THE KATZ CENTER is delighted to announce the incoming fellows for the 2025–26 year devoted to new research into contemporary Jewish life. This international cohort brings a fascinatingly diverse set of projects exploring the many ways that Jewishness is expressed and contested across geographies of the contemporary moment.
One wants the best for one’s friends and colleagues—really one does—but sometimes our goodwill is tested, as it was when Anne Oravetz Albert told us she was leaving her role as executive editor of JQR to accept a new job. She leaves behind a gaping hole.
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.
We are thrilled to learn that scholarship supported by the Katz Center has been recognized by the National Jewish Book Awards.
I am delighted to announce that the Katz Center has launched an Instagram account! We are using this additional platform to connect our abundance of scholarship to new constituencies, experts and enthusiasts alike.
The Katz Center mourns the passing of Louise Strauss (March 31, 1960–February 27, 2024) who died after a long illness. A member of our board of advisors, Louise’s commitment to the Center, its collections, and to the field of Jewish studies was profound; in this she followed in the footsteps of her parents, Ione Apfelbaum Strauss, the former chair of the board of the Katz Center, and Hilary Strauss, also an avid Penn supporter. One of Louise’s last acts as a Katz Center board member was to endow the Center’s rare book room in memory of her parents.
JQR 113.4 is now available, online and in print.
In this issue:
JQR 113.3 is now available, online and in print.
In this issue:
Barry Wimpfheimer shows that the Mishnah stacks legal couplets like building blocks to produce ever-richer conceptual understandings and train the reader to mine it for such meaning.
There is just something about music. Everyone seems to understand its language, as rhythm and voice affect mind, body, and spirit at once. Music brings out a depth of human feeling that, let’s face it, is often tempered in academic contexts. But with the coming year at the Katz Center devoted to global musical cultures, we—and our audiences in and outside of the academy—will have the opportunity to enjoy Jewish musical expression to the fullest, with a robust lineup of online and in-person performances, interviews, and talks.
