Book Prize Winners!
Our own Rachel Gordan and our own Yaniv Feller have both, BOTH, won the 2023 Jordan Schnitzer First Book Publication Award of the Association for Jewish Studies, the premier academic organization in our field.
From the Warsaw Ghetto to Human Rights Organizations: The Extraordinary Life of Alina Margolis
A Holocaust survivor, Alina Margolis was a physician, a political refugee, and a public health pioneer. Join us on March 2 for a presentation by the author, Izabela Wagner!
Universalizing the Holocaust: An International Conference
On February 19-20, 2023, the Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Florida will host an interdisciplinary conference devoted to the history and significance of the Holocaust’s universalization.
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It’s Been Universal All Along: The Holocaust’s Global Contexts — A Talk By Doris Bergen
Join us on Sunday, February 19 at 6:00 p.m. at the Harn Museum of Art for a keynote address by Doris Bergen, part of the conference ‘Universalizing the Holocaust,’ hosted by the Center for Jewish Studies.
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A Conversation with Bestselling Author and Scholar Stephen Prothero
Join the Center for Jewish Studies on Monday, March 27 at 3 p.m. in the Keene Faculty Center for a conversation with bestselling author and scholar Stephen Prothero about his new book, God the Bestseller: How One Editor Transformed American Religion a Book at a Time.
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Statement on Antisemitic Messages of 2-2-23 at the University of Florida
The faculty of the Center for Jewish Studies condemns the antisemitic messages drawn near University of Florida campus buildings on February 2, 2023 in support of Kanye West (Ye). These messages endorsed that performer’s own antisemitic remarks from Autumn 2022.
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Munich 1923: Hitler’s Insurrection and the Rise of Antisemitism
Join us for this free talk by Michael Brenner on February 6! Michael Brenner is a Distinguished Professor of History and holds the Seymour and Lillian Abensohn Chair in Israel Studies at American University in Washington, D.C., where he serves as director of the Center for Israel Studies.
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A Conversation With Mark Oppenheimer
Whoa, where did this come from? The Antisemitism of 2022 and Its Origins. Mark Oppenheimer has been covering American religion for 25 years. He holds a Ph.D. in religious studies from Yale, and has taught at Stanford, Wesleyan, Wellesley, NYU, Boston College, and Yale, where he recently retired after 15 years as the founding director of the Yale Journalism Initiative.
Iranian Uprising And The Nuclear Threat
The public is invited to The Iranian Uprising and the Nuclear Threat: How Should the West Respond?, a presentation by German political scientist and historian Dr. Matthias Küntzel on Thursday, Nov. 17, at 6 pm in the Pugh Hall Ocora.
Jewish Women In Comics
Join us for a panel discussion on the new book, Jewish Women in Comics: Bodies and Borders, an innovative collection of essays, interviews, and artwork examining Jewish women’s comics.
American Shtetl: A Virtual Discussion With David Myers And Nomi M. Stolzenberg
Settled in the mid-1970s by a small contingent of Hasidic families, Kiryas Joel is an American town with few parallels in Jewish history—but many precedents among religious communities in the United States. David Myers and Nomi M. Stolzenberg will discuss how this group of pious, Yiddish-speaking Jews has grown into a thriving insular enclave and a powerful local government in upstate New York.
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Publishing Jews and American Literature: A Talk with Josh Lambert
How did Jews’ success in the U.S. publishing industry affect the development of American literature, in general, and representations of Jews, in particular? And what lessons can be learned from the history of Jews in publishing about how to make publishing more equitable in the future?
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12th Annual Gainesville Jewish Film Festival event
Tickets may be purchased through Hippodrome’s box office: (352) 375-4477or online TheHipp.org
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Samuel Bud Shorstein Lecture Series On American Jewish Culture
Join us for this series of events made possible by the Samuel “Bud” Shorstein Chair in American Jewish Society and Culture.
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The Center welcomes its New Faculty!
L-R: Yossi Turner (Israel Institute Visiting Professor), Yehoshua Ecker (Jews in Muslim Countries), Natalia Aleksiun (Harry Rich Professor of Holocaust Studies), Roy Holler (Israel Studies, Hebrew Literature), Yaniv Feller (Modern Jewish Thought).
Samuel “Bud” Shorstein (UF BSBA 1959) Writing Awardees for the 2021-2022 Academic Year
Samuel “Bud” Shorstein Writing Awards Announced
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“When ‘Gentleman’s Agreement’ made Jewish Oscars history”, an article by Rachel Gordon
In 1948, when the cinematic version of her story, “Gentleman’s Agreement,” received the Oscar for best picture, Laura Z. Hobson was a 47-year-old, divorced, Jewish single mother living in Manhattan. […]
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Israel’s Moment: Support for and Opposition to the Founding of the Jewish State – A Conversation with Jeffrey Herf
The State of Israel was established in 1947–1948 when the governments of the United States, the Soviet Union and the Soviet bloc, and two-thirds of the United Nations General Assembly endorsed the Zionist project.
“It Can Happen Here Too”: Antisemitism, Gender, and the American Past
Antisemitism, an American tradition, has once again reared its ugly head. Although scholars have long studied the topic, they have overlooked its gendered dimensions. Yet we know that antisemitism propelled Jewish women to take up their pens, picket toy stores, and walk out on their roommates. This lecture explores Jewish women’s encounters with this hatred and asks whether inserting women and gender will reshape the history of American antisemitism.
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Are the Jews a Race?
Recent cultural events have raised the question as to whether Jews are a race or ethnicity. Join us for a panel discussion featuring three faculty from the Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Florida.
Remembering the 93 Bais Yaakov Girls: Piety, Sexual Violence, and Holocaust Discourse
Join us for a conversation with Naomi Seidman about the 93 — a group of girls from the Bais Yaakov school in the Kraków Ghetto that reportedly committed suicide rather than be taken as prostitutes by the Nazis.
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Natalia Aleksiun to be first Harry Rich Professor of East European Holocaust Studies
Thanks to a recent endowment, the Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Florida will become a world leader in researching and teaching one of history’s darkest moments. The Harry Rich […]
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The Ethics of Rescue: Stories Behind the Liberation of Bergen-Belsen
Bernice Lerner is the author of All the Horrors of War, the remarkable story of her mother’s liberation from Bergen-Belsen.
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What is Zionism? Exploring Israel’s Founding Thinkers
Free adult online course at the University of Florida with five 90-minute sessions from January 20-February 17, 2022
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DerShoymer
A man providing overnight watch to a deceased member of his former Orthodox Jewish community finds himself opposite a malevolent entity, in writer-director Keith Thomas’ electrifying feature debut.
Shared Legacies
The often forgotten story of the coalition and friendship between the Jewish and African-American communities during the Civil Rights Movement.