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Jews in Modern Europe Seminar

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Chairs

Derek J. Penslar

William Lee Frost Professor of Jewish History, Harvard University; Resident Faculty & Seminar Chair, Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University; Director, The Center for Jewish Studies, Harvard University

Natalie Behrends

Ph.D. Candidate in History, Harvard University; Seminar Chair, Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University

This Jews in Modern Europe Seminar welcomes presentations on work in progress in the history, politics, society, and culture of modern European Jewry. Its purview reaches from early modernity to the present, and it welcomes presentations with a comparative, transnational, and international orientation as well as a specific national focus.

Seminar Events Calendar

Upcoming Events Past Events

Jews in Modern Europe Seminar — To Be or Not to Be Jewish and Hungarian: Dilemmas of Identity in the Films of István Szabó

February 18, 2025
4:00pm - 5:30pm

Susan Rubin Suleiman – C. Douglas Dillon Research Professor of the Civilization of France, Emerita, and Research Professor of Comparative Literature, Emerita, Harvard University; Faculty Associate, Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Chair Derek J. Penslar – William Lee Frost Professor of Jewish History, Harvard University; Resident Faculty & Seminar Chair, Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University; Director, The Center for Jewish Studies, Harvard University

Jews in Modern Europe Seminar — Who Lived, Who Died? - A Book Discussion with Peter Gourevitch

November 13, 2024
4:00pm - 5:30pm

Peter Gourevitch – Founding Dean and Distinguished Professor Emeritus, School of Global Policy and Strategy, University of California, San Diego
Laura Levine Frader – Professor Emeritus, Northeastern University; Local Affiliate & Seminar Chair, Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Chair Derek J. Penslar – William Lee Frost Professor of Jewish History, Harvard University; Resident Faculty & Seminar Chair, Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University; Director, The Center for Jewish Studies, Harvard University

Jews in Modern Europe Seminar — Vanishing Vienna: Modernism, Philosemitism, and Jews in a Postwar City

April 3, 2024
4:00pm - 5:15pm

Frances Tanzer – Rose Professor of Holocaust Studies and Jewish Culture, Clark University
Chair Derek J. Penslar – William Lee Frost Professor of Jewish History, Harvard University; Resident Faculty & Seminar Chair, Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University; Director, The Center for Jewish Studies, Harvard University

Jews in Modern Europe Seminar — Sojourns: German-Jewish Refugees and Survivors in Their Late 20th Century Hometowns

February 21, 2024
4:15pm - 5:30pm

Helmut Walser Smith – Professor of History, Vanderbilt University
Chair Derek J. Penslar – William Lee Frost Professor of Jewish History, Harvard University; Resident Faculty & Seminar Chair, Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University; Director, The Center for Jewish Studies, Harvard University

Jews in Modern Europe Seminar — From King to Peasant: Class Imagination in the Formative Years of Jewish Nationalism

February 15, 2024
4:30pm - 6:00pm

Rhona Burns – Fulbright Postdoctoral Fellow, Center for Jewish Studies, Harvard University; Editor, Eyruvin
Chair Derek J. Penslar – William Lee Frost Professor of Jewish History, Harvard University; Resident Faculty & Seminar Chair, Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University; Director, The Center for Jewish Studies, Harvard University

Jews in Modern Europe Seminar — Jews and Crypto-Christianity in 18th-Century Europe: The Case of Rabbi Jonathan Eibeschütz

November 28, 2023
4:00pm - 5:30pm

Pawel Maciejko – Associate Professor & Leonard and Helen R. Stulman Chair in Classical Jewish Religion, Thought, and Culture, Johns Hopkins University
Chair Derek J. Penslar – William Lee Frost Professor of Jewish History, Harvard University; Resident Faculty & Seminar Chair, Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University; Director, The Center for Jewish Studies, Harvard University

Jews in Modern Europe Seminar — CANCELLED: Between Testimony and Trial: A Transnational History of the Kamenets-Podolsk Massacre of 1941

October 31, 2023
4:00pm - 5:30pm

Anastasia Fairchild – Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science & Comparative Politics, Center for International Studies, SciencesPo
Chair Derek J. Penslar – William Lee Frost Professor of Jewish History, Harvard University; Resident Faculty & Seminar Chair, Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University; Director, The Center for Jewish Studies, Harvard University

Jews in Modern Europe Seminar — Bruno Schulz and the Hijacking of History

October 25, 2023
4:00pm - 5:30pm

Benjamin Balint – Author
Chair Derek J. Penslar – William Lee Frost Professor of Jewish History, Harvard University; Resident Faculty & Seminar Chair, Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University; Director, The Center for Jewish Studies, Harvard University

Jews in Modern Europe Seminar — Subcontractors of Guilt: Holocaust Memory and Muslim Belonging in Postwar Germany

September 19, 2023
12:30pm - 1:45pm

Esra Özyürek – Associate Professor in Contemporary Turkish Studies, European Institute, London School of Economics and Political Science
Chair Derek J. Penslar – William Lee Frost Professor of Jewish History, Harvard University; Resident Faculty & Seminar Chair, Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University; Director, The Center for Jewish Studies, Harvard University

Jews in Modern Europe Seminar — "In Antwerp We Speak Diamond" – City Branding & the Specter of Europe's Jewish Merchant

March 31, 2022
12:30pm - 1:45pm

Sam Shuman – Rabin-Shvidler Joint Post-Doctoral Fellow in Jewish Studies, Fordham University and Columbia University
Chair Derek J. Penslar – William Lee Frost Professor of Jewish History, Harvard University; Resident Faculty & Seminar Chair, Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University; Director, The Center for Jewish Studies, Harvard University

European Politics Seminar & Jews in Modern Europe Seminar — Israel's Moment: International Conflict Over the Jewish State

March 9, 2022
4:00pm - 5:00pm

Jeffrey Herf – Distinguished University Professor of History, University of Maryland
Derek J. Penslar – William Lee Frost Professor of Jewish History, Harvard University; Resident Faculty & Seminar Chair, Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University; Director, The Center for Jewish Studies, Harvard University
Chair Laura Levine Frader – Professor Emeritus, Northeastern University; Local Affiliate & Seminar Chair, Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University

Jews in Modern Europe Seminar — Badges of Servitude: White Christian Supremacy and the Rejection of Jewish and Black Equality

February 11, 2022
12:30pm - 1:30pm

Magda Teter – Shvidler Chair in Judaic Studies and Professor of History, Fordham University
Chair Derek J. Penslar – William Lee Frost Professor of Jewish History, Harvard University; Resident Faculty & Seminar Chair, Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University; Director, The Center for Jewish Studies, Harvard University

Jews in Modern Europe Seminar — Jewish Politics Between Minorityhood and Triage in Interwar Poland

November 5, 2021
12:00pm - 1:00pm

Kenneth Moss – Harriet and Ulrich E. Meyer Professor of Jewish History and the College, University of Chicago
Chair Derek J. Penslar – William Lee Frost Professor of Jewish History, Harvard University; Resident Faculty & Seminar Chair, Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University; Director, The Center for Jewish Studies, Harvard University

Jews in Modern Europe Seminar — The Alliance Israélite Universelle and the Racial Politics of Ethnography

October 14, 2021
12:00pm - 1:00pm

Rachel Smith – Ph.D. Student, Department of History, UCLA
Chair Tsiona Lida – Ph.D. Student in History, Harvard University; Graduate Student Affiliate & Seminar Coordinator, Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University

Jews in Modern Europe Seminar — "An Unspeakable Jewish Tragedy" – Jews, the Munich Revolution, and the Rise of Nazism

May 6, 2021
12:30pm - 1:45pm

Michael Brenner – Abensohn Chair in Israel Studies and Director, Center for Israel Studies History, American Universityy, American University
Chair Derek J. Penslar – William Lee Frost Professor of Jewish History, Harvard University; Resident Faculty & Seminar Chair, Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University; Director, The Center for Jewish Studies, Harvard University

Jews in Modern Europe Seminar — The House of Fragile Things

April 22, 2021
12:30pm - 1:45pm

James McAuley – Global Opinions Columnist, The Washington Post
Chair Derek J. Penslar – William Lee Frost Professor of Jewish History, Harvard University; Resident Faculty & Seminar Chair, Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University; Director, The Center for Jewish Studies, Harvard University

Jews in Modern Europe Seminar — The Rise and Fall of Jewish International Politics, 1919-1949

March 11, 2021
12:30pm - 1:45pm

Rotem Giladi – Associate Researcher, Leibniz Institute for Jewish History and Culture, Simon Dubnow in Leipzig; Adjunct Professor, Hebrew University of Jerusalem Law Faculty
Chair Derek J. Penslar – William Lee Frost Professor of Jewish History, Harvard University; Resident Faculty & Seminar Chair, Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University; Director, The Center for Jewish Studies, Harvard University

Jews in Modern Europe Seminar — The Jewish Eighteenth Century and the Transformative Year 1782

December 3, 2020
1:00pm - 2:15pm

Shmuel Feiner – Professor of Jewish History, Bar-Ilan University; Chair, The Historical Society of Israel
Chair Derek J. Penslar – William Lee Frost Professor of Jewish History, Harvard University; Resident Faculty & Seminar Chair, Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University; Director, The Center for Jewish Studies, Harvard University

Jews in Modern Europe Seminar — Tehran Children: On the Trail of WWII Refugees in Central Asia and the Middle East

November 6, 2020
12:00pm - 1:15pm

Mikhal Dekel – Professor and Director of the Rifkind Center for the Humanities and Arts, City College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York
Chair Derek J. Penslar – William Lee Frost Professor of Jewish History & Resident Faculty & Seminar Chair, CES, Harvard University

Jews in Modern Europe Seminar — Ghetto: The History of a Word

October 22, 2020
1:00pm - 2:15pm

Daniel B. Schwartz – Associate Professor of History, Columbian College of Arts and Sciences, The George Washington University
Chair Derek J. Penslar – William Lee Frost Professor of Jewish History, Harvard University; Resident Faculty & Seminar Chair, Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University; Director, The Center for Jewish Studies, Harvard University

Jews in Modern Europe Seminar — WEBINAR | The Eagle and the Jewish Question: Jews in the Polish Collective Imagination Today

May 5, 2020
2:00pm - 3:00pm

Konstanty Gebert – Journalist and a co-founder, Polish Council of Christians and Jews; Visiting Faculty Spring 2020, Grinell College
Derek J. Penslar – William Lee Frost Professor of Jewish History, Harvard University; Resident Faculty & Seminar Chair, Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University; Director, The Center for Jewish Studies, Harvard University

Jews in Modern Europe Seminar — CANCELLED - Empire of Uncertainty: Interwar Jewish Politics and British Imperialism in the Age of Nationalism

April 23, 2020
4:30pm - 6:00pm

Elizabeth Imber – Assistant Professor of History and the Michael and Lisa Leffell Chair in Modern Jewish History, Clark University
Chair Derek J. Penslar – William Lee Frost Professor of Modern Jewish History & Resident Faculty, CES, Harvard University

Jews in Modern Europe Seminar — WEBINAR | Theodor Herzl: The Charismatic Leader

April 17, 2020
2:00pm - 3:00pm

Derek J. Penslar – William Lee Frost Professor of Jewish History, Harvard University; Resident Faculty & Seminar Chair, Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University; Director, The Center for Jewish Studies, Harvard University
Chair Alexander Kaye – Karl, Harry, and Helen Stoll Assistant Professor of Israel Studies, Brandeis University

Jews in Modern Europe Seminar — The Bacterial Turn in Yiddish Literature: Two Case Studies

February 20, 2020
4:30pm - 6:00pm

Sunny Yudkoff – Assistant Professor, Department of German, Nordic and Slavic, & the Mosse/Weinstein Center for Jewish Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Chair Derek J. Penslar – William Lee Frost Professor of Jewish History, Harvard University; Resident Faculty & Seminar Chair, Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University; Director, The Center for Jewish Studies, Harvard University

Jews in Modern Europe Seminar — Jewish Emancipation Reimagined

February 6, 2020
4:30pm - 6:00pm

David Sorkin – Lucy G. Moses Professor of Modern Jewish History, Yale University
Chair Derek J. Penslar – William Lee Frost Professor of Jewish History, CES Resident Faculty and Seminar Chair, Harvard University

Jews in Modern Europe Seminar — Emigration from Paradise: Jewish Stories from Interwar Hungary

November 21, 2019
4:30pm - 6:00pm

llse Josepha Lazaroms – Lecturer, Graduate Gender Program, Utrecht University; Research Fellow in Jewish Studies, Martin Buber Chair, Goethe University Frankfurt; German Kennedy Memorial Fellow & Visiting Scholar 2019-2020, CES, Harvard University
Chair Derek J. Penslar – William Lee Frost Professor of Jewish History, Harvard University; Resident Faculty & Seminar Chair, Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University; Director, The Center for Jewish Studies, Harvard University

Jews in Modern Europe Seminar — A Premonition of the Shoah? R. A. Reiss’s Photographs of Monástir, 1917

November 7, 2019
4:30pm - 6:00pm

Chair Derek J. Penslar – William Lee Frost Professor of Jewish History, Harvard University; Resident Faculty & Seminar Chair, Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University; Director, The Center for Jewish Studies, Harvard University

Jews in Modern Europe Seminar — Diasporic Home-Making: Jews in Paris and Berlin in the 20th Century

October 24, 2019
4:30pm - 6:00pm

Leora Auslander – Professor of European Social History and the Arthur and Joann Rasmussen Professor in Western Civilization, The University of Chicago
Chair Derek J. Penslar – William Lee Frost Professor of Modern Jewish History & Resident Faculty, CES, Harvard University

Jews in Modern Europe Seminar & European Union Seminar — The Survival of the Jews in France, 1940-1944

October 17, 2019
4:30pm - 6:00pm

Jacques Sémelin – Professor in Modern History and Political Science, Science Po; Senior Researcher Emeritus, Center for International Studies (CERI-CNRS)
Chair Derek J. Penslar – William Lee Frost Professor of Modern Jewish History; CES Resident Faculty & Seminar Chair, Harvard University