We're pleased to share that fellow Yosefa Raz's 2023 book, The Poetics of Prophecey was recently featured on Ancient Jew Review. Click below to read the forum. www.ancientjewreview.com/read/2025/11...

Learn about Jewish manuscripts in Penn's collections. katz.sas.upenn.edu/resources/bl...

JQR 115.4 is out, feat. essays on conversion to Judaism in antiquity, 13th c. philosophical commentaries, Jüdisch-Deutsch novellas, and the winding modern reception of a 17th c. rabbi, PLUS a text and translation of a medieval prose-poetry story! Peruse the TOC: katz.sas.upenn.edu/resources/bl...

The Katz Center is delighted to announce a new book edited by former fellows Lila Corwin Berman, Deborah Dash Moore, and Beth S. Wenger. The Future of American Jewish Pasts showcases the research that grew from the 2020–21 fellowship year. Click below to learn more! www.pennpress.org/978151282824...

Tuesday, November 18, scholar Jonathan L. Dekel-Chen will analyze the horrors that have befallen Israel and the people of Gaza and detail his own efforts advocating for the release of the hostages including his son. Learn more below. katz.sas.upenn.edu/events/theor...

In her seminar last week, Katz Center fellow Tamar Hess examined contemporary Israeli "national religious" poetry. Enjoy these highlights!

Enjoy these highlights from the annual SIMS-Katz Distinguished Fellow's Lecture in Jewish Manuscript Studies. Professor Javier del Barco (Complutense University of Madrid) analyzed the unique features of two medieval Hebrew biblical manuscripts.

Now on YouTube: watch Douglas Irvin-Ericksondelve into the debates and controversies grew around the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. www.youtube.com/watch?v=lh76...

The Katz Center is pleased to coproduce with our colleagues at the Weitzman, Antisemitism, An American Tradition: Book Launch & Conversation with Pam Nadell and Dan Tadmor. Thursday, November 13 at the Weitzman: click below to learn more. theweitzman.org/events/antis...

Join us Tuesday, November 11 when scholars A. Dirk Moses and Zoé Samudzi will approach the history and implications of the concept and reality of genocide from two distinct but interconnected perspectives. katz.sas.upenn.edu/events/genoc...

Check out this this conversation with Author Steven Ujifusa tomorrow, November 5. Katz Center director Steve Weitzman will join our colleagues at PennNYC to moderate. www.penn.nyc/s/1587/gid2/...

Penn Today profiled Ross-Silk-Lowenstein Postdoctoral Fellow Mendel Kranz. Click below to learn more about his research examining how contemporary antisemitism intertwines with racism and discrimination. tinyurl.com/2eh8djpc

In advance of tomorrow's lecture, in Sephardic Bible bookcraft, Professor Javier del Barco drew participants into an archaeological survey of Penn Libraries’ MS Codex 1052, Hebrew Bible manuscript possibly produced in Modena, Italy, around 1480. Learn more below www.library.upenn.edu/.../sephardi...

Tomorrow at the Van Pelt-Dietrich Library Center, Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies & Katz Center Distinguished Fellow Javier del Barco will explore Sephardic bible book craft in two manuscripts from Library at the Katz Center. Click below to learn more. katz.sas.upenn.edu/events/sepha...

Enjoy these highlight's from Wednesday's seminar, Diversity, Ethnicity, and Belonging: American Jewry Transformed led by fellow Gal Levy.

Read a conversation with Katz Center fellow Marjorie Feld as she examines the philosophies of contemporary Jewish farmers. katz.sas.upenn.edu/resources/bl...

This talk begins today at 12:00 pm ET katz.sas.upenn.edu/events/origi...

This #fellowtuesday we're spotlighting 2025–26 fellow Edward Waysband. As part of this year's theme New Frontiers in Contemporary Jewish Life, Waysband's research focuses on Russian-Israeli reinvention of the Levant. Click below to read more about Edward Waysband! katz.sas.upenn.edu/who-we-are/e...

The Katz Center is delighted to congratulate 2024–25 fellow Ahuvia Goren on winning an Ephraim Urbach grant from the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture!

Check out these highlight's from Wednesday's seminar, The Israeli Organ: Embodiment and Emotion in the Wake of October 7 featuring fellow Orian Zakai.

"an impor­tant book that puts for­ward a bold the­sis..." Click below to read the Jewish Book Council's review of After Revelation, part of the Jewish Culture and Contexts series. @pennpress.bsky.social www.jewishbookcouncil.org/book/after-r...

Join us next Wednesday, October 29 at noon ET. Douglas Irvin Erickson will introduce debates and controversies that emerged in the early history of the UN Genocide Convention. Click below to register. katz.sas.upenn.edu/events/origi...

This #fellowtuesday we're spotlighting 2025–26 fellow Joshua Shanes. As part of this year's theme New Frontiers in Contemporary Jewish Life, Shanes's research focuses on the Evangelicalization of Orthodoxy. Click below to read more about Joshua Shanes! katz.sas.upenn.edu/who-we-are/j...

There are 3 weeks left to apply to the Katz Center's 2026–27 fellowship, War and Peace in Jewish Thought and History. Click below to learn more! katz.sas.upenn.edu/scholarly-pr...

For #CoffeeWithACodex on October 23 (Noon ET, on Zoom), we'll bring out CAJS Rar Ms. 534, a manuscript written by Moses Gomez de Mesquita documenting his administration and institution of prayer customs for the Sephardim in England.. #medievalsky #cwac Register here: https://bit.ly/4oldipr

Tuesday, October 21 at 5:15 pm, join our colleagues at the Penn Jewish Studies Department for a book talk with 2015–16 Katz Center fellow John M. Efron. Efron will discuss his new book, All Consuming: Germans, Jews, and the Meaning of Meat. jwst.sas.upenn.edu/events/2025/...

This #fellowtuesday we're spotlighting 2025–26 fellow Yosefa Raz. As part of this year's theme, Raz's research topic is The Contemporary Israeli Bible: Enemy, Revenge, Center, and Periphery Reimagined Through the Biblical Text. katz.sas.upenn.edu/who-we-are/y...

There are 4 weeks left to apply to the Katz Center's 2026–27 fellowship, War and Peace in Jewish Thought and History. Click below to learn more! katz.sas.upenn.edu/scholarly-pr...

We're delighted to share that 2025–26 fellow Michael Hoberman's book, Imagining Early American Jews (Oxford University Press) was just published this week. Read the Wall Street Journal's review below. www.wsj.com/arts-culture...

There are 5 weeks left to apply to the Katz Center's 2026–27 fellowship, War and Peace in Jewish Thought and History. Click below to learn more! katz.sas.upenn.edu/scholarly-pr...

Check out a few highlights from this week's seminar: fellow Marjorie Feld led the talk, From the Roots: A History of the Sustainable Jewish Farming Movement.

We're thrilled to share that 2024–25 fellow Wendy Zierler's new book, Going Out with Knots was just published today by University of Nebraska Press. www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/.../going-ou...

This #fellowtuesday we're spotlighting 2025–26 fellow Hannah Mayne. As part of this year's theme New Frontiers in Contemporary Jewish Life, Mayne's research focuses on transgressive piety: emerging practices of ultra-Orthodox Jewish women. katz.sas.upenn.edu/who-we-are/h...

2025–26 fellow Michal Kravel-Tovi launches the fellowship year by exploring the perils and opportunities entangled in the trope of the frontier as an analytical tool. Click below to read her conversation with Natalie Dohrmann. katz.sas.upenn.edu/resources/bl...

There are 6 weeks left to apply to the Katz Center's 2026–27 fellowship, War and Peace in Jewish Thought and History. Click below to learn more! katz.sas.upenn.edu/scholarly-pr...

With an eye toward this year’s fellowship theme of New Frontiers in Contemporary Jewish Life, check out this "Collections Spotlight." katz.sas.upenn.edu/resources/bl...

This #throwbackthursday check out Past Lectures and Contemporary(ish) Times, a round up of virtual lectures and classes compiled with the 2025–26 fellowship theme, New Frontiers in Contemporary Jewish Life in mind. katz.sas.upenn.edu/resources/bl...

In his interview with Natalie Dohrmann, Mendel Kranz discusses the complex entanglement of antisemitism and Islamophobia in France, new ways of studying antisemitism, and the relationship between scholarship and the present moment. Click below to read! katz.sas.upenn.edu/resources/bl...

This #fellowtuesday the Katz Center spotlights 2025–26 fellow Gal Levy. As part of this year's theme, New Frontiers in Contemporary Jewish Life, Levy's research topic is Diversity, Ethnicity, and Belonging: American Jewry Transformed? katz.sas.upenn.edu/who-we-are/g...

Click the link below to apply for the 2026–27 international fellowship program, a year focused on war and peace in Jewish history, thought, and culture. The deadline to apply is in seven weeks, November 10, 2025. katz.sas.upenn.edu/scholarly-pr...

Enjoy these highlights from Wednesday's seminar, Torah u'Maga: The Religio-political Theology of Contemporary Orthodoxy with fellow Joshua Shanes.

Check out the latest fellow Q&A! 2024–25 fellow Lennart Lehmhaus digs deeply into rabbinic sources to try to contextualize and understand the rabbis’ unique understanding of mental health. katz.sas.upenn.edu/resources/bl...

We are thrilled to announce that beginning with our winter issue in January 2026, the Jewish Quarterly Review will become fully open access, including future issues and our whole 136-year back catalog! Learn more about this exciting change on the blog: katz.sas.upenn.edu/resources/bl...

A $21M gift from the estate of alumna Louise A. Strauss will provide major support to the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, as well as the Rare Judaica Acquisitions Endowment Fund in Penn Libraries. Read the full announcement: https://bit.ly/4pqTtOL @katzcenterupenn.bsky.social

This #fellowtuesday the Katz Center spotlights incoming 2025–26 fellow Sarah Leiter. As part of this year's theme, New Frontiers in Contemporary Jewish Life, Leiter's research focuses “Children of Songbirds”: creating community from emergent ancestral Jewishness. katz.sas.upenn.edu/who-we-are/s...

Check out these highlights from the opening seminar of the 2025-2026 fellowship year, New Frontiers in Contemporary Jewish Life: Cultural Expansions, Encounters, and Experiments. Short-term fellow Michal Kravel-Tovi led introduced a discussion on Thinking from the Frontier. #FellowFriday

Unrest in the Roman Empire: A Discursive History is now open access. Download the whole book, including Katz Center associate director Natalie Dohrmann's contribution, for free here: www.campus.de/buecher-camp...

This #fellowtuesday the Katz Center spotlights incoming 2025–26 fellow Tamar Hess. As part of this year's theme, Hess's research focuses on contradictions in contemporary Israeli religious Zionist literature. katz.sas.upenn.edu/who-we-are/t...

In our current issue, Leslie Ribovich and Cara Rock-Singer stage a conversation with 20th century cultural critics James Baldwin and Rabbi Louis Finkelstein. Learn more on the blog! katz.sas.upenn.edu/resources/bl...

For #CoffeeWithACodex on September 11 (on Zoom, at Noon ET), Judaica Special Collections Cataloging Librarian Louis Meiselman will bring out CAJS Rar Ms 491, a manuscript of the Yom Kippur Maḥzor for the rite of L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, written in Provence, 1663. Register here: https://bit.ly/41XvkFm