The story I recounted in Rooted Cosmopolitans centered on nationalism, not religion, as the forgotten engine of Jewish human rights activism. Religion was not completely absent. Rather, Jewish ethics and theological beliefs were filtered though larger categories of politics. To clarify what that meant, I went back to the story to examine what religious human […]
We just marked the fifth anniversary of the deadly events of August 11-12, 2017, that proved so destructive to the Charlottesville community and foretold many dangers to come in American society. For the occasion, I wrote for Newsweek about the relationship between antisemitism and racism in the ideology of White Supremacy. I also hosted a […]
In recent days, I did two in-depth interview conversations about the broader meaning of Charlottesville for democracy, American Jews, and the problem of antisemitism. First, I spoke here with the Jewish Forward’s Aviya Kushner in detail about some of my observations about the trial that did not make it into my Atlantic article. Then, as […]
After a month of observing the Charlottesville trial of America’s leading white supremacists, I composed my thoughts about its significance. Read on here for my piece in The Atlantic.
This month I am attending the trial in the federal civil lawsuit against the organizers of the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville that left one woman said and several other victims severely injured. I am preparing some thoughts on its legal and historical significance for a publication as part of my larger book-in-progress […]
Last year I was amazed to discover an unknown Holocaust poem in Hebrew written by Raphael Lemkin, the Polish Jewish lawyer famous for coining the term “genocide.” I knew Lemkin wrote poetry in Hebrew and Yiddish, but I’d never been able to locate any of it in his extant papers or other published sources. Then, […]
Every cab ride through Jerusalem is a lesson in political debate. One ride, however, left me with a deeper insight into the role of human rights in the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In this recently published essay of mine, I recall that encounter in the context of a new global history of human rights, and a […]
It is nearly six months since I took on a new role as co-editor of the Association for Jewish Studies Review. We publish this academic journal twice a year, and in its pages we present an incredible sampling of scholarship across the entirety of Jewish history, religion, culture, and more. My co-editor, Alyssa Gray, and […]
What can Charlottesville’s forgotten Jewish past teach us about the American struggle for freedom? As part of my new role as Ida and Nathan Kolodiz Director of Jewish Studies at the University of Virginia, I have been exploring the the university and the town’s Jewish past. I wrote this short blogpost for the UVA Alumni […]
This August I began a new position as the Ida and Nathan Kolodiz Director of the Jewish Studies Program at the University of Virginia. I am delighted by the opportunity to work with colleagues and students to continue the important work of Jewish Studies at UVA and beyond. You can find more information about the […]
An authentically American human-rights vision cannot rest upon a flawed historical reading of how our country first came to imagine rights. It is time once and for all to retire the term “Judeo-Christian tradition.” My new piece in The Atlantic.
The ‘Lust Machine’: A tale of piety versus profit—and Zionism A new think-piece of mine about religion, capitalism, and the origins of Zionism all hidden inside a story of music, sex panic, and the gramophone.
Last year I had the honor to deliver the annual David W. Belin Lecture in American Jewish Affairs at the University of Michigan Frankel Center for Judaic Studies. In my talk, “Prisoners of Zion: American Jews, Human Rights, and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict,” I extended the story I told in Rooted Cosmopolitans, explaining what happened between […]
As academic conference season heats up, the good news comes out that Rooted Cosmopolitans has won the 2019 Association for Jewish Studies Jordan Schnitzer Award for Best Book in the Category of Modern Jewish History. Some details here.
October has brought the exciting news that Rooted Cosmopolitans has won the 2019 American Historical Association Dorothy Rosenberg Prize awarded for “the most distinguished work of scholarship on the history of the Jewish diaspora published in English during the previous calendar year.” I am honored to accept this award from my fellow historians and to […]
For the past year, I’ve been researching the history of American civil rights and rethinking what’s gone right and wrong in the long fight against antisemitism. Here are my thoughts in a new essay in The Atlantic.
Rooted Cosmopolitans has been named one of the best books of the year by Ha’aretz newspaper and a favorite book of the year by the European Journal of International Law Blog. It has also been named a Finalist for the 2019 PROSE award by the Association of American Publishers’ Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division in […]
I am pleased to be joining the University of Virginia’s new Religion, Race and Democracy Lab. More details coming soon on future events. You can find out more about this exciting new public humanities initiative here.