In this episode, historian Dr. Anna Hejkova from the University of Warwick explores rarely discussed queer histories and enforced relationships during the Holocaust. The narrative delves into the lives of concentration camp guard Anneliese Kohlmann; Helene Sommer, a female prisoner who Kohlmann forced into a relationship; Margot Heumann, a teenage …

In this episode, Debora Kantor, a lecturer at the National University of San Martin, Buenos Aires, discusses her research on the representation of Jews and Jewishness in Argentine modern and contemporary cinema. She delves into her specific project on Argentine nonfiction films about Israel, examining how these films reflect both collective and per…

In this episode, we explore the fascinating history of the Jewish Museum in New York City. From its humble beginnings in 1904 as a small collection of ceremonial objects to its current status as a renowned institution grappling with questions of identity and purpose, the museum's story is one of constant evolution and debate.We discuss the museum's…

The history of European fashion typically focuses on singular, Christian European geniuses who conjured bold designs and created cutting-edge garments. But in Paris in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Jews from the Middle East and North Africa played important roles in shaping European tastes in fashion.In this episode, Devi Mays, an associa…

From Gold Mountain to Tinseltown: Ethnic Identity in California’s Architectural VernacularIt’s well known that millions of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe immigrated across the Atlantic to the United States, settling mostly in New York and other large cities. But some Jewish immigrants crossed the Pacific and settled on the West Coast of the …

Jews are no strangers to horror. They’ve encountered and dealt with horrifying events throughout their history - exile, destruction of two temples, expulsion, blood libels, ghettoization, genocide, terrorism. The list goes on and on. And so, it’s perhaps not surprising that Jewish critics and filmmakers have done some really interesting work in the…

The rise of the Nazis and their antisemitic agenda during the early 1930s was the beginning of the darkest era of modern Jewish history. For obvious reasons, we tend to not make jokes about it. And yet, at the time, some Jewish writers and artists, including photographers, did exactly that.In this episode, Louis Kaplan, a professor of visual studie…

2023-24 Frankel Institute "Jewish Visual Cultures"Today's Guest: Deborah Dash MooreProject Title: “Camera as Passport”During the 1930s, ‘40, and ‘50s, throughout the great depression and into the post-WWII era, photographers who were members of the NY Photo League, many of whom were Jews, documented working-class street life in New York City. And w…

Since the earliest years of the modern state of Israel, Jews from Arab and Muslim lands, known as Mizrahim, have had to fight for equal rights and opportunities. Mizrahi Jews were looked down upon by the Zionist establishment as primitive–in many ways the very opposite of the image of the New, Western-style Jew that the establishment hoped to foste…

Like most Jews living in Muslim lands, the Jews of Algeria had over the centuries built a vibrant culture, with homegrown traditions, institutions, and religious practices. Tying it all together was the Algerian Jewish community’s unique dialect of Judeo-Arabic, which rendered Arabic in Hebrew script–much like Yiddish, a German dialect written in H…

Mizrahiyut, or Mizrahi identity and consciousness, is an Israeli phenomenon, born in the decades after hundreds of thousands of Jews from Arab and North African lands immigrated to Israel.But recently, a version of Mizrahi identity has taken root in the United States among the sons and daughters of Mizrahi Jews who have relocated to America. In thi…

During the late 1940s and early 1950s, the fledgling State of Israel scrambled to accommodate a flood of Jewish immigrants from war-torn Europe and from the Middle East and North Africa. The Middle Eastern and North African Jews, who came to be known as Mizrahi, or Eastern, Jews, were seen as backwards and primitive by the Zionist establishment. Tw…

2022-23 Frankel Institute: Mizrahim and the Politics of EthnicityProject Title: Mizrahim and the Local Politics of Ethnicity in Development TownsIf you’ve ever visited Israel, you most likely spent some time in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, maybe also Haifa and Eilat. But chances are you didn’t go to places like Sderot, Ofakim, and Kiryat Shmona–development…

2021-22 Frankel Institute Second Temple Judaism: The Challenge of DiversityFellow, Catherine BoneshoProject Title: Gentile Rulers in the Early Jewish ImaginationPor University of Michigan Frankel Center for Judaic Studies

2021-22 Frankel Institute Second Temple Judaism: The Challenge DiversityFellow, Rodney Caruthers Project Title: Judaism and its Practice Beyond RiversPor University of Michigan Frankel Center for Judaic Studies

2021-2022 Frankel Institute Second Temple Judaism: The Challenge of DiversityFellow, Alexei Sivertsev"Construction of Jewish Identities in 2nd Temple Period"Por University of Michigan Frankel Center for Judaic Studies

2021-22 Frankel Institute Second Temple Judaism: The Challenge of DiversityFellow, Liane FeldmanProject Title: The Myth of Cultic Centralization in Second Temple JudaismPor University of Michigan Frankel Center for Judaic Studies

2021-22 Frankel Institute Second Temple Judaism: The Challenge of DiversityM TongLine 3: Project Title: "Circumcision and Bodily Discourse"Por University of Michigan Frankel Center for Judaic Studies

2021-22 Frankel Institute Second Temple Judaism: The Challenge of DiversityFellow, Oren AblemanProject Title: Resistance to Rome in Second Temple LiteraturePor University of Michigan Frankel Center for Judaic Studies

2021-2022 Second Temple Judaism: The Challenge of DiversityFellow, Gregg E. GardnerProject Title: "Digging Up Judaism: Archaeology, Diversity, and Material Religion in the 2nd Temple Era"Por University of Michigan Frankel Center for Judaic Studies

2021-22 Frankel Institute Second Temple Judaism: The Challenge of DiversityFellow, Mark LeuchterProject Title: So Let It Be Written: Persian Imperial Myth and the Formation of Early Jewish Textual IdentityPor University of Michigan Frankel Center for Judaic Studies

2020-21 Frankel Institute Translating Jewish CulturesFellow, Lucia FinottoProject Title: Republic of Scholars: Jewish Translators in Medieval SicilyPor University of Michigan Frankel Center for Judaic Studies

2020-21 Frankel Institute Translating Jewish CulturesFellow, Maya BarzilaiProject Title: Love and the Zionist Translation ProjectPor University of Michigan Frankel Center for Judaic Studies

2020-21 Frankel Institute Translating Jewish CulturesFellow, Alex MoshkinProject Title: Russian-Israeli PoetryPor University of Michigan Frankel Center for Judaic Studies

2020-21 Frankel Institute Translating Jewish CulturesFellow, Oren KosanskyProject Title: Jews, Alcohol, and Moroccan MahiaPor University of Michigan Frankel Center for Judaic Studies