Q&A: Katz Center Fellow Mary Channen Caldwell on Jewish Music and Musicians in Medieval France
Natalie Dohrmann (NBD): Mary, tell us a bit about your scholarly interests and what especially excites you about them personally and/or intellectually.
Q&A: Katz Center Fellow Samantha Cooper on Jews and the Met
Steve Weitzman (SW): Samantha, tell us a bit about your scholarly interests, and what drew you to them personally and/or intellectually.
Q&A: Katz Center Fellow Uri Erman on Jews in the British Opera in the 18th and 19th Centuries
Steve Weitzman (SW): Uri, might you begin by telling us a bit about your larger project on opera in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and what led you to this interest?
Q&A: Katz Center Fellow Itamar Ben Ami Tells a New Story of Ultra-Orthodox Political Theology
Steven Weitzman (SW): Can you tell us about your research on ultra-Orthodox Judaism and philosophy?
Q&A: Katz Center Fellow Elisabeth Gallas on Jewish Legal Activism and the Nuremberg Trials
Steven Weitzman (SW): Elisabeth, thank you for contributing so much to our fellowship program this last semester. You came to the Katz Center to do research on something that you refer to as the “New York Black Book of 1946.” Can you tell us a bit about what this text is and what led you to investigate it?
Q&A: Katz Center Fellow Emmanuel Bloch on Shifting Conceptions of Modesty in Jewish Legal Codes
Steve Weitzman (SW): Emmanuel, it has been great to have you as a fellow. Your research has opened my eyes to how halakhah, Jewish law, is developing is the twenty-first century. First of all, is "Jewish law" the right translation for halakhah? How would you explain what halakhah is for those who do not study it?
Katz Center Fellow Marc Herman on Medieval Judaism, Islamic Legal Theory, and a New Genre of Jewish Thought
Becky S. Friedman (BSF): Marc, congratulations on the recent publication of Accounting for the Commandments in Medieval Judaism, which you co-edited with Jeremy P. Brown! Let me begin with a big question.
Katz Center Fellow Britt Tevis on “Mythical Jewish Arsonists” and Anti-Jewish Discrimination in U.S. History
Steven P. Weitzman (SPW): You are one of the few Katz Center fellows in my time as director who combines training in history and the law (although we will have several next year in a year focused on Jews and the law). Can you tell us a bit about what led you to the study of legal history, intellectually and/or personally?
Katz Center Fellow Ayelet Brinn on the American Yiddish Press and the Historical Roles and Contexts of the Media
Steven P. Weitzman (SPW): Ayelet, can you tell us a bit about the project you are working on at the Katz Center?
Katz Center Fellow Alanna E. Cooper on Unraveling Jewish Communities, Synagogue Dissolution, and the Afterlife of Material Culture
Steven P. Weitzman (SPW): Your research began far afield from this year's current focus on America's Jewish Questions. You did anthropological fieldwork in Uzbekistan and produced an excellent monograph on Bukharan Jews—you could have fit well into a recent Katz Center year focused on Jewish life in modern Islamic contexts. How then did you move from that focus and part of the world to your current project on American synagogues?