Mendel
Kranz

Mendel Kranz

University of Pennsylvania
Ross-Silk-Lowenstein Postdoctoral Fellow

Research Topic

Colonialism, Antisemitism, and Islamophobia in Postwar France 

Bio

Mendel Kranz is the inaugural Ross-Silk-Lowenstein Postdoctoral Fellow in the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism at the Katz Center. He focuses on issues of modern Jewish history and thought, postcolonial studies, and religious studies. His current book project, The Postcolonial Jewish Question: Colonialism, Antisemitism, and Islamophobia in Postwar France interrogates how Jewish marginalization and antisemitism intersected with the histories of colonialism and Islamophobia, beginning with the struggles for decolonization in the 1950s through the end of the century. His research has appeared in a variety of publications, and he is a recipient of multiple grants that allowed him to conduct extensive research in France.

Kranz received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago Divinity School

Selected publications

  • “The Problem with Freedom from Religion,” Sightings (2021).
  • “Postcolonial Zionism: Theological-Political Paradigms in Levinas and Memmi,” Hebrew Studies 60 (2019): 293–321.

Fellowship

2025–2026

Exploring the many ways that Jewishness is expressed and contested across geographies of the contemporary moment.