American Jewry Today: Challenges and Opportunities

American Jewry Today: Challenges and Opportunities

12pm PDT

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Acclaimed Brandeis University Professor Jonathan Sarna, who was named one of the most prominent historians of American Judaism by the Forward, joins AJU scholar in residence Rick Richman to discuss the current concerns and opportunities facing American Jewry today, from anti- Semitism to modern Zionism.

Jonathan D. Sarna is University Professor and Joseph H. & Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History at Brandeis University, where he directs the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies. He also chairs the Academic Advisory and Editorial Board of the Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives in Cincinnati and serves as Chief Historian of the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia.

Author or editor of more than thirty books on American Jewish history and life, Dr. Sarna’s American Judaism: A History (Yale 2004), recently published in a second edition, won six awards including the 2004 “Everett Jewish Book of the Year Award” from the Jewish Book Council. His most recent books are (with Benjamin Shapell) Lincoln and the Jews: A History (St. Martin’s, 2015), and When General Grant Expelled the Jews (Schocken/Nextbook, 2012). Sarna’s annotated edition of Cora Wilburn’s previously unknown 1860 novel, Cosella Wayne (University of Alabama Press), has also just appeared.

Dr. Sarna is married to Professor Ruth Langer and they have two married children.

Rick Richman is a resident scholar at American Jewish University and the author of Racing Against History: The 1940 Campaign for a Jewish Army to Fight Hitler. He graduated with honors from Harvard College and New York University Law School. He has written for Commentary, The Jewish Journal, The Jewish Review of Books, Mosaic Magazine, The New York Post, The New York Sun and other publications, and is the author of the chapter on American Zionism in What America Owes the Jews, What Jews Owe America.