Is Israel a settler colonial state?
Dr. Alan Dowty analyzes various aspects of Israel's past and present to determine that it is not a settler colonial state, at least not by the usual definition.
Expanding what it meant to be Jewish in East Germany as the Berlin Wall fell
Ph.D. candidate Katja Schatte explains how ideas of Jewishness gradually expanded in the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) starting in the mid-1980s.
Using machine learning to explore photos, illustrations, ads and more in historic Ladino newspapers
Graduate fellow Ben Lee explains how machine learning can help historians to learn from the photographs, illustrations and advertisements found in Ladino-language newspapers.
Reproduction in the 19th-century Ottoman Empire: The story of the “bloodstained” Jewish midwives
Concern over a shrinking population led Ottoman authorities to undermine reproductive autonomy in the 19th century, writes grad fellow Büşra Demirkol, starting with outlawing abortion and exiling two "bloody" Jewish midwives.
PODCAST | Jewish Questions, Episode 5: Before Zionism — Liora Halpern
Present-day discussions of anti-Semitism often involve Israel and the Zionist movement… but before the 20th century, Jews’ and Jewish scholars’ understandings of anti-Semitism were completely connected with Europe and Christianity. In the last episode of our series, guest Liora R. Halperin looks at how 19th-century Jewish settlers to Ottoman Palestine were influenced by the anti-Semitism they experienced in the Russian Empire
PODCAST | Jewish Questions, Episode 4: Jewish Anti-Semitism? — Devin Naar
Can Jews be anti-Semitic against other Jews? In this episode, guest Devin E. Naar looks at the history of Jewish prejudice against other Jews in the United States, from the very first American Jewish settlers in the 1600s to twentieth-century efforts to exclude Jews from the Muslim world from Jewish institutions — as American Jews struggled to hold on to their “precarious whiteness.”
PODCAST | Jewish Questions, Episode 3: Being Jewish in Medieval Spain — Ana Gómez-Bravo
Has anti-Semitism always been the same, or have ideas about Jewishness, and suspicion towards Jews, changed over time? In this episode, guest Ana Gómez-Bravo helps to answer these questions by looking at the lives of Jews and “conversos” (Jewish converts to Christianity) in medieval Spain, exploring how Catholic authorities tried to define and restrict their Jewish and converso residents.
PODCAST | Jewish Questions, Episode 2: The Rise of Nazi Germany — Laurie Marhoefer
How did the progressive Weimar Republic give way to the genocidal Nazi regime… and could it happen here? In this episode, guest Laurie Marhoefer explains the rise of the Nazi party in one of the most progressive places in the world, detailing the swift and dramatic shift in government, efforts to resist, and troubling echoes of these events in the present day.