event-current

Diasporism and Jewish Politics Today: A Conversation Between Ilan Stavans and Ethan Katz

September 18, 2025

sIlan Stavans/Ethan Katz photo

Since the destruction of the First Temple some 2500 years ago, Diasporism has been a particularly Jewish way of imagining relationships between place, power, people, and politics. In modern times, Jewish thinkers have turned to new notions of Diasporism to articulate religious and cultural responses to emancipation, nationalism, and Zionism. More recently,...

Runnin’ Wild: Billy Wilder, Hot Jazz, and Weimar Jewish Culture

November 6, 2025

Noah Isenberg photo

Not yet 20 years old, in the summer of 1926, the Galician-born and Viennese raised “Billie” Wilder followed big-band leader Paul Whiteman and his orchestra to Berlin, where he worked as a cub reporter, budding screenwriter, occasional press agent, and dancer for hire. Like many assimilated Middle European Jews of his generation, he fell hard for American jazz and all that...

A Case Study of Systemic Antisemitism: The Housing Market in Paris during the Holocaust

November 20, 2025

Sarah Gensburger photo

Annual Pell Lecture

In France, during the Holocaust, about three-quarters of the Jewish population avoided arrest and deportation. Should the conclusion be reached that the French population was not very anti-Semitic? This idea is supported by some recent studies in history, which focus on anti- Semitism as it relates to individual actions and decisions. However, a study of...

Scriptural Vitality and the Shaping of Jewish Tradition

October 16, 2025

Hindy Najman photo

This talk focuses on rethinking methodological presuppositions that are central to the field of biblical studies. A central theme is the importance and centrality of the Hellenistic period for understanding the vitality of Judaism. In contrast to standard views, Najman claims that this period is one of the most important and formative periods for the history of Judaism. The language she employs...