Alphabetical List of Speakers and their Topics 2004

Geographical List of Speakers and Their Topics

Topical List of Speakers

Jeanne Abrams
Director, Rocky Mountain Jewish Historical Society and Beck Archives;
University of Denver, Assoc. Professor, Penroe Library
2000 East Asbury
Denver, CO 80208
Phone: 303-871-3016 Fax: 303-871-3037
Email: jabrams@du.edu

Primary Topics:
  • Jews in the West.
  • In Search of Health: Jews and Tuberculosis in the Settlement of the American West.

Michael Alexander
Assistant Professor of History
Oklahoma University
Department of History
455 West Lindsey, Room 403A
Norman, OK 73019
Phone: 405-325-6002 Fax: 405-325-4503
Email: michael-alexander@ou.edu

Primary Topics:
  • "Mammy, Don't You Know Me?": Al Jolson and the Jews.
  • "Biznez iz Biznez": Arnold Rothstein and The Black Sox Scandal of 1919.
  • Felix Frankfurter Among the Anarchists: The Case of Sacco and Vanzetti.

Other Topics:
  • 20th Century Jews and Politics.
  • Jews and the Economy.
  • Jews and the American Entertainment Industry.
  • Jews and Blacks.

Mark K. Bauman
Editor, Southern Jewish History
2517 Hartford Drive
Ellenwood, GA 30294
Phone: 404-366-3306
Email: markkbauman@aol.com

Primary Topics:
  • Southern Jewish History.
  • Black-Jewish Relations in the South.
  • Southern Jewish Women and Social Services.
  • Jewish Social Service Agencies: Atlanta as a Case Study.
  • Provincials or Leaders: The Role of Southern Jewry.
  • Anti-Semitism and Acceptance: The Two-Edged Sword in the South.

Aviva Ben-Ur
Assistant Professor
Depart. Of Judaic & Near Eastern Studies
Herter Hall, Box 33935
University of Massachusetts
Amherst MA 01003-3935
Phone: 413 577-0649
Email: aben-ur@judnea.umass.edu

Primary Topics:
  • Jews of Suriname, South America.
  • Jews of Suriname and African-Jewish Relations and Slavery.

Alan L. Berger
Raddock Eminent Scholar Chair of Holocaust Studies
Florida Atlantic University
770 Glades Road
Boca Raton, FL 33431
Phone: 561-297-2979 Fax: 561-297-2199
Email: alaberger@aol.com

Primary Topics:
  • Shaping Holocaust Memory: The Second Generation.
  • Teaching for the Future: Denying the Holocaust Deniers.
  • Rescuers During the Holocaust: The Many Faces of Altruism.
  • Elie Wiesel and the Trial of God.
  • Post Auschwitz Catholic-Jewish Relations.
Other Topics:
  • Cynthia Ozick's "Lesson of the Shofar."
  • Hugh Nissenson and the Aesthetics of Evil.
  • American Second Generation Literary and Cinematic Representations of the Shoah.

Linda J. Borish
Associate Professor of History and Women's Studies Program
Western Michigan University
Department of History
1903 W. Michigan Avenue, Kalamazoo, MI 49008-5334
Phone: 269-387-4631 Fax: 269-387-4651
Email: borish@wmich.edu

Primary Topics:
  • Jewish American Women, Physical Health and Sport at Settlement Houses.
  • Charlotte Epstein and American Women Swimmers: From Life-Saving to the Olympic Games.
  • Sports and Physical Recreation for Women at Young Men and Young Women's Hebrew
  • Associations.
  • Settlement Houses to Olympic Stadiums: Jewish Women in American Sport.

Other Topics:
  • General Fields in American Jewish History.
  • Jewish Women in American Sport, 1880s - 1940s.
  • Charlotte Epstein.

Joseph Brandes
Professor of History Emeritus, William Paterson University of New Jersey
16-36 Raymond Street, Fair Lawn, NJ 07410-1908
Phone: 201-796-1218

Primary Topics:
  • Back to the Soil! Jewish Pioneer Farmers.
  • From Sweatshop to Stability: Jewish Labor Unions In America.
  • Jewish Communities on the New Jersey Frontier.
  • Jewish Pioneers in American Business and Labor.

Other Topics:
  • Jewish Immigrants in the American Mainstream.
  • German Jewish and East European Jewish Immigrants.
  • Development of 20th Century American Jewish Community.
  • Visions of Utopia: Jewish Pioneers in Rural New Jersey.
  • Liberty's Fruit: How Did Jewish Immigrants Become "American"?
  • Israel, the "Peace Process." And Media Politics.
  • Whose Jerusalem? History, Religion, Diversity.

Tobias Brinkmann
Parkes Institute for Jewish/non-Jewish Relations, University of Southampton

until June 2008:
The Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies
Harvard University
27 Kirkland Street at Cabot Way
Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
Tel: 617.495.4303 x204
Fax: 617.495.8509

Primary Topics:

  • "German Jews" in 19th Century America.
  • Chicago Jewish History.
  • The Building and Make-Up of Jewish Communities in 19th Century America.
  • Jewish Philanthropy.

Phil Brown
Professor of Sociology and Environmental Studies
Box 1916 - Sociology
Brown University
Prividence RI 02912
Phone: 401- 863-2633 Fax: 401-863-3213
Email: phil_brown@brown.edu

Primary Topics:
  • A Summer Eden: The Jewish Experience in the Catskills.

Kimmy R. Caplan
Professor of Modern Jewish History
Department of Jewish History
Bar-Ilan University
Ramat-Gan 52900
Israel
Phone: 972-2-(02)-679-5815 Fax: 972-3-(03)-534-6467
Email: kimmyc@vanleer.org.il

Primary Topics:
  • American Jewish Religious History.
  • Orthodoxy in the New World.
  • Zionism and Jewish Religion in America.
  • American Jewish Preaching.

Jerome Chanes
Adjunct Faculties: Barnard College, Stern College, Wurzweiller School of Social Work at Yeshiva
University. Senior Consultant to the National Foundation for Jewish Culture, New York, NY
60 Riverside Drive, Apt. 11G
New York, NY 10024
Phone: 917-363-6127 Fax: 212-877-9054
Email: jchanes@jewishculture.org

Primary Topics:
  • Jewish Communal Organization/Structure.
  • Anti-Semitism in the United States.
  • Interreligious Relationships (Catholic-Jewish, Protestant-Jewish)
  • The Jewish Public Affairs (public-policy) Agenda
  • Affirmative Action: History and Context
  • Church-State Separation
Other Topics:
  • History of the Jewish Public-Affairs Agenda. ("What has been on the agenda of American Jewry
  • and Why?"
  • History of Anti-Semitism.
  • American Jewish Social History.

Hasia Diner
Professor of American Jewish History
New York University
Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies
53 Washington Square South
New York, NY 10012
Phone: 212-614-8853 Fax: 212-995-4178
Email: hasia.diner@nyu.edu

Primary Topics:
  • History of American Jewish Women.
  • Lower East Side Memories.
  • Jewish Food and History.

Other Topics:
  • Immigration and Ethnic History.
  • American Jews and Blacks, 1915-1935.
  • The Second (Jewish American) Migration, 1820-1880.

Leonard Dinnerstein
Professor Emeritus of History
University of Arizona
1981 Miraval Cuarto
Tucson, AZ 85718-3032
Phone: 520-615-8585 Fax: 520-615-8586
Email: dinnerst@u.arizona.edu

Primary Topics:
  • The Leo Frank Case.
  • Anti-Semitism in America.
  • Immigration.
  • Displaced Persons.

Other Topics:
  • America and the Survivors of the Holocaust.

Jay M. Eidelman
Historian
Museum of Jewish Heritage- A Living Memorial to the Holocaust
225 Sterling Place, Apt. 3F
Brooklyn, NY 11238
Phone: 917 365-3262
Email: eidelmanj@yahoo.com

Primary Topics:
  • Revolution, Revival, and the Beginnings of American Judaism.
  • Jews and American Liberty.
  • Jewish Religious Practice in Early America.
  • Messianic Speculation in Early 19th Century American Judaism.
  • Jewish Chefs and American Popular Culture.
  • Meals and Memories: Jewish Dining and New York City.

Other Topics:
  • Jews in Colonial and Early-National America.
  • Jews and American Politics.
  • Jewish Life and Culture in New York City.
  • Jewish Popular Culture.
  • Food and American Jewish Culture.
  • Canadian Jewish History.

Eli Faber
Professor of History. Editor, American Jewish History (Quarterly Journal of the AJHS)
John Jay College of Criminal Justice of the City University of New York (CUNY)
77th Road
Flushing, NY 11367
Phone: 718 591-8669
Email: elfab@compuserve.com

Primary Topics:
  • 1654: The First Jewish Settlement in North America.
  • Colonial American Jewry - Any and All Aspects.
  • The Jews of America in the Era of the Early Republic - Any and All Aspects.
  • The Franks Family Portraits: The Saga of a Colonial American Jewish Household.
  • Jews and the Slave Trade: A Modern Calumny.

Other Topics:
  • The Jewish People in America, 1654 - 1820.
  • Jews, Slavery, and the Slave Trade in the Early-Modern World.

Henry L. Feingold
Professor Emeritus and Director of Jewish Resource Center
Baruch College, Graduate Center, CUNY
280 Ninth Avenue, Apt. 11F
New York, NY 10001
Phone: 212-242-4494
Email: hlfein@juno.com

Primary Topics:
  • From Commandment to Persuasion: Probing the "Hard" Secularism of American Jewry.
  • Did American Jewry Fail During the Holocaust?
  • Can American Jewry Survive the Diminution of Israel?
  • Whither American Zionism?
The Remarkable Success Story of American Jewry, and the Price Paid.

Other Topics:
  • American Jewish History, 1920 - 1945.
  • The Soviet Jewry Movement in America, 1967 - 1989.
  • American Jewry and the Holocaust.
  • The Roosevelt Administration and the Holocaust.

Michael Feldberg
Executive Director, American Jewish Historical Society
Center for Jewish History
15 West 16th Street
New York NY 10011
Phone: 212-294-6160 Fax: 212-294-6161
Email: mfeldberg@ajhs.cjh.org

Primary Topics:
  • The American Jews in the 1936 Nazi Olympics.
  • America's First Presidents and the Jewish People
  • Jewish Major Leaguers (American Jews in Baseball 1871- 2003)

Allon Gal
Professor, American Jewish History, Zionism, and Israel
Director, Center for North American Jewry
Ben Gurion University of the Negev
P.O Box 653
Be'er Sheva 84105
Israel
Phone: 011-972-07-646-1052 Fax: 011-972-07-647-7664
Email: agal@bgumail.bgu.ac.il

Primary Topics:
  • Israel-Diaspora Relationship Beyond Security and Philanthropy.
  • Henrietta Szold: The Legacy of Social Feminism and Humanistic Zionism.
  • David Ben-Gurion and Abba Hillel Silver: The Alliance That Created Israel.
  • Louis D Brandeis: His Zionist Development and Legacy.
  • American Aliyah: The Changing Patterns.

Susan A. Glenn
Professor of History and Faculty Member, Jewish Studies Program
Department of History
Box 353560
University of Washington
Seattle WA 98195
Phone: 206-523-5514 Fax: 206-543-9451
Email: glenns@u.washington.edu

Primary Topics:
  • "Self-Hating" Jews and "Inauthentic Negroes": The Ironies of Post-WW II Social Thought.
  • "In the Blood?": Consent, Descent, and the Ironies of Jewish Identity.

Other Topics:
  • 20th Century Jewish Identity.
  • Turn of the Century Jewish Immigration and Women's History.

Shalom Goldman
Associate Professor, Hebrew and Comparative Literature
Middle Eastern Studies
Emory University
537 Kilgo Circle
Atlanta, GA 30322
Phone: 404-727-2694 Fax: 404-727-2133
Email slgoldm@emory.edu

Primary Topics:
  • The Hebrew Language in American History.
  • American Religious History and the Study of Hebrew.
  • Professor George Bush (1769-1859), American Professor of Hebrew.

Eric L. Goldstein
Assistant Professor, History and Jewish Studies
Director of Undergraduate Program in Jewish Studies
Emory University
Department of History
561 S. Kilgo Circle
Atlanta GA 30322
Phone: 404-727-4470 Fax: 404-727-4959
Email: egoldst@emory.edu
Primary Topics:
  • Jews in America's Racial and Ethnic Mix.
  • Are Jews White? : A History.
  • Politics and the Identity of American Jews.
  • The Practical Idealist: Henrietta Szold, Zionism, and American Womanhood.
  • Origins of American Zionism.
  • Jews of the American South.
  • Yiddish-Speaking Immigrants and American Mass Culture.
  • The Cafés of the Lower East Side.
  • American Jewish Identity and the Moving Image: Film and Television.
  • Jewish Cemeteries: What they tell us.

Other Topics:
  • Racial and Ethnic Identity of American Jews.
  • Black-Jewish Relations.
  • American Zionism.
  • American Yiddish Culture.
  • American Jewish Politics.
  • American Jewish Popular Culture (Visual Media, Film & Television, Material Culture).
  • Jews of the American South.

Henry Green
Professor, and Director, Sephardic Studies Program
University of Miami
P.O. Box 248645
Coral Gables, FL 33124
Phone: 305-284-4375
Email: hgreen@miami.edu

Primary Topics:
  • Miami Jewry.
  • Florida Jewry (Founder, Jewish Museum of Florida).
  • Ethnicity and Religion: Identity and Community.

Other Topics:
  • The Sephardic Jewish Experience in America.

Jeffrey S. Gurock
Libby M. Klaperman Professor of Jewish History
Yeshiva University
500 West 185th Street
New York NY 10033-3201
Phone: 212-960-5251 Fax: 212-960-0049
Email: Gurock@ymail.yu.edu

Primary Topics:
  • American Orthodoxy's Era of Non-Observance.
  • Learning about Orthodoxy from an Unorthodox Source: Mordecai Kaplan and the Community He Abandoned.
  • Does "Open Orthodoxy" Have a History?
  • When Harlem Was Jewish.
  • How "Frum" Was Rabbi Jacob Joseph's Court?
  • Judaism's Encounter with American Sports.

Andrew R. Heinze
Professor of History
College of Arts and Sciences
University of San Francisco
2130 Fulton Street
San Francisco CA 94117-1080
Phone: 415-422-6231 Fax: 510-644-1314
Email: heinzea@usfca.edu

Primary Topics:
  • Jewish Thinkers and American Ideas of Human Nature.
  • Jews and the Rise of American Therapeutic Culture.
  • Jews and the Rise of American Consumer Culture.

Leo Hershkowitz
Professor of History
Queens College of the City University of New York (CUNY)
146 Moore Avenue
Freeport NY 11520
Phone: 516-868-2753 or 718-997-5378 Fax: 516-741-9178
Email: mbergerher@aol.com

Primary Topics:
  • Jews in Colonial New York.
  • A Colonial Jewish Woman -- Abigail Franks.
  • Asser Levy and the 17th Century Jewish Contact in Dutch New York.
  • Americanization in 19th Century Jewish New York.
  • Archives, Research, and New York Jewish History.

Hannah Kliger
Professor and Associate Dean for Graduate Studies
Annenberg School for Communications
University of Pennsylvania
3620 Walnut Street
Philadelphia PA 19104
Phone: 215-573-6349 or 215-898-7041 Fax: 215-898-2024
Email: hkliger@asc.upenn.edu

Primary Topics:
  • Home away from Home: Jewish Immigrant Associations in America.
  • From Trauma to Triumph: Exploring the Meaning of Memory for Holocaust Survivors and Their Families.
  • Communicating a Culture of Place: Memory and Identity Among Yiddish Speakers in New York.
  • Yiddish Comes to Washington: Yiddish Writers Study the Immigrant Community During America's Depression Years.
  • Between Two Worlds: The Organizational Dynamics of Life in the United States and Israel.

Rhoda G. Lewin
Independent Scholar
3191 No. Brittlebush Lane
Tucson AZ 85712-1363 (Oct. 15 - March 20)
Phone: 520-795-8522 Fax: 520-795-8525
Email: trlewin@aol.com

1200 Nicollet Mall, #201
Minneapolis MN 55403-2410 (March 20 - Oct. 15)
Phone: 612-332-3400 Fax: 612-332-2500
Email: trlewin@aol.com

Primary Topics:
  • Jewish Immigration to the United States from 1850 to Today: Their Life in the "New World".
  • Holocaust History as Seen Through the Eyes of Survivors and American Liberators.
  • How to Research and Write Your Community History.
  • Everything You Need to Know About Oral History: How to Do an Interview, Why we Do Oral History, and Why We Trust It As "Real History".
Other Topics:
  • German Jewish Immigrants in Minneapolis: The Founding of Temple Israel and Other Reform Congregations.
  • The History of Jews in the American West.

Howard Markel, MD
George E. Wantz Professor of the History of Medicine
Center for the History of Medicine
100 Simpson, Box 0725
102 Observatory
Ann Arbor MI 48109-0725
Phone: 734-647-6914 Fax: 734-647-6915
Email howard@umich.edu

Primary Topics:
  • Quarantine! East European Jewish Immigrants and the New York City Epidemics of 1892.
  • The Eyes Have It: Trachoma and the American Jewish Immigration Experience, 1897-1925.

Other Topics:
  • American Jewish Immigration, 1880-1924.
  • Jews and Medicine.

Rafael Medoff
Visiting Scholar, Jewish Studies Program
Purchase College, The State University of New York

11917 Viewcrest Terrace
Silver Spring MD 20902
Phone: 301-593-8429 Fax: 301-681-5841
Email: rafaelmedoff@aol.com

Primary Topics:
  • They Spoke Out: American Jewish Efforts to Bring About the Rescue of Jews from the Holocaust.
  • What Did They Print and When Did They Print It?: American Press Coverage of the Holocaust.
  • Jews in American Politics, from Judah Benjamin to Joseph Lieberman.
  • The Role of American Zionists in the Creation of Israel.
  • Zionism and the Palestinian Arab Issue, 1898-1948.
  • Secret Negotiations Between American Jews and Arab Leaders on the Eve of World War II.
Other Topics:
  • American Jewish Responses to Nazism and the Holocaust.
  • American Zionism.
  • Jews in American Politics.

Ted Merwin
Assitant Professor of Religion and Judaic Studies
Dickinson College
Carlisle, PA 17013
Phone: 717-245-1636 Fax: 717-254-8954
Email: merwin@dickinson.edu

Primary Topics:

  • The Golden Age of American Jewish Popular Culture (multimedia presentation).
  • Jazz Age Jews on Stage and Screen (multimedia presentation).
  • The Lower East Side Reprised (multimedia presentation).
  • Jews in Vaudeville (multimedia presentation).
  • The History of the New York Jewish Deli (multimedia presentation).
  • Unbuttoned: Clothes and the Making of American Jewish Culture (multimedia presentation).
  • Dysfunctions and Disillusions: The Jewish Family on the American Stage.
  • Jewface: Non-Jews Playing Jews on the American Stage (multimedia presentation).


Deborah Dash Moore
Frederick G. L. Huetwell Professor of History and Judaic Studies and Director of the Jean and Samuel Frankel Center for Judaic Studies

University of Michigan
124 Raymond Avenue
Maildrop 339
Poughkeepsie, NY

Phone: 845-437-5521
Fax: 845-437- 7287
moored@vassar.edu

Primary Topics:

  • Eating Ham for Uncle Sam: Jewish Soldiers in World War II.
  • Jewish Women in America: Historical Perspectives.
  • A Helluva Town: New York City in the 20th Century. (Slide Lecture)

Other Topics:
  • Jewish Experience in Urban America: New York, Miami, Los Angeles.
  • World War II: Triumph or Catastrophe for American Jews?

Andrea Most
Assistant Professor, Department of English
Munk Centre for International Studies
University of Toronto
One Devonshire Place
Toronto, Ontario
M5S 3K7 Canada
Phone: 416-946-8972 Fax: 416-946-8915
Email: andrea.most@utoronto.ca

Primary Topics:
  • Jews and the American Musical Theater. (Specific talks on Oklahoma! and on Girl Crazy.)
  • Jews, Theatricality, and Modernity.

Other Topics:
  • American Jewish Literature
  • Jews and Theater
  • Immigrant History
  • Mary Antin and The Promised Land.
  • Contemporary Jewish Culture
  • Jews and Hollywood.
  • The Yiddish Theater in the Immigrant Community.

Pamela Nadell
American University
4400 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington DC 20016-8042
Phone: 202-885-2425 Fax: 202-885-1083
Email: pnadell@american.edu

Primary Topics:
  • 1954/2004: 50 Years of Change.
  • American Jews at the Beginning of the 1900s: Facing a New Century a Century Ago.
  • Some Still Sing with Timbrels: The Voices and the Silences of American Jews.
  • Women Who Would Be Rabbis: A History of Women's Ordination, 1889-1985.
  • Rethinking Race: American Jews Encounter African-Americans.

Other Topics:
  • Jewish Women in America.
  • Women and American Judaism.

Monty Noam Penkower
Victor J. Selmanowitz Professor of Modern Jewish History
Touro College
Department of History
160 Lexington Avenue
New York NY 10016
Phone: 212-213-2230 Fax: 212-683-3281
Email: penkower@panix.com

Primary Topics:
  • At the Crossroads: American Jewry and the State of Israel.
  • American Jewry Faces the 21st Century.
  • Roosevelt, Churchill, and the Palestine Dilemma.
  • The Allies and the Holocaust.
  • American Jewry and the Holocaust.

Norma Fain Pratt
395 East Palm Street
Altadena, CA 91001
Phone: 626-797-4478

Primary Topics:
  • Yiddish Women Writers.
  • The Jews in the American Labor Movement.
  • Gender themes in American Yiddish Literature.
Marc Lee Raphael
Nathan and Sophia Gumenick Professor of Judaic Studies
Professor of Religion
College of William and Mary
2901 29th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20008
Phone: 202 387-1512
Email: mlraph@wm.edu

Primary Topics:
  • Conservative Judaism.
  • Reform Judaism.
  • Synagogue Worship.
  • Spirituality.
  • The Rabbinate.
  • What Do American Jews Believe?

Other Topics:
  • 19th Century Jews and Judaism.
  • 20th Century Jews and Judaism.

Dale Rosengarten
Curator, Jewish heritage Collection
Robert Scott Small Library
College of Charleston
66 George Street
Charleston, SC 29424
Phone: 843 953-8028 Fax: 843 953-8019
Email: rosengartend@cofc.edu

Primary Topics:
  • Southern Jewish Life: History of South Carolina.
  • Perils and Paradoxes of Exhibiting Jewish History.

Other Topics:
  • Southern Jewish History and Culture.
  • Creating Oral History Archives.
  • Collecting and Exhibiting Cultural Artifacts.

Jonathan D. Sarna
Joseph H. & Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History
Department NEJS M.S. 054
Brandeis University
Waltham, MA 02454 - 9110
Phone: 781 736-2977 Fax: 781 736-2070
Email: sarna@brandeis.edu
Primary Topics:
  • American Jewish History
  • 350 Years of American Jewish History.
  • The Emergence of American Judaism.
  • George Washington's Correspondence with the Jews of Newport (text study)
  • Union and Disunion in Mid-19th Century American Jewish Life.
  • The Americanization of Matzah.
  • Current Issues in Historical Perspective
    • American Anti-Semitism in Historical Perspective.
    • A Historical Perspective on American Jewish Journalism.
  • Contemporary Issues
    • The Future of the American Jew/American Judaism in the 21st Century.

June Sochen
Professor of History and Womens' Studies
Northeastern Illinois Uiniversity
5500 N. St. Louis Avenue
Chicago, IL 60625
Phone: 773 442-5607 Fax: 773 442-5620
Email: j-sochen@neiu.edu

Primary Topics:
  • Jewish Women in America.
  • Jewish American Culture.

Daniel Soyer
Assistant Professor of History
Fordham University
379 East 8th Street
Brooklyn, NY 11218
Phone: 718 941-3219
Email: soyer@fordham.edu

Primary Topics:
  • Hometown Societies in the New World: The Jewish Landsmanshaftn.
  • "To Unburden My Heart": Yiddish Immigrant Autobiograhies. (with Dr. Jocelyn Cohen)
  • Sweatshops in the Garment Industry: The Jewish Era.
  • Going Home: Immigrants to the U.S. Visit the ?Old Country? in the Interwar Era.

Other Topics:
  • Eastern European Jewish Immigration.
  • Jewish Labor and Socialist Movements.
  • Immigrant Autobiographies.
  • The Eastern European Immigrant Community.

Rabbi Lance J. Sussman
Senior Rabbi
Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel
8339 Old York Road
Elkins Park PA 19027
Phone: 215 887-8702 Fax: 215 887-1070
Email: kirabbilance@aol.com

Primary Topics:
  • History of Judaism in America.
  • Reform Judaism.
  • Isaac Leeser
  • Philadelphia Jewish History.
  • The American Revolution in Judaism.

William Toll
Adjunct Professor of History, University of Oregon
4800 Brookwood Street
Eugene OR 97405
Phone: 541-343-1042
Email: bill_toll@yahoo.com

Primary Topics:
  • Jews of the American West, 19th and 20th Centuries.
  • Cultural Pluralism and American Jewish Social Philosophy.
  • American Jews and American Blacks - Relevant Points of Contrast.
  • The Shifting Status of Jews in the American Social Order.

Lee Shai Weissbach
Professor of History, University of Louisville
Department of History
University of Louisville
Louisville KY 40292
Phone: 502 852-6817 Fax: 502 852-0770
Email: weissbach@louisville.edu

Primary Topics:
  • Synagogue Buildings and the Patterns of American Jewish Life*
  • Jewish Life in the "Typical" Small Town: America in the Early Twentieth Century.
  • The History of Small Jewish Communities: Exploring the Built Environment.*
  • A Century of Jewish Life in the South, 1850 - 1950.
  • Ashkenaz in Small-Town America: 1880 - 1950.
  • Rabbinic Leadership in Small-Town America, 1880 - 1940.
  • *Slide illustrated

Other Topics:
  • Small-Town Jewry in America, 19th and 20th Centuries.
  • American Synagogue Architecture.
  • Jews in the South.
  • Jews in the Midwest.

Beth S. Wenger
Katz Family Term Chair in American Jewish History
Department of History
University of Pennsylvania
208 College Hall
Philadelphia PA 19104-6379
Phone: 215 898-5702 Fax: 215 573-2089
Email: bwenger@sas.upennsdf.edu

Primary Topics:
  • Sculpting an American Jewish Hero: The Myths, Monuments and Legends of Haym Salomon.
  • The Lower East Side in American Jewish Consciousness
  • The Holy Land in American Jewish Imagination.
  • Public Persuasions: Presenting Jews in American Culture.
  • The Politics of the Neighborhood: Jewish Political Culture in the Great Depression.
  • Mitzvah and Medicine: Judaism, Science, and the Observance of Family Purity.
  • From Desperation to Activism: Grass Roots Jewish Organizing in the Great Depression.

Stephen Whitfield
Professor, Max Richter Chair in American Civilization
Department of American Studies, #005
Brandeis University
Waltham, MA 02454-9110
Phone: 781-736-3035 Fax: 781 736-3040
Email: swhitfield@brandeis.edu

Priamary Topics:
  • American Jewish Culture.
  • Jews in American Politics.
  • Southern Jewry.
  • The Distinctiveness of American Jewish Humor.
  • An Anatomy of Black Anti-Semitism.

Cornelia Wilhelm
Department of Modern History
University of Munich
Franz-Marc Str., 13
80637 Munchen, Germany
Phone: 15 97 05 00 Fax: 21 80 56 66
Email: cornelia.wilhelm@lrz.uni-muenchen.de

Primary Topics:
  • The Independent order of B'nai Brith and the Making of an American Jewish Identity, 1843-1914.
  • The United Order of True Sisters, 1846-1900: Early Jewish Womanhood and the Public Sphere.

Other Topics:
  • 19th Century German Jews and the Reform Movement and Secular Organizations.
  • 20th Century Nazi Propaganda Against American Jews.
  • German Refugees from Nazism.