The Stroum Center is proud to announce the hire of two new core members of the Jewish Studies Faculty at the University of Washington. Prof. Liora Halperin will be the first holder of the Rebecca and Jack Benaroya Chair in Israel Studies and Prof. Sasha Senderovich will take a position in Jewish literature and Russian studies in the Jackson School of International Studies and the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures. Widely regarded as two of the top scholars in their respective fields, Halperin and Senderovich will dramatically expand our teaching offerings and keep the Stroum Center at the cutting edge research in the field of Jewish Studies.

Liora Halperin portrait

Prof. Liora Halperin

Prof. Halperin’s research focuses on Jewish cultural history, Jewish-Arab relations in Ottoman and Mandate Palestine, and the shaping of Zionist national memory in the Jewish agricultural colonies. Her first book, Babel in Zion: Jews, Nationalism, and Language Diversity in Palestine, was published by Yale University Press and was awarded the Shapiro Prize from the Association for Israel Studies for the best book in Israel Studies. She is currently in the midst of a second book project about collective memory in and around the European Jewish agricultural colonies (moshavot) established in late 19th-century Palestine. She received her PhD from UCLA in 2011.

Photo of Sasha Senderovich

Prof. Sasha Senderovich

Prof. Senderovich is a scholar of Russian Jewish literature and culture. His current book project, How the Soviet Jew Was Made: Culture and Mobility after the Revolution explores the emergence of the “Soviet Jew” as a cultural concept. His translation, from the Yiddish, of David Bergelson’s Judgment: A Novel is forthcoming with Northwestern University Press in 2017. Prof. Senderovich also studies contemporary literature written by Soviet-born Jewish Russians, particularly in America. In addition to his scholarship, Senderovich organizes public cultural programming and contributes to popular newspapers and magazines including the Los Angeles Review of Books and The Forward. He received his PhD from Harvard in 2010.

The Stroum Center looks forward to welcoming Profs. Halperin and Senderovich in the coming months!

Editor’s Note: Professor Senderovich will teach “Russian Revolutions in Film” (RUSS 223; SLN: 23244) in Autumn 2017. The course will cover Russian films (subtitled) and filmmakers from the Soviet Avant-Garde to the Stalin era to contemporary cinema in the age of Putin. It will be offered Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2:30-4:20 p.m.

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