Q&A: Katz Center Fellow Hannah Zaves-Greene Talks Disability Studies and American Jewish History

Natalie Dohrmann (NBD): Hannah, tell us a bit about your scholarly interests, what drew you to them, and what especially excites you about them personally and/or intellectually?

Hannah Zaves-Greene (HZG): I'm particularly interested in the tension between political and social citizenship, specifically with regard to the stigma associated with illness and disability all the way from the federal government to the local level. As an American Jewish historian, I'm eager to explore how Jewish communal leaders in the United States responded to exactly this stigma and discrimination, and what their attitude was (and how it evolved) toward the intersection of illness, disability, and national belonging at various places and moments in time.

NBD: Your current book project, Able to Be American: Disability in U.S. Immigration Law and the American Jewish Response, uses disability as an analytical lens to open new facets of the idea of American citizenship. How is the way that the state imagines the ideal citizen illuminated or altered by thinking through and with disability?

HZG: I would argue, and it's potentially a controversial take, that disability functioned as one of the ur-categories of exclusion in U.S. immigration policy, which in turn defined the U.S. nationalist project. Disability, in this eugenically rooted context, refers to categories including, but extending beyond, what we now think of as illness and impairment, expanding to what the parlance of the time called physical, mental, and "moral" "defectiveness." It represents a host of disabling factors that prohibit full participation in society, polity, and government, thereby "disabling" those considered "undesirable." It is in that context that we ought to read the host of Jewish newspapers and communal leaders referring over and over again to eastern European Jewish immigrants at the turn of the twentieth century as "able-bodied"! 

I was very surprised when I first came across that term because I assumed it was of more modern vintage, so, of course, I had to look further. It turned out that from the very beginning of the uptick in Jewish immigration to the United States, Jews already established in the country were careful to identify their coreligionists as "able-bodied" and not "defective" in any way. So, the study of disability here speaks volumes about how the powers that be—those who got to define what constituted disability—envisioned the ideal American citizen. Essentially, who's in, who's out, under what terms and conditions, what rights and privileges should they receive, what obligations they have to fulfill, and, regarding all of the above, for what reasons and in what ways. And, in their turn, how did American Jews themselves imagine what the ideal citizen looked like, both to themselves and in the eyes of the powers that be? In other words, and simply put, it's impossible to understand United States and American Jewish history without carefully attending to the role and perception of disability socially, politically, legislatively, and across all facets of life.

NBD: You founded the Society for Jewish and Disability Studies. Why was this society needed? What other area of Jewish studies do you think would benefit from a disability studies approach?

HZG: Firstly, I'm so grateful to my cofounders, Sarah Imhoff, Helene Sinnreich, and Jennifer Glaser. I feel truly privileged to have the chance to collaborate with such spectacular colleagues.

And, truly, all of them! Disability, whether its presence, absence, or the continual transition between the two, is a fundamental facet of lived human experience, and so we can't understand human life, thought, emotion, and experience without taking disability (including illness) into account. Anywhere that we're dealing with a human, we should be thinking about the approaches and methods that disability studies offer us, especially if we want to tell as full and complete a narrative as possible, one that restores marginalized and silenced voices to the fold.

Disability is socially, legally, medically, culturally, religiously, spiritually, etc. constructed, and is contingent upon assumptions and value judgements associated with a particular time and place. So, for instance, I have Celiac disease, so I can't have gluten. That's a disability, with its own set of external presumptions and beliefs. But if I lived in a society where being gluten-free was the norm, I would still be the same "me" with the same medical condition and the same physical implications, but it wouldn't "count" as a disability. I would very deliberately add that this model of disability theory has issues with which we need to reckon, and particularly doesn't necessarily work with the experience of chronic pain and chronic illness, but it provides a deeply useful and instructive model for problematizing what we mean when we think about "disability."

Fundamentally, Jewishness and disability are both basic facts of human existence, society, and organization. At times, the two categories even functioned synonymously. And in addition, they frequently function as critical facets of personal identity, so the way in which they interact to shape perceptions of our subjects, and a person's sense of self, is critical for us to engage with as scholars. And that's just the beginning! How do Judaism and Jewish culture interact and intersect with illness and disability? What are the roles of the body and mind in Jewish life? How about health? In Jewish practice, law, and history, are there certain trends or patterns with regard to people's physical, spiritual, and mental bodies? Approaching any type of history or scholarship with disability in mind tells us a fuller human story, which also tells us something specific about each individual group that we examine.

NBD: Your work as an American historian has always centered questions of women and gender. Is this a separate track or does it intersect with the work in your book?

HZG: It intersects very deeply, on a number of levels. On a broader level, I'm very focused on restoring marginalized, silenced, and dismissed voices to the narrative, both to restore their agency, and to tell as inclusive, nuanced, and comprehensive a story as possible. So, women and gender fit perfectly, and are, indeed, essential. Additionally, if we look at the administration of exclusionary immigration law at the turn of the twentieth century, both gender and sexuality functioned as potentially (or likely) "disabling" categories. So, if we don't attend to women's experiences and how gender inflected people's experiences, we can't even begin to fathom the depths of the United States' nationalist project as defined by immigration law, and the characteristics that the U.S. viewed as integral to the "ideal" American citizen.

NBD: How has being part of a residential fellowship impacted your scholarship?

HZG: It's been incredible! I consider myself so incredibly fortunate to have such kind, brilliant, insightful, thoughtful fellows in my cohort. The opportunity to seriously bounce ideas around, to give and receive feedback, and really at its core to be in friendly and caring community, has tremendously enriched both my scholarship and my experience of scholarship. I continue to be so grateful to have this opportunity.

NBD: You are an avid cat lover (and cat-namer!). Can we see traces of this in your scholarly output?

Absolutely! I benefit from our cats' feedback (and cuddles) all the time, especially—though far from only—when I'm practicing presentations and lectures. If they walk away, I know I need to go back to the drawing board, but if they stay, there is hardly a higher compliment. So I at least do whatever I can to get the approval of three highly discerning kitties! Additionally, my beloved cat Rodham has been with me since before I met my husband Noah, for the entirety of my work on my dissertation. So of course, when I graduated with my Ph.D., I con-furred (pun intended) upon him a PhC–he is a thoroughly deserving Cat of Philosophy, and even has his own tassel. It's the classic story of the rescue pet: did you rescue them, or did they rescue you? I can definitively say, in my case, without question, that even if I rescued Rodham, he most assuredly rescued me as well.