Fordham-NYPL Research Fellows in Jewish Studies

Shachar Pinsker, Ph.D.
Professor, Judaic Studies and Middle East Studies, University of Michigan
"When Yiddish Was Young in Israel: the Pervasiveness of Israel's Silent Language"

This project examines the role of Yiddish in Israeli culture and argues that the Israeli culture of the past and the present cannot be fully understood without considering the pervasive role of Yiddish. Taking Yiddish in Israel seriously shines new light on Israel and its population, from landscape to language, from collective memory to contemporary identities.

Marilyn Miller, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Spanish & Portuguese Studies, Tulane University
"Righteous Revolutionary: Cuban Independence Leader José Martí and his Jewish Supporters"

This project examines Cuban revolutionary hero José Martí's relationships with Jewish supporters, especially in late 19th-century New York City, as well as the continuing importance of Martí's legacy to Jews after his death. While previous research has debated whether Martí was motivated by a genuine interest in Jewish experience or simply saw in Jewish communities a strategic opportunity for raising funds and procuring arms for the Cuban independence struggle, this project argues that Jews in New York, Cuba, Florida, and elsewhere have identified keenly with Martí's antiracism discourse and adopted his words and deeds as important tools in their fights against antisemitism, racial discrimination, and other forms of injustice.

Rivka Elitzur Leiman, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Scholar, Harvar University
“Magic in New York: Reassessing a 1900s Collection of Late Antique Jewish Amulets at the NYPL.”

The scholarly interest in ancient Jewish amulets arose in the early twentieth century and was especially pronounced in New York. At the end of the nineteenth century, a dealer of oriental antiquities from New York City conducted excavations in tombs in the area of Irbid, in the Hauran (in modern Jordan). This project examines the history of this collection, from discovery to acquisition, and scholarly research on it to date, with a special focus on Mary Anna Draper, who acquired many of the amulets, and whose papers are housed at NYPL.
Nick Underwood, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of History and Howard Berger-Ray Neilsen Endowed Chair in Judaic Studies, College of Idaho
"Jewish Migration, Yiddish Culture, and the Reconstruction of Post-Holocaust France, 1944-1965"

This is a study of the reconstruction of daily life by Yiddish-speaking Jews in France after Vichy and the Holocaust. This project traverses the years immediately after Liberation, the entirety of the Fourth Republic, and the years of the Algerian War to illuminate the role that Yiddish culture played in determining how Jews in France specifically attempted to reintegrate themselves into French society.

Jana Schmidt, German Historical Institute, Washington, DC, Futures Not Yet: Jewish Exiles, Black Politics, 1940-1975

Eyal Ben-Eliyahu, University of Haifa, The Jews and Global Geography
Debora Kantor, University of Buenos Aires, Jews and Jewishness in Modern and Contemporary Film and Culture: a Comparative Approach
Markus Krah, University of Potsdam, Schocken Books and the Cultural Transformation of American Jewry, 1945-1987
Saba Nerina Visacovsky, National University of San Martin, Buenos Aires, The Links between the Pro-Soviet Jewish Left-Wing in New York and Buenos Aires (1946-1956)

Ephraim Shoham-Steiner, Professor of Medieval Jewish History, Department of Jewish History, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, The "Holy Community of Cologne": New Perspectives on the Medieval Jewish Community

Zohar Segev, Professor of Jewish History, University of Haifa, Philanthropy, Politics, and the Shaping of a Nation: The Nathan Straus Papers in the NYPL
Sharon Aronofsky Weltman, Director of Comparative Literature and Professor of English at Louisiana State University, Elizabeth Polack: British Melodrama and Jewish Emancipation
Tamara Gleason Freidberg, PhD Candidate, University College London, "Our Golden Chain is Broken”: Responses to the Holocaust in the Bundist Journal Foroys from Mexico (1941-1947)

Ariel Paige Cohen, Ph.D. Candidate in History, University of Virginia, Displaying Art and Exhibiting Philanthropy: Jews, Genders, and Museums in the United States, 1888 – 1958

Michael Casper, Ph.D. Candidate in History, University of California, Los Angeles, The memory of the Holocaust and World War II among Lithuanian Émigrés

Paula Ansaldo, Ph.D. Candidate in History and Theory of Arts, University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, Jewish Theater in Buenos Aires (1930-1960): Connections and Exchanges with the New York Yiddish Theater
David Assaf, Professor of Jewish History, University of Tel Aviv, Not Just Words and Tunes: On the History and Transformation of Hebrew and Yiddish Songs

Nina Valbousquet, Research Fellow, Center for Jewish History / United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Transnational Antisemitism, Diaspora Politics, and Jewish Diplomacy: the Impact of Antisemitism on Jewish-Catholic Relations in a Transatlantic Perspective (1914-1965)

Miranda Crowdus, Research Associate, Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien Hannover, The Liturgical Music of the Romaniote Jews: From Antiquity to the Present Day
Rachel Gordan, Assistant Professor, Department of Religion, University of Florida, How Judaism Became an American Religion: Middlebrow Culture and the Making of America's Third Religion.
Yael Levi, Ph.D Candidate, the Department of History of the Jewish People and Contemporary Jewry, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Early Jewish-American Entrepreneurs: The Emergence of the Yiddish and Hebrew Press in the United States, 1870-1900.
Michal Ben Ya’akov, Professor of History, Emuna-Efrata College, Jerusalem, Getting Acquainted after the War: American Jewry meets North African Jewry, 1943-1954

Gabriella Abramac, former Visiting Fulbright Professor, New York University, Sociolinguistic Superdiversity in Hasidic Communities of New York
Menahem Blondheim, Professor of Communications, Department of History and Department of Communication, and the Director of the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, The Yiddish Sermon in the United States, 1881-1939
Boaz Huss, Professor of Kabbalah, Department of Jewish Thought at Ben-Gurion University in Beer Sheva, Isaac Myer and the Kabbalah in America in the Late 19th Century
Gil Ribak, Assistant Professor at the Center for Judaic Studies, University of Arizona, "A Feeling of Self-Disgust Attacks Me”: The Attitudes of Eastern European Jewish Immigrants toward African Americans in a Transnational Perspective
David Stromberg, Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Institute for Contemporary Jewry, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, A Yiddish Writer in America: Isaac Bashevis Singer, 1935-1957
Lidia Zessin-Jurek, Research Associate, German-Polish Research Institute, Homeless memory? The memoirs of the Polish Jewish survivors in the Soviet Union outside the Holocaust and the Gulag memory cultures