We're delighted to share that 2026–27 fellow Isaac (Tsachi) Slater has coedited a new book with colleague Jonatan Meir. Click below to learn more about 'On the Blood: Four Essays' (Blima Books, 2026 [Hebrew]), a collection of Abraham Chein's writings. blimabooks.com/products/al-...

על הדם

כתביו המוקדמים של אברהם חן (1877-1957) טבועים בחותם האלימות המדממת של תחילת המאה העשרים. בתקופה שבה עלה קרנן של זהויות קיבוציות דרש חן לעמוד על דמו של היחיד הנרמס בעקביהן. מול תעתועי הרטוריקה הפוליטית...

blimabooks.com

Join us Tuesday at 5:15 ET in person or online! Panelists Randi Weingarten, Amanda Shanor, Britt P. Tevis, and Olivia Haynie will reflect on the EEOC's lawsuit against Penn and its implications for the future of freedom, privacy, and education. tinyurl.com/4njhpcum

Today at noon ET! katz.sas.upenn.edu/events/balan...

Balancing Faith and Duty: The Ultra-Orthodox Draft and Its Implications for Israel’s Military and Society

The Haredi and military conscription in Israel

katz.sas.upenn.edu

Join us tomorrow at noon ET for Niva Golan-Nadir's (Reichman University) talk examining the draft controversy in Israel concerning the country’s ultra-Orthodox community. tinyurl.com/7ec8kytn

Balancing Faith and Duty: The Ultra-Orthodox Draft and Its Implications for Israel’s Military and Society

The Haredi and military conscription in Israel

katz.sas.upenn.edu

Today at noon ET! katz.sas.upenn.edu/events/south...

Southern Jews and the U.S. Civil War

How did American Jews living in the South respond to the U.S. Civil War?

katz.sas.upenn.edu

This #fellowfriday we're spotlighting 2026–27 fellow Isaac Slater. As part of this year's theme, War and Peace in Jewish Thought and History, Slater's research focuses on Jewish pacifism and critique of nationalist rhetoric in the twentieth century. katz.sas.upenn.edu/who-we-are/i...

Join us 5:15 pm Tuesday, September 22 at the PCPSE Auditorium for a panel discussion reflecting on the EEOC lawsuit against Penn and exploring its implications for the struggle against antisemitism, the future of higher education, and the future of civil liberty tinyurl.com/4njhpcum

EEOC v. University of Pennsylvania: Unsettled Questions about Religious Protections, Privacy, and American Democracy Today

The EEOC lawsuit and the legal fight over Jewish life at Penn

katz.sas.upenn.edu

Incoming fellow Ahuvia Goren's article, "Continuance or Decline? Jewish Engagements with Early Modern Scholasticism" is now open access! This article won the Harry Austryn Wolfson Award for Outstanding New Research on Judaism and the History of Science in 2024. muse.jhu.edu/pub/3/articl...

This #fellowfriday we're spotlighting Ethan Schwartz. As part of this year's theme, Schwartz will focus on the topic, "The Warrior God and His Foreign Messiah: Cyrus the Great, Military Mythologies, and the Creation of the Jewish People in Second Isaiah." katz.sas.upenn.edu/who-we-are/e...

Ethan Schwartz

Ethan Schwartz is an assistant professor at Villanova University. He studies the Hebrew Bible in both the context of the ancient Near Eastern setting in which it emerged and the Second Temple period i...

katz.sas.upenn.edu

Starting in two weeks: "The Ethics of War and Peace across Religious Traditions," click below to learn more! katz.sas.upenn.edu/ethics-war-a...

The Ethics of War and Peace across Religious Traditions

For millennia, Jewish, Christian, and Muslim thinkers have been wrestling with the question: When is a war just? Contemporary events point to a collective rethinking of the legitimacy and limitations ...

katz.sas.upenn.edu

"Rit­u­al: An Ancient Jew­ish Per­spec­tive is an impor­tant con­tri­bu­tion to the aca­d­e­m­ic study of rit­u­al in Judaism." Click below to read the @jewishbookcouncil.bsky.social's full review of the latest hardcover from Jewish Culture and Contexts! @pennpress.bsky.social tinyurl.com/2hzp7fas

This #fellowfriday we're spotlighting Aleksandra Jakubczak. As part of this year's theme, War and Peace in Jewish Thought and History, Jakubczak's research focuses on widows, agunot, and orphans: Polish Jewish women in the years following World War I. katz.sas.upenn.edu/who-we-are/a...

Aleksandra Jakubczak

Aleksandra Jakubczak is a scholar specializing in the social and economic history of Eastern European Jewry in the modern period with a focus on women and gender, migration, and transnationalism. She ...

katz.sas.upenn.edu

JQR 116.3 has landed and this one truly has something for everyone: the Babylonian Talmud, Cairo Geniza letters, medieval MSS diagrams, Nahmanides, early Hasidic lit, and Maimonides in dialogue with Hegel. And not a paywall in sight! Peruse the contents: katz.sas.upenn.edu/resources/bl...

New Issue of the Jewish Quarterly Review: Summer 2026

JQR 116.3 is now available, online and in print

katz.sas.upenn.edu

Apply for the Katz Center's 2027–28 fellowship year! Click below to learn more about Between Mind and World in Premodern Jewish Life. katz.sas.upenn.edu/scholarly-pr...

This #fellowfriday we're spotlighting Yuval Fraenkel. As part of this year's theme, War and Peace in Jewish Thought and History, Fraenkel will focus on divine disobedience: rabbinic rewritings of biblical war narratives. Click below to read more! katz.sas.upenn.edu/who-we-are/y...

Yuval Fraenkel

Yuval Fraenkel is a postdoctoral researcher specializing in the literary analysis of rabbinic narratives. During his Kreitman Postdoctoral Fellowship at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (2024–2026),...

katz.sas.upenn.edu

Next month, the Katz Center launches a new series of virtual lectures, Jews and the Civil War. Click below to learn more! katz.sas.upenn.edu/jews-and-us-... #jewishstudies

Jews and the U.S. Civil War

The U.S. Civil War (1861–1865) redefined Jews’ experiences in the American republic. Jews fought and died on both sides and articulated various views about abolitionism, slavery, and secession. How an...

katz.sas.upenn.edu

In the first #fellowfriday of the 2026–27 academic year, we're spotlighting René Bloch. As part of this year's theme focusing on war and peace, he will be focusing on Philo of Alexandria's philosophy of peace. Click below to read more about René Bloch! katz.sas.upenn.edu/who-we-are/r...

René Bloch

René Bloch is a professor of Jewish studies at the Institute of Jewish Studies and the Institute of Classics at the University of Bern in Switzerland. His work focuses primarily on Hellenistic Judaism...

katz.sas.upenn.edu

This #throwbackthursday watch this 2017 talk in which Rebecca Kobrin (Columbia University) explore the Jewish Lessons from Interwar Europe in Part 1: Soft Power. tinyurl.com/nknrcwb7

Soft Power: Lessons from Jewish Interwar Europe, Part I

February 16, 2017 | Rebecca Kobrin, Columbia University Presented by the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, University of Pennsylvania in partnership with The Gershman Y, Philadelphia Katz Center Public Program Series: "Political Ramifications," Spring 2017 Video made possible by support from the Josephine Cohen Foundation

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Check out this new book edited by former Katz Center fellow Elisheva Baumgarten, Beyond the Elite: Everyday Jewish Lives in Medieval Northern Europe (Cornell Press). cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501...

This #fellowfriday we're introducing our incoming cohort of fellows. The Katz Center devotes this fellowship year into how Jewish history, culture, thought, and expression have been shaped by the experiences of war and peace. Click below to meet the fellows! katz.sas.upenn.edu/scholarly-pr...

Current Year

2026–2027 Fellowship ThemeWar and Peace in Jewish Thought and HistoryWar has been a part of Jewish experience since its very beginnings, and so too has the aspiration for peace. The Katz Center devote...

katz.sas.upenn.edu

Douglas Irvin-Erickson (George Mason University) describes the pressure lawyer Raphael Lemkin faced during the 1948 United Nations Genocide Convention. Watch the full lecture here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=lh76...

Apply for the Katz Center's 2027–28 fellowship year! Click below to learn more about Between Mind and World in Premodern Jewish Life. katz.sas.upenn.edu/scholarly-pr...

Stay in touch with the Katz Center! Click the link below to sign up for our newsletter! signup.e2ma.net/signup/18610... Trade Card advertising Manhattan One Price Clothing Co (Dayton, Ohio: 1891), Kaplan Collection of Early American Judaica, University of Pennsylvania. Arc.MS.56, Volume 32, Page 25

In case you missed it, catch up with all the Katz Center's 2025–26 public programs here: www.youtube.com/playlist?lis... Or find all our past programs here: www.youtube.com/@katzcenter

Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies

The Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies is a post-doctoral research institute within the University of Pennsylvania devoted to the study of Jewish cultures and texts as an integral part...

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Congratulations to our colleagues at Gratz College! www2.archivists.org/recipients/a...

Check out 2014–15 fellow Susannah Heschel's recent commentary in Hadassah Magazine. www.hadassahmagazine.org/2026/07/06/t...

The Fight for Jewish Feminism Continues

Prof. Susannah Heschel explores the breakthroughs that transformed Jewish life and the barriers women and nonbinary scholars still face.

hadassahmagazine.org

Applications are open for the 2027–28 fellowship year, Between Mind and World in Premodern Jewish Life! Click below to learn more. #jewishstudies #academicsky #religiousstudies katz.sas.upenn.edu/scholarly-pr...

Want to stay in touch with the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies? Click below to sign up for our newsletter! katz.sas.upenn.edu/contact-us

Contact Us

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Click below to read our latest interview with 2025–26 fellow Yosefa Raz as she describes her path to academia through literature. katz.sas.upenn.edu/resources/bl...

Q&A: Literary Scholar Yosefa Raz Reads the Israeli Moment

Katz Center fellow Yosefa Raz aims her subtle and devastating eye on the ways the Bible weaves through the present

katz.sas.upenn.edu

Call for papers! Our colleagues @emodir.bsky.social are preparing for the 2027 Renaissance Society of American Annual Meeting with the theme, Geographies of Transgression: Mobility and Religious Minorities. 🗓️ Deadline is June 30! Details below. emodir.hypotheses.org/3887