Bud Shorstein Center for Jewish Studies

Join us for a talk by Walter Russell Mead, author of the The Arc of a Covenant: The United States, Israel, and the Fate of the Jewish People, named a “New York Times Best Book of the Year” for 2022. Professor Mead will discuss the current political crisis in Israel within the context of the relationship between Israel and the US.

Read more "The Current Crisis in Israel and US-Israeli Relations: A Talk by Walter Russell Mead"

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!

Read more "From the Warsaw Ghetto to Human Rights Organizations: The Extraordinary Life of Alina Margolis"

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.

Read more "Universalizing the Holocaust: An International Conference"

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.

Read more "It’s Been Universal All Along: The Holocaust’s Global Contexts — A Talk By Doris Bergen"

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.

Read more "A Conversation with Bestselling Author and Scholar Stephen Prothero"

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.

Read more "Munich 1923: Hitler’s Insurrection and the Rise of Antisemitism"

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.

Read more "Jewish Women In Comics"

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.

Read more "American Shtetl: A Virtual Discussion With David Myers And Nomi M. Stolzenberg"

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?

Read more "Publishing Jews and American Literature: A Talk with Josh Lambert"

Tickets may be purchased through Hippodrome’s box office: (352) 375-4477or online TheHipp.org

Read more "12th Annual Gainesville Jewish Film Festival event"

Join us for this series of events made possible by the Samuel “Bud” Shorstein Chair in American Jewish Society and Culture.

Read more "Samuel Bud Shorstein Lecture Series On American Jewish Culture"

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.

Read more "Israel’s Moment: Support for and Opposition to the Founding of the Jewish State – A Conversation with Jeffrey Herf"

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.

Read more "“It Can Happen Here Too”: Antisemitism, Gender, and the American Past"

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.

Read more "Are the Jews a Race?"

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.

Read more "Remembering the 93 Bais Yaakov Girls: Piety, Sexual Violence, and Holocaust Discourse"

January 26, 2022 at 2 p.m.

Read more "The Light Of Days: The Untold Story Of Women Resistance Fighters In Hitler’s Ghettos"

Bernice Lerner is the author of All the Horrors of War, the remarkable story of her mother’s liberation from Bergen-Belsen.

Read more "The Ethics of Rescue: Stories Behind the Liberation of Bergen-Belsen"

Free adult online course at the University of Florida with five 90-minute sessions from January 20-February 17, 2022

Read more "What is Zionism? Exploring Israel’s Founding Thinkers"