Katz Center News
- Announcing the 2018–2019 fellows.
- We recently said farewell to this year's distinguished cohort of fellows. This 2017–2018 group focused on Nature between Science and Religion: Jewish Culture and the Natural World.
- Several of this past year's public programs are available on video; click to watch online.
- To stay up to date on Katz Center news throughout the year, follow us on Facebook and Twitter or subscribe to our mailing list.
- The Winter 2018 issue of JQR is now available! Visit our blog for details.
Bernard Lewis (1916–2018) // CAJS Blog
Prominent Princeton scholar of Islamic history and controversial orientalist Bernard Lewis died on Saturday May 19. Lewis’s storied career touched our own history. When the Center’s forerunner, the Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Studies, was transformed into a center for advanced study...
Announcing 2018–2019 Fellows // CAJS Blog
Selected from a large and highly competitive pool of applicants, the fellows come from throughout the world—from Europe, Israel, Turkey, and North America—and represent a range of different disciplines, including history, literary studies, anthropology, and ethnomusicology. Their research encompasses North Africa, the Levant, the Arabian Peninsula, Anatolia, and Central and South Asia, and addresses both religious and secular dimensions of Jewish culture as it has developed in these areas.
Science and Transformation in Jewish Culture: April 22–23, 2018
24th Annual Gruss Colloquium in Judaic Studies
During this two-day colloquium, scholars from around the world joined our fellows to explore the ways that science and Judaism have long been mutual catalysts of change, exploration, and self-reflection.
- In a recent blog post, the fellows of the Colloquium Planning Committee explain how the event enabled us to see the diversity of ways in which Jews interacted with the natural world.
- In another post, Colloquium panelist Annette Yoshiko Reed reviews the "richly eclectic discussion" that resulted.
- Matt Goldish, a past fellow, writes about a related topic on science and transformation in Jewish culture in a different recent post on the Katz Center blog.
- To check out the full event program, click here.
Meet the Fellows
In a pair of interviews, director Steve Weitzman chats with fellows Agata Paluch and Julia Watts Belser, learning what compels their scholarship, how their time at the Center has affected their work, and what they see on the horizon. Click here to read Watts Belser's interview about the Talmud, disability studies, and environmental humanities, and click here to read Paluch's interview about the literature of early modern practical kabbalah of East-Central Europe.
Nina Davis (1877–1925) // JQR Blog
For Women’s History Month, JQR draws your attention to a remarkable fin-de-siècle character: Nina Davis. British-born Davis was a regular contributor to the old series of JQR—her byline as author, as coauthor, and most commonly as translator, appeared 29 times in the journal’s pages between 1895 and 1901.
New Library Acquisitions
Rabbi Michael Strassfeld Collection
The Penn Libraries and its Judaica collections are honored to accept the landmark donation of Rabbi Michael Strassfeld's personal papers and Jewish sound recording collection. Taken together, the collection comprises forty-five linear feet of primary source materials for studying American Judaism and Jewish culture since the 1960s. Rabbi Strassfeld, now Rabbi Emeritus of the Society for the Advancement of Judaism, and formerly rabbi of Congregation Ansche Chesed in New York City, was one of the leaders of the Jewish Counter-Culture movement which over the last half-century has pioneered dynamic new forms of Jewish life beyond the denominational structures of American Judaism. Rabbi Strassfeld was one of the key leaders of the Havurah movement, co-author of the Jewish Catalog - what has been called the “Bible” of Jewish Counter Culture, editor of the original version of the "Passover Haggadah: The Feast of Freedom," and author of several other works, including Shabbat Haggadah for Celebration and Study (1980), The Jewish Holidays: A Guide and Commentary (1985), A Night of Questions, a Passover Haggadah with Rabbi Joy Levitt (2000), and a A Book of Life: Embracing Judaism as a Spiritual Practice (2002).
