The Katz Center used the 2018 Meyerhoff Lecture as an opportunity to reflect on the field of Sephardi studies by inviting field pioneer Aron Rodrigue (Stanford University) to discuss his own fascinating intellectual biography, and to trace its legacy through the work of three influential students of the next generation. Julia Philips Cohen, one of Rodrigue’s students, now associate professor of History at Vanderbilt University, ended her reflections with the following.

It is unclear what scholarship can do to ameliorate the voracious momentum of hatred, nor how inhumanity is tempered by the humanities, but at the core of the work of scholarship is a profound and enduring optimism in the worth of being human.

The Katz Center's 2018–19 fellowship year kicked off last week with a panel discussion.

• What was Jewish life like in Jerusalem under Ottoman rule?
• Did Jewish men in Morocco and Turkey wear fezzes?
• What is the lingua franca of Mexican Syrian Jews?
• When and why did all the Jews leave Iraq (or Egypt, Yemen, Iran...)? Are there communities there today? 

What do you know? What do you want to know?

JQR 108.3 is now available, online* and in print.

Incoming fellows have ambitious goals for their time at the Katz Center: new research projects, books to write, colleagues to meet and mine for knowledge. As they settle in and get started, we take this moment to celebrate the work that has already been done.

In fewer than 200 words in the journal’s third issue, Israel Abrahams made a mockery of a long beloved motif of western art, scriptural interpretation, indeed Scripture itself, when he informed the reader—summarily, and without footnotes or citation—that pseudepigraphical Tobias did not have a dog! (JQR 1.3 o.s. [1889]: 288)

This summer, the Katz Center lost a member of its board of overseers, Dr. D. Walter Cohen, who was an extraordinary person. A pillar of the Philadelphia community, Walter was internationally renowned for his scientific and educational contributions. He was a founder of Penn's department of periodontics, revitalizer of its dental school in his tenure as dean, and served as an equally effective chancellor of the Medical College of Pennsylvania, now a part of Drexel University.