This blog post is part of a series focused on the research of current fellows. In this edition, Katz Center Director Steven Weitzman sits down with Melissa S. Cradic, who recently earned her PhD at the University of California, Berkeley with a dissertation on funerary practices and ancestor lineages in the Bronze Age Levant.

This week, design-minded types around Philadelphia are celebrating and exploring the city’s architecture, fashion, interior design, graphic arts, digital innovation, and more in the Design Philadelphia festival. Although the Katz Center is not officially participating, we are watching closely, since design plays a prominent role in our theme of “the Jewish home” this year.