Applications are open for the 2027–28 fellowship year, Between Mind and World in Premodern Jewish Life! Click below to learn more. #jewishstudies #academicsky #religiousstudies katz.sas.upenn.edu/scholarly-pr...

Call for papers! Our colleagues @emodir.bsky.social are preparing for the 2027 Renaissance Society of American Annual Meeting with the theme, Geographies of Transgression: Mobility and Religious Minorities. 🗓️ Deadline is June 30! Details below. emodir.hypotheses.org/3887

Check out the Katz Center's virtual lecture series, Wandering the Jewish World: all talks are now on YouTube! www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

Kate Rosenblatt excavated the heated intra-Jewish arguments over politics, identity, and culture in the mid-twentieth century. Watch the full lecture: www.youtube.com/watch?v=arZi...

In the 29th Annual Meyerhoff Lecture historians Lila Corwin Berman, Deborah Dash Moore, and Beth S. Wenger discussed fractures within the field of American Jewish studies in a conversation moderated by journalist Emily Tamkin. Watch the full lecture: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Em0p...

Congratulations 2024–25 Katz Center fellow Adam S. Ferziger, co-winner of the 2026 AIS Shapiro Award for Best Book in Israel Studies! aisisraelstudies.org/ais-2026-awa...

Enjoy these highlights from Reading the Bible after Gaza, the final talk of the annual spring colloquium featuring panelists Yosefa Raz, Ruth Tsoffar, Raphael Magarik, and Reut Ben Yaakov, Duke University with moderator Orian Zakai.

Enjoy these highlights from Jewish Geographies, the fourth lecture of our annual spring colloquium. Michael Hoberman, Adrienne Krone, and Marjorie N. Feld spoke, and Sarah Leiter served as both chair and respondent.

The third session of our annual spring colloquium focused on Practice, featuring panelists Vanessa L. Ochs, Rachel Werczberger, Hannah Mayne, and Michal Kravel-Tovi. Tom Baker moderated. Enjoy these highlights.

Check out these highlights from the second talk of our annual colloquium. Speakers Lipika Pelham, Cynthia Gabbay, and Hannan Hever led the talk, Languages Spoken, Written, and Read. Nancy E. Berg served as chair, and Roni Masel responded. #jewishstudies

This week we're highlighting the annual spring colloquium. The first talk was titled, Beyond Race, Ethnicity, and Religion and featured speakers, Ella Shohat, Bryan Roby, and Walter Isaac. Efrat Yerday served as chair, and Gal Levy and Edward Waysband responded.

Elisabeth Becker-Topkara (University of Heidelberg) describes the role of friendship in resisting hate and prejudice. Watch the full lecture here: youtu.be/jJ9k_4FzzJk

Check out these highlights from one of the last seminars of the 2025-26 fellowship year, Sarah Leiter's Jewish at the Edge of Time: A Resurfacing of Ancestral Sephardicness in New Mexico.

The Katz Center is thrilled to share that fellow Peter Decherney has published a new book of photography, Endless Exodus: the Jewish Experience in Ethiopia (Gefen Publishing House), available to purchase starting April 8. Click below to learn more. tinyurl.com/27t3brm6

This week guest Rachel Feldman (Dartmouth College) gave a seminar titled, From Jerusalem to Côte d’Ivoire: The Digital and Postcolonial Afterlives of Rebbe Nachman. Check out these highlights.

Katz Center fellow Mendel Kranz interrogates the “new antisemitism” and the “Muslim question” in French public life. #religiousstudies Watch the full lecture: studio.youtube.com/video/TyiVZv...

Enjoy these highlights from Katz Center fellow, Efrat Yerday's Wednesday seminar, Ethiopian Jews and Israeli Law Enforcement, 1970–1977: Primary Encounters.

Check out these highlights from last week's seminar led by Sara Byala and Peter Decherney, Searching for Lembaland: An African Quest for Israelite Roots.

Join our colleagues in the Jewish Studies and Religious Studies departments for Katz Center director Steve Weitzman's book talk on March 19 at 5:00 pm, College Hall 319 on Penn's campus. Katz center fellow Yosefa Raz will be one of the respondents. rels.sas.upenn.edu/events/2026/...

Check out these highlight's from Katz Center fellow Yosefa Raz's seminar last week, The Amalek Moment and Other Chapters in the Contemporary Israeli Bible.

The Katz Center is thrilled the National Jewish Book Awards honored former Katz Center fellows!

Now open access! Read past Katz Center fellow Iris Idelson-Shein's book between the bridge and the barricade for free with the link below. penn.manifoldapp.org/projects/bet...

Harry York, "Purim Polka" (1856, Sep. Winner and Co.), Arnold and Deanne Kaplan Collection of Early American Judaica, University of Pennsylvania. With no complicated rhythms or large chords, this sheet music may have been intended for young pianists to play as their family and friends danced.

Check out these highlights from last week's seminar, A Kibbutz Remembers: Collaborative Writing of Trauma, led by Katz Center fellow Lilach Naishtat.

This summer our colleagues at the University of Antwerp are hosting the annual Advanced Summer School for Graduate Students. Click below to learn more about Jewish Studies "On Edge!" #jewishstudies www.uantwerpen.be/en/summer-wi...

Check out these highlights from last week's seminar. Katz Center fellow Michael Hoberman spoke on Theodore Seixas Solomons: Jewish Conservationist of the High Sierra.

The Katz Center mourns the loss of scholar of medieval philosophy Alfred Lyon Ivry (1935–2026). Dr. Ivry was a Katz Center fellow during the 1995–96 and 2006–07 fellowship years.

Check out these highlights from Katz Center fellow Ayala Fader's recent seminar, Illiberal Religion and the Gendered Politics of Health and Wellness.

Enjoy a few highlights from last week's seminar. Katz Center fellow Nancy E. Berg led her talk, Synagogues and Anti-Synagogues: Mizrahi Women Writers and Contemporary Jewish Culture.

The Katz Center is delighted to share that 2023–24 fellow Jessica Roda's book, for Women and Girls Only was selected as a 2025 AAR Book Award finalist in the category of religion and the arts. Click below to learn more the award and the book. aarweb.org/news/2025-aa... nyupress.org/978147980982...