A manuscript for the Sefirah counting recently cataloged in the Alfonso Cassuto Collection dates from 1839; it was written by Salamaõ Attias for Moses Buzaglo in Ponta Delgada.

The Katz Center is thrilled to announce the cohort for the 2022–23 academic year, engaging the theme of Jews and Modern Legal Culture. The fellows will join us from Israel, France, Germany, Canada, and the United States, and represent a range of methodological, disciplinary, and historical specializations.

We are very saddened to report the passing of Professor Samuel Klausner, a founding member of Penn's Jewish Studies Program, a long-time participant in Katz Center activities who remained actively engaged in the Center until just before the onset of the pandemic and who, together with his spouse Professor Roberta Sands, created a fellowship that supported several scholars during the Katz Center fellowship year devoted to Jewish life in modern Islamic contexts.  Professor Klausner was an exemplary social-scientist, and through his questions during the Center

Thanks to the extraordinary generosity and vision of Arnold and Deanne Kaplan, the Penn Libraries have acquired a pair of 18th-century oil portraits of Moses Michael Hays, arguably the most prominent Jewish merchant of the time, and his wife Rachel Myers Hays, the daughter of the outstanding colonial Jewish silversmith (Myer Myers). These paintings are attributed to Gilbert Stuart, renowned for his unfinished painting of George Washington, which appears on the one dollar bill!

Just before the Jewish New Year, the Katz Center community suffered a deeply upsetting loss with the sudden passing of one of its board members, Howard Reiter. The Katz Center wishes to convey its deepest condolences to Howard’s wife Jody, their four children, and the many family members and friends left heart-broken by his passing.

Conscious History: Polish Jewish Historians before the Holocaust
Oxford University Press
By Natalia Aleksiun (2014–15: Wissenschaft and 2017–18: Nature)

Steven P. Weitzman (SPW): Becky, first of all, I have to convey a huge congratulations on completing your doctorate. It is quite an accomplishment to have completed a dissertation while working full time at the Katz Center and living through a pandemic.

It is with tremendous excitement that we announce the incoming fellows for the 2021–2022 academic year, focusing on the theme of Rethinking Premodern Jewish Legal Cultures. These scholars bring expertise in law, drawing on a range of methodologies and evidence bases, and covering space and time from ancient Mesopotamia though medieval Sefarad and early modern Germany. Chosen from a particularly competitive pool of applicants, the incoming fellows hail from Israel, Western Europe, Brazil, Canada, and the US.

In the spirit of these difficult times, we would like to highlight two special acquisitions that reflect the possibility of overcoming trauma and rebuilding lives. Thanks to the Mark S. Zucker Judaica Endowment, established by Katz Center board member Mark Zucker, we acquired the first edition of Viktor Frankl’s Trotzdem Ja Zum Leben Sagen [“Say yes to Life”] (Vienna: Franz Deuticke Verlag, 1946).

We are delighted to announce that Ilan Stavans, of Amherst College, the internationally known scholar, writer, editor, translator, playwright, cultural critic, publisher, teacher, lexicographer, columnist, journalist, travel writer, biographer, actor, TV and radio host, has donated to the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, the Ilan Stavans Collection of Jewish Latin American History, Culture, and Literature.