a Holocaust survivor, arguing that the term “post-Holocaust” fundamentally misrepresents survivors’ experiences. Through careful analysis of Holocaust literature and testimony, this book reveals how trauma persists across generations, defying conventional historical timelines. For those who perished, there can be no “after” to the Holocaust—their stories were violently ended. Yet for survivors, the Holocaust didn’t simply conclude in 1945. Their experiences demonstrate how trauma continues to shape lives decades later, making “post-Holocaust” a misleading concept that fails to capture their ongoing reality. Using the …

A Shattered World: Jews And Israel After October 7, Michael Berenbaum, Gilbert N. Kahn

The Jewish Role in American Life: An Annual Review

October 7, 2023, was a watershed event in contemporary Jewish history. What took place on that date challenged the two most basic assumptions of post-Holocaust Jewish life: that the future security of the Jewish people would be assured by an independent Jewish state backed by an army, and that the freedom for Jews in the Diaspora to live as Jews would be secured by democratic rights and liberties. The pogroms of October 7 and the worldwide explosion of antisemitism that followed—even preceding Israel taking military action against Hamas—challenged both assumptions. The Israel Defense Forces could not prevent a slaughter from …

The Ravine Of Memory: Babyn Yar Between The Holocaust And The Great Patriotic War, Shay A. Pilnik

Purdue University Press Books

The Nazis and their collaborators buried over 100,000 victims at Babyn Yar, a ravine in modern-day Ukraine. Most of the individuals were Jewish, making this area one of the most infamous mass murder sites in history. The Ravine of Memory starts when the travesty ends, telling the story of the ravine’s memory and forgetting in Soviet literature and culture—in Russian as well as in Yiddish. This book challenges the prevailing binary conceptions of Babyn Yar as exclusively a Holocaust or a “Great Patriotic War” story. It is neither the exclusive product of Soviet censorship nor individual dissidents. Babyn Yar is …

Rescue Of Memory, Samuel P. Oliner, Ronnie Swartz

Trade & Scholarly Monographs

What motivates people to help, to care, to risk their own lives for others? What differentiates rescuers, helpers, carers, and bystanders?

There is no single explanation. Anyone who offers you a single explanation of why people do good things is oversimplifying. Empathy is very important. So is courage. And compassion. Bystanders, I want to impress on you, are not evil people; they are not people who should be put in a ship and sent to outer space. They are also good human beings, but they have not internalized some of the ethics of caring, of social responsibility, of knowing. They …

Justice And Restitution In Post-Nazi Romania: Rebuilding Jewish Lives And Communities, 1944-1950, Stefan Cristian Ionescu

History Faculty Books and Book Chapters

On 23rd August 1944, following the collapse of the pro-Nazi dictatorship of Ion Antonescu, Romania changed sides and abandoned the Axis to join the Allies. Justice and Restitution in Post-Nazi Romania explores the hopes, struggles and disappointments of Jewish communities in Romania seeking to rebuild their lives after the Holocaust. Focusing on the efforts of survivors to recuperate rights and property, Stefan Cristian Ionescu demonstrates how the early transitional government enabled short term restitution. However, from 1948, the consolidated communist regime implemented nationalizations which dispossessed many citizens. Jewish communities were disproportionality affected, and real estate and many businesses were lost …

Fruit Of The Land, Aviya Cammy, Justin Cammy

Jewish Studies: Faculty Books

Edited by: Asaf Romirowsky, Donna Robinson Divine

New Trends In The Study Of Haredi Culture And Society, David N. Myers, Nechumi Malovicki-Yaffe

The Jewish Role in American Life: An Annual Review

Who are Haredim? And why are they the source of both increasing attention and continuing misunderstanding? New Trends in the Study of Haredi Culture and Society draws on the innovative research of leading scholars from a variety of disciplines—including history, religious studies, demography, linguistics, and geography—to trace the growing prominence of Haredi (often called ultra-Orthodox) Jews in Jewish life. Haredi Jews are committed to preserving a measure of segregation from the rest of society consistent with the guiding principles of their forebears; yet increasingly, they are appearing more visibly and assertively in public spaces. Demographic analysis suggests that they will …

The Rise And Fall Of An Aryanization Bank: The Romanian Credit Institute, 1941–1951, Stefan Cristian Ionescu

History Faculty Books and Book Chapters

Probably the most important domestic project of the pro-Nazi Antonescu regime, the policy of Romanianization of the economy had ambitious goals. It aimed to seize Jewish-owned real estate and to redistribute it to “deserving” Romanians, state agencies, and welfare organizations and to increase the share of ethnic Romanian entrepreneurs and skilled employees through purchasing Jewish companies, adopting business and labour restrictions against Jews and “foreigners,” training and funding ethnic Romanian professionals and would-be entrepreneurs, and establishing new companies to displace minority and foreign competitors. While this project looked feasible on paper, in practice, it faced major obstacles, including a lack …

New Paths In Jewish And Religious Studies: Essays In Honor Of Professor Elliot R. Wolfson, Glenn Dynner, Susannah Heschel, Shaul Magid

Purdue University Press Books

The work of Elliot R. Wolfson has profoundly influenced the fields of Jewish studies as well as philosophy and religion more broadly. His radically new approaches have created pioneering ways of analyzing texts and thinking about religion through the lens of gender, sexuality, and feminist theory. The contributors to New Paths in Jewish and Religious Studies: Essays in Honor of Professor Elliot R. Wolfson, many of whom are internationally renowned scholars, hearken from diverse fields. Each has learned from and collaborated with Wolfson as student or colleague, and each has expanded the new scholarly directions initiated by Wolfson’s groundbreaking …

The History Of Jewish Cemeteries In Cleveland And Cuyahoga County, Jeffrey S. Morris

Cleveland Memory

This book documents the history of the sixteen Jewish cemeteries in Cleveland and Cuyahoga County, using primary sources such as recorded deed transfers, records of incorporation, and plat maps to trace ownership from the time of acquisition to today. It facilitates an understanding of the correlation between each cemetery and its governance with a synagogue or benevolent organization.

Antisemitism: A View From Within The Rabbinic Legal Tradition, Suzanne L. Stone

Book Chapters

What does it mean to reflect on antisemitism and law? From an interdisciplinary perspective, the contributors examine the connections within this field of research for the first time. Approaches from diverse disciplines, including history, philosophy, sociology, literary studies, and law, fill initial gaps but also reveal problems, challenges, and areas for further study. Ultimately, this volume lays the foundation for a deeper understanding of antisemitism in legal scholarship and practice.

Jewish Daily Life In Medieval Northern Europe, 1080-1350, Tzafrir Barzilay, Eyal Levinson, Elisheva Baumgarten

TEAMS Documents of Practice

Designed to introduce students to the everyday lives of the Jews who lived in the German Empire, northern France, and England from the 11th to the mid-14th centuries, the volume consists of translations of primary sources written by or about medieval Jews. Each source is accompanied by an introduction that provides historical context. Through the sources, students can become familiar with the spaces that Jews frequented, their daily practices and rituals, and their thinking. The subject matter ranges from culinary preferences and even details of sexual lives, to garments, objects, and communal buildings. The documents testify to how Jews enacted …

Pathway To The Shoah: The Protocols, "Jewish Bolshevism", Rosenberg, Goebbels, Ford, And Hitler, David M. Crowe

History Faculty Books and Book Chapters

In the dark months after the defeat at Stalingrad in 1943, Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi Party’s strident, virulently anti-Semitic propaganda minister, wrote in his diary that he had “devoted exhaustive study to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” despite the fact that some argued that “they were not suited to present-day propaganda.” After rereading them, he concluded that “we can use them very well,” since The Protocols were “as modern today as they were when published for the first time.” The same day, May 13, 1943, he met with Hitler, who told his propaganda minister that he thought they …

How Tales Of Blood Libel Travel: Depictions Of Jews In Fifteenth-Century European World Chronicles, Rachel Bard

Fasciculus Temporum

This paper considers the correlation between the popularity of Werner Rolevinck’s Fasciculus Temporum and other world chronicles, and the antisemitic tropes and blood libel accusations directed against Jewish communities in later medieval Europe.

The Fasciculus repeats many stock tales of Jewish ritual murder, including a relatively little-known story from Bern, Switzerland, that Rolevinck may have adapted from the Berner Chronik. This paper also considers the connection the first Spanish printing of the Fasciculus Temporum, in Seville in 1480, with the only known Jewish ritual murder accusation in Spain, which dates to 1490, and which in turn may have been …

The Impact Of The Presidency Of Donald Trump On American Jewry And Israel, Steven F. Windmueller

The Jewish Role in American Life: An Annual Review

The Trump presidency has resulted in a fundamentally disruptive moment in this nation’s political culture. Not only were there different policy options and directions, but the cultural artifacts of politics changed because of how this president dramatically challenged the existing norms of political behavior and action. As we have shifted from a period of American liberalism to a time of political populism, deep fissures are dividing Americans in general and Jews in particular.

The Impact of the Presidency of Donald Trump on American Jewry and Israel unpacks President Donald Trump’s distinctive and unique relationship with the American Jewish community and …

Jews And Gender, Leonard Greenspoon

Studies in Jewish Civilization

Jews and Gender features sixteen authors exploring the history and culture of the intersection of Judaism and gender from the biblical world to today. Topics include subversive readings of biblical texts; reappraisal of rabbinic theory and practice; women in mysticism, Chasidism, and Yiddish literature; and women in contemporary culture and politics. Accessible and comprehensive, this volume will appeal to the general reader in addition to engaging with contemporary academic scholarship.

Life Is Beautiful, Or Not: The Myth Of The Good Italian, Shira Klein

History Faculty Books and Book Chapters

"Life is Beautiful illustrates a popular misconception about Italy's role in the Holocaust. The film features the good Italian and the warped view that Italy treated Jews kindly in the late 1930s and during World War II. Historians have proven this claim to be grossly exaggerated, arguing that Italians persecuted Jews vigorously. Yet popular representations of the past-films, novels, museum exhibits, and websites-continue to give credence to the notion that Italians were overwhelmingly good to Jews. Although France and Germany cultivated similar self-acquitting myths in the decades immediately after the war, they eventually moved on to accept the more …

May 2021, Temple Shalom

Newsletter Archive

Contents: Temple Shalom Encounters a 20th Century Yiddish American Phenomenon; From the Rabbi; From the President; Book Group; Community Notices

Refuge Must Be Given: Eleanor Roosevelt, The Jewish Plight, And The Founding Of Israel, John F. Sears

Purdue University Press Book Previews

Refuge Must Be Given details the evolution of Eleanor Roosevelt from someone who harbored negative impressions of Jews to become a leading Gentile champion of Israel in the United States. The book explores, for the first time, Roosevelt’s partnership with the Quaker leader Clarence Pickett in seeking to admit more refugees into the United States, and her relationship with Undersecretary of State Sumner Welles, who was sympathetic to the victims of Nazi persecution yet defended a visa process that failed both Jewish and non-Jewish refugees.

After the war, as a member of the American delegation to the United Nations, Eleanor …

The Aki Yerushalayim Corpus: A Study Of Loanwords In Ladino, Rachel Mccullough

College of Arts and Letters Posters

Ladino (or Judeo-Spanish) is a Diasporic Jewish language spoken by Sephardi Jews. There is little existing scholarly research on Ladino, nor does it have many language learning materials. These two factors compelled me to create the Aki Yerushalayim Corpus. The initial Aki Yerushalayim Corpus of Modern Written Ladino (currently ~7,000 words) was not created to act as a reference corpus of Modern Ladino. Rather, it was created to study the composition of Ladino prose and demonstrate the utility of this type project in the subdiscipline of language documentation. In addition, the project’s focus on cultural essays and narrative prose allow …

April 2021, Temple Shalom

Newsletter Archive

Contents: Temple Shalom Celebrates Passover; From the Rabbi;From the President; Book Group; Community Notices

March 2021, Temple Shalom

Newsletter Archive

Contents: Temple Shalom Celebrates our Cherished Seniors; From the Rabbi; From the President; Book Group; Community Notices

February 2021, Temple Shalom

Newsletter Archive

Contents: Temple Shalom Travels to Europe; From the Rabbi; From the President; Book Group; Community Notices

January 2021, Temple Shalom Synagogue Center

Newsletter Archive

Contents: Temple Shalom had a Great Fall; From the Rabbi; President's Message; Book Group; Community Notices

Anti-Semitism In France: How The Post-Holocaust Era Informs French Attitudes Today, Alyssa Chesek

Student Research Poster Presentations 2021

Following the end of the Holocaust, approximately 160,000 native Jews and 20,000 displaced Jews arrived in France. France, which operated under the Vichy government during World War II, was a Nazi puppet regime complicit in the persecution of its Jewish population. When Vichy fell in 1944, the recently instated Provisional Government of the French Republic became responsible for Jewish restitution and reintegration services. However, the new government refused to recognize a Jewish problem; this denial resulted in inadequate services and protections for the Jewish population. Without providing Jews with proper legal protections, the French government created an environment which may …

Wandering Jews: Global Jewish Migration, Steven J. Gold

The Jewish Role in American Life: An Annual Review

Despite the importance of historical and contemporary migration to the American Jewish community, popular awareness of the diversity and complexity of the American Jewish migration legacy is limited and largely focused upon Yiddish-speaking Jews who left the Pale of Settlement in Eastern Europe between 1880 and 1920 to settle in eastern and midwestern cities.

Wandering Jews provides readers with a broader understanding of the Jewish experience of migration in the United States and elsewhere. It describes the record of a wide variety of Jewish migrant groups, including those encountering different locations of settlement, historical periods, and facets of the migration …

The Future Of The German-Jewish Past: Memory And The Question Of Antisemitism, Gideon Reuveni, Diana University Franklin

Purdue University Press Books

Germany’s acceptance of its direct responsibility for the Holocaust has strengthened its relationship with Israel and has led to a deep commitment to combat antisemitism and rebuild Jewish life in Germany. As we draw close to a time when there will be no more firsthand experience of the horrors of the Holocaust, there is great concern about what will happen when German responsibility turns into history. Will the present taboo against open antisemitism be lifted as collective memory fades? There are alarming signs of the rise of the far right, which includes blatantly antisemitic elements, already visible in public discourse. …