bookshelf snapshot from Rare Book Room

Applications for the 2021–2022 academic year are now open

Call for Applications: Premodern Law
The Katz Center seeks to support scholars working on law as a dynamic feature of Jewish culture in premodern contexts, spanning from antiquity to the eighteenth century. This is the first of two successive fellowship years devoted to Jews and the law.
Early American Coin

Pursuing research on the topic of America’s Jewish Questions.

Announcing the 2020–2021 Fellows
Read Katz Center director Steve Weitzman’s welcome to the incoming cohort of scholars on the Center blog.
josephus bust on polka dot wallpaper

JQR 110.2 now available.

New Issue of the Jewish Quarterly Review
The oldest English-language journal in the field of Jewish studies has a new issue, available online and in print. See the Table of Contents on our blog.
College Hall at the University of Pennsylvania

A letter to the University of Pennsylvania community during a difficult time

A Personal Message from Penn's President
"This is a generation-defining moment. And like every such moment that has gone before, it is not only the crisis itself but also how we respond that matters most."
Coming Up

There are currently no upcoming events.

Please check back at the start of the next semester.

See Full Calendar

International Fellowship Program

America’s Jewish Questions

early American coin depicting biblical scene

The 2020–21 fellowship program delves into some of the most pressing debates within US history and Jewish history, and examines vital questions shaping Jewish cultural studies, literary theory, and social scientific inquiry.

Fellowship Info
Apply for 2021–22

Blog

Yad Aharon: Hebrew Poetry and the Number 14
July 1, 2020
Yad Aharon: Hebrew Poetry and the Number 14
by Louis Meiselman

A Rare Judaica Cataloging Librarian examines a seemingly contradictory poetry volume in the collection of the Library at the Katz Center.

Knowing the Victim? Reflections on Empathy, Analogy, and Voice from the Shoah to the Present
June 25, 2020
Knowing the Victim? Reflections on Empathy, Analogy, and Voice from the Shoah to the Present
by David Myers

The Holocaust and the BLM movement share the problem of knowing another’s experience. Judith Butler, Cheryl Greenberg, Marianne Hirsch, and Robin D. G. Kelley tackle the core epistemological and moral question of whether we can know another’s experience, and what is at stake in our answer.

view all blog posts