Association for Jewish Studies

“This book will not only leave read­ers with an appre­ci­a­tion for aca­d­e­m­ic approach­es to the Bible, but it will also serve as an impor­tant mark­er of where think­ing about the sub­ject is today. Wright’s work deserves to be in the canon of bib­li­cal studies.”

AJS member Jacob L. Wright’s new book, Why the Bible Began: An Alternative History of Scripture and its Origins, is reviewed by the Jewish Book Council.

Why the Bible Began: An Alternative History of Scripture and its Origins Early on in his thoughtful exploration of biblical history, Jacob Wright makes the bold claim that while numerous works explain “how” the Bible began, few try to answer the question of “why.” On ev

CFA: AJS Dissertation Completion Fellowship Competition
Deadline: November 1

This program awards fellowships of up to $33,000 to PhD candidates entering the final year of their degrees and completing a dissertation in the field of Jewish Studies. Fellowships will support students during the 2025-2026 academic year.

2025-2026 Competition The Association for Jewish Studies is a learned society and professional organization whose mission is to advance research and teaching in Jewish Studies at colleges, universities, and other institutions of higher learning, and to foster greater understanding of Jewish Studies scholarship among the....

“...traces the his­to­ry of Amer­i­can anti­semitism and the Jew­ish community’s response. It offers us a deep­er under­stand­ing of how events in America’s past have informed the mete­oric rise in hatred and vio­lence we see today.”

AJS member Norman H. Finkelstein’s new book, Saying No to Hate: Overcoming Antisemitism in America, is reviewed by the Jewish Book Council.

Saying No to Hate: Overcoming Antisemitism in America In his newest book, Norman H.

Congratulations to the recipients and finalists of the 2024 – 2025 AJS Dissertation Completion Fellowships!

Recipients:

Alison Curry (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Department of History) - “In the Space of the Dead: Tradition, Identity, and Everyday Life in the Jewish Cemeteries of Poland, 1918-1945”

Omer Shadmi (University of Haifa, Department of Jewish History) - “The Imaginary Geography of the Babylonian Talmud and the Production of Babylonia”

Tzipora Weinberg (New York University, Department of Hebrew & Judaic Studies) - “Still Small Voices: The Development of Orthodox Thought and Practice by ‘Lithuanian’ Jewish Women, 1921 – 1945”

Finalists:

Isaac Roszler (New York University, Department of Hebrew & Judaic Studies) - “Legal Accretions in the Narratives of the Babylonian Talmud”

Roy Shukrun (McGill University, Department of Jewish Studies and University of Groningen, Department of Middle East Studies) - “Moroccan Jewish Transnationalism: Movement and the Emergence of a Global Diaspora in the 20th Century”

AJS Dissertation Completion Fellowships 2024-25 Recipients The Association for Jewish Studies is a learned society and professional organization whose mission is to advance research and teaching in Jewish Studies at colleges, universities, and other institutions of higher learning, and to foster greater understanding of Jewish Studies scholarship among the....

“... camps have proven their ability to adapt in the past without sacrificing their missions.”

AJS member Jonathan Krasner writes about the evolution of Jewish summer camps and how 2024 has been a challenging year for Conversation US.

Jewish summer camps have been evolving for a century − but 2024 is a summer like no other The first Jewish summer camps were founded at the turn of the 20th century and have become cherished traditions. But many face tough questions about how to discuss Israel and antisemitism.

New Department Chairs: Join us for a workshop on how to succeed as a department chair!
September 5; 2:30 pm - Online

This interactive workshop will be hosted by Jeffrey Shoulson and Beth S. Wenger, and is open to AJS members who have been department chairs for no more than two years or who will be taking on the position within the next year.

Register now:

New Department Chair Workshop The Association for Jewish Studies is a learned society and professional organization whose mission is to advance research and teaching in Jewish Studies at colleges, universities, and other institutions of higher learning, and to foster greater understanding of Jewish Studies scholarship among the....

“... the his­tor­i­cal record Feld puts forth is rel­e­vant to the increas­ing­ly intense debate with­in the Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty about the future of the Jew­ish state.”

AJS member Marjorie N. Feld’s book, The Threshold of Dissent: A History of American Jewish Critics of Zionism, is reviewed by the Jewish Book Council.

The Threshold of Dissent: A History of American Jewish Critics of Zionism In this compact book, Marjorie Feld, a professor of history at Babson College, provides an overview of perspectives that are critical of Zionism.

2024 Authors, Editors & Translators!

You're invited to submit your book to the AJS Honors Its Author program and have your book celebrated online, in feature emails, on social media, and in a print catalog.

Learn more & submit your book now:

AJS Honors Its Authors The Association for Jewish Studies is a learned society and professional organization whose mission is to advance research and teaching in Jewish Studies at colleges, universities, and other institutions of higher learning, and to foster greater understanding of Jewish Studies scholarship among the....

“As scholars of Jewish ethics… and as Jewish women whose reproductive lives diverge from Vance’s and other pronatalists’ visions, we have encountered this narrative in professional and communal settings. Yet, in our academic work, we’ve found that the story is much more complex.”

AJS member Rebecca J. Epstein-Levi co-wrote an opinion piece on how Jewish communities may undervalue people without children for JTA News.

It's not just J.D. Vance's 'childless cat ladies': Jewish communities also undervalue people without children - Jewish Telegraphic Agency "Be fruitful and multiply" obscures the important ways different people contribute to the future of their communities, write two scholars who have focused on Jewish ethics, family and infertility.

Make plans now to join us for the 2024 Annual Conference!

This year’s conference will take place Sunday, December 15 through Thursday, December 19. The conference will launch on Sunday with in person social gatherings worldwide, followed by four days of online academic sessions, Monday through Thursday.

Register now to receive early bird rates!

https://associationforjewishstudies.org/register2024

Congratulations to AJS member Robert Erlewine, who received a Summer Research and Creativity Award Michigan University for the project “Grieving Nature: Jewish Thought in the Anthropocene.”

Eastern Michigan University awards Summer Research and Creative Activity Grants YPSILANTI — Eastern Michigan University has awarded Summer Research and Creative Activity Awards (SRA) to 44 faculty members for outstanding proposals in various disciplines.

“When I was trying to decide between being a doctor and an academic, the third possibility was that what I really wanted to do more than those two things was to be a rock star.”

AJS member Robert Eisen is interviewed by the Washington Jewish Week about how he became a Jewish Studies scholar, his music, and more.

http://www.washingtonjewishweek.com/leading-judaic-studies-at-gw-in-challenging-times/

Listen to his music on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/7o0bMn12VmaBx7swQQmUD6

Leading Judaic Studies at GW in Challenging Times During midterms, GW Professor Robert Eisen provides his Spotify link to his students, sharing his original folk/rock, pop and country creations, in hopes that the young 20-somethings realize that academics aren’t “all nerdy intellectuals.”

“Moments of honest reflection elevate My Name Is Barbra from the typical celebrity memoir to something that invites a deeper inquiry into how we conceive the relationship between a popular artist, her art, and her audience.”

AJS member Samantha Pickette reviews Barbra Streisand’s new memoir, My Name is Barbra, for theJewish Review of Books.

https://jewishreviewofbooks.com/american-jewry/16760/portrait-of-an-artist-like-buttah/ #

Portrait of an Artist “Like Buttah” - Jewish Review of Books If anything ties Barbra Streisand's new memoir together, it's the author's intense need for control.

AJS member Laura Arnold Leibman is featured in the latest episode of Writing It! The Podcast About Academics & Writing from the University of Florida Center for Jewish Studies.

The episode, titled Are “Writing Spurts” a Thing? discusses what might be happening when it looks like someone is having a “writing spurt.”

Are “writing spurts” a thing? We speak with Princeton Professor Laura Arnold Leibman about how a scholar’s approach to writing might change over time, with different stages of an academic career, and what might be happening when it looks like a scholar is having a “writing spurt.” Leibman shares with us the shifts over tim...

“The first time Alfred Nakache died, it was in the gas chambers of Auschwitz. The second time, it was in the water, where he was most at home.”

In this Olympic summer, AJS member Sarah Abrevaya Stein writes of Alfred Nakache, one of just two Holocaust survivors to compete in the Olympics.

In the Jewish Review of Books : https://jewishreviewofbooks.com/jewish-history/16592/swimming-through-history/ #

Swimming through History - Jewish Review of Books The first time Alfred Nakache died, it was in the gas chambers of Auschwitz. The second time, it was in the water, where he was most at home.

“She lived to make sure that people remembered. Nobody told the story of the Warsaw Ghetto with as much passion and insight as Auerbach.”

AJS member Samuel Kassow served as the translator for Rachel (Rokhl) Auerbach’s memoir about the Warsaw Ghetto, entitled Warsaw Testament.

Wartime memoir excavates Jewish spiritual resistance in largest Holocaust ghetto New translation of Rachel Auerbach's ‘Warsaw Testament’ sheds light on cultural activism of Jews imprisoned in N**i Germany's largest Jewish ghetto

New in the AJS Career Center!

Stuart B. and Barbara Padnos Professorship in Jewish Thought at the University of Michigan UM Frankel Center for Judaic Studies. This position will be appointed at the tenure-track Assistant Professor or tenured Associate Professor rank, with an expectation to begin in August 2025.

Review of applications to begin September 16

Association for Jewish Studies The Association for Jewish Studies is a learned society and professional organization whose mission is to advance research and teaching in Jewish Studies at colleges, universities, and other institutions of higher learning, and to foster greater understanding of Jewish Studies scholarship among the....

New in the AJS Career Center!

Antisemitism Education Initiative Coordinator at the UC Berkeley Center for Jewish Studies

Review of applications is currently underway

Association for Jewish Studies The Association for Jewish Studies is a learned society and professional organization whose mission is to advance research and teaching in Jewish Studies at colleges, universities, and other institutions of higher learning, and to foster greater understanding of Jewish Studies scholarship among the....

The work of AJS members Aya Elyada, Rachel Greenblatt, Matthew Johnson, and Dalia Wolfson appears in the special issue of In geveb: A Journal of Yiddish Studies, Old Yiddish Literature: Historical and Cultural Perspectives.

The complete issue is available to read online:

Old Yiddish Literature | In geveb This special issue assembles a range of original contributions that shed light on the historical and cultural dimensions of Old Yiddish literature.

Congratulations to AJS member Malka Z. Simkovich, who has been named Director and Editor-in-Chief of the The Jewish Publication Society!

JPS Welcomes New Director and Editor-in-Chief Dr. Malka Z. Simkovich | The Jewish Publication Society (Philadelphia, July 16, 2024)  The Jewish Publication Society is pleased to welcome our new Director and Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Malka Z. Simkovich, who will join JPS on September 1, 2024. Dr. Simkovich joins JPS after serving as the Crown-Ryan Chair of Jewish Studies and Director of the Catholic-Jew...

“The thing that blew me away in reading this diary of this 13-year-old boy was his strength and spirit. He is aware of the fact that by reading the poetry of Yehoash or of [I.L.] Peretz or other great Yiddish writers, by virtue of doing that, he is performing an act of defiance and resistance against the N**is.”

AJS member Jonathan Brent, CEO of YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, discusses a new online YIVO exhibit, which tells the story of a teenager living in Vilna in the 1930s. The interactive exhibit includes a diary, photos, illustrations, and more.

YIVO exhibit illuminates a diary kept by a 13-year-old boy in the Vilna ghetto - Jewish Telegraphic Agency The online exhibit tells the story of Yitskhok Rudashevski, who documented his life in the ghetto from 1941 to 1943.

Congratulations to AJS member Deborah Dash Moore, who has been recognized as the Jonathan Freedman Distinguished University Professor of History and Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan, in honor of her outstanding teaching and service.

Regents approve six Distinguished University Professors | The University Record Six University of Michigan faculty members have been recognized for their outstanding teaching and service with one of U-M’s most prestigious honors: the Distinguished University Professorship.

“I knew if somebody didn’t try to finish the project in her name, it would just disappear. Her 10 years of work would disappear.”

AJS member Melissa R. Klapper is completing the final scholarly project of her colleague, the late Dianne Ashton. The project is a ten-year study of the life of Emma Mordecai, a Confederate Jewish woman slave-owner.

The Philadelphia Jewish Exponent interviewed Klapper briefly regarding the project.

Rowan Professor Finishes Late Colleague’s Book on Confederate Jewish Woman - Jewish Exponent A Rowan professor has finished her deceased colleague's book on Emma Mordecai, a Confederate Jewish woman who owned slaves.

“Her work attempts to answer the questions of how atrocity is remembered, who and why society chooses to silence and how these things evolve over time.”

Congratulations to AJS member Katzrzyna Person, who was awarded a 2024 Dan David Prize. She received $300,000 to advance her research.

Katarzyna Person Katarzyna Person is a historian of the Holocaust and Deputy Director of the Warsaw Ghetto Museum. She has published extensively on the history of Jews in Poland during the Holocaust and in the…