A Sweet Sorrow

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Dr. Anne Albert for eleven remarkable years as the Katz Center's Klatt Family Director for Public Programs. Anne’s connection to the Katz Center goes back to when she was a graduate student attendee at seminars, and later when she was a fellow during years devoted to conversion and early modern Jewish history. Clearly, that earlier experience meant a lot to her because she brought real love and respect for the Katz Center’s mission to her work as public programs director and as executive editor for JQR. On behalf of the Katz Center staff, and all those she has benefitted through her work in public scholarship, I want to say thank you!

As it happens, Anne began as public programs director the same year I began as Center director, and I think it is fair to say that neither of us at the time knew how much the role would change over the next decade. In the beginning, we were trying to follow the model that my predecessor David Ruderman had established when this role was created and endowed by Brad and Robin Klatt to arrange for fellows to speak in synagogues and other public settings—but it proved difficult to sustain attendance at such programs, and those early years required a lot of rethinking and experimenting. Then came Covid and which made it more difficult to connect Jewish studies scholarship to the public. But Anne proved to be adaptive and innovative. She helped the Center move its public programs online, innovated new mini-courses and series, developed the LEAP program that brings rabbis and other communal leaders to learn from fellows, and undertook other initiatives that have all served to elevate the Center as an intellectual/scholarly resource for the public and give a public platform to hundreds of scholars.

While doing all this, Anne also found the time and intellectual energy to turn her dissertation into a book and to teach Penn students as well. Anne’s research has shed light on the interplay between high level thought and communal concerns in early modern Amsterdam, and she has cultivated such an interplay herself by bringing her expertise to bear on her public programming role. Thanks to her ability to move between the scholarly and the public realms, the role has developed significantly over the last decade. The Center’s scholarly efforts are more visible; we have been able to share very high level research with those curious to learn about it; we have been able to collaborate with museums and other organizations both locally and internationally; and we have been able to bring Jewish studies perspectives to bear on topics of direct relevance to the present, including recent challenges to higher education itself.

Anne’s work at the Center will leave an enduring imprint through JQR and through scores of public programs that can now be viewed online via our YouTube channel, another innovation from her time here. We take solace in knowing that she will not be too far away in her new role as director of communication and operations for the College of Arts and Science at Penn; we will stay connected to her, and we will long be grateful for all she has done to enrich the Katz Center community in its broadest sense.