On February 9-10, the University of Florida hosted the inaugural colloquium of the Consortium for Jewish Studies Across the Americas (CJSA), bringing together leading scholars from across the Americas, Europe and Israel.
Rachel Gordan has published a chapter in the new Oxford handbook of Judaism and Film, titled: “Gentleman’s Agreement (1947): Combating Antisemitism, Erasing Judaism.” This chapter examines the Academy Award-winning 1947 film “Gentleman’s Agreement”, analyzing its paradoxical approach to combating antisemitism while largely avoiding Jewish characters, culture, and religion. Based on a novel by Laura Z. Hobson, […]
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Dr. Norman JW Goda published a chapter in Umkämpfte Geschichte: Einsprüche gegen die Umdeutung des 7. Oktober, edited by Klaus Bittermann and Christoph Hesse, part of a series published in Berlin called Theorie & Debatte. The chapter titled “Begeht Israel einen Völkermord?” deals with the history of genocide accusations against Israel going back to the Palestine Liberation Organization’s accusations in […]
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The work of Shorstein Center professor Dragan Kujundžić has recently been published in two anthologies. His chapter “Liquification and Liquidation of the Museum in Sokurov and Shnurov” has been reprinted and published in Russian in The Russian Chronotope, An Anthology, edited by the faculty of Belgrade, Serbia and published in St. Petersburg. “Archigraphia: On the […]
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On February 6, Professor Rachel Gordan gave a talk about her book, Postwar Stories: How Books Made Judaism American as a guest speaker for a “Meet the Author” event at the Toronto Miles Nadal JCC. Before the Holocaust, antisemitic depictions were prevalent in American popular culture. At the time, Judaism was misunderstood as a racial group rather […]
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On February 4, Professor Natalia Aleksiun participated in a panel titled “The Life of Ben Ferencz: A Discussion of the Nuremberg Prosecutor, Justice Pioneer, and International Criminal Court Advocate,” held at the UF Levin School of Law and co-organized by the Bud Shorstein Center for Jewish Studies. Joined by Professors Zachary D. Kaufman of the […]
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On February 3, 2026, Professor Natalia Aleksiun participated in a discussion about Holocaust memory in Poland following a screening of the award-winning 2024 documentary Hiding and Seeking: Faith and Tolerance after the Holocaust. Organized by the Center for Jewish Studies at Fordham University in New York, the event was part of a retrospective of Menachem Daum’s […]
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On February 1, Professor Rachel Gordan presented at Oak Hammock as part of their Institute for Learning in Retirement (ILR). Her presentation on Laura Hobson and the movie “Gentlemen’s Agreement” shed light on antisemitism in everyday 1940s American life.
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Professor Natalia Aleksiun will join an expert panel of scholars convened by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims Conference) as it launches a national landscape study of postsecondary Holocaust education in the United States.
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Visiting Professor Aviad Moreno was recently interviewed by La Voix sépharade about his book Entwined Homelands, Empowered Diasporas. The interview discusses Spanish-speaking Jewish communities from northern Morocco—especially Tangier and Tétouan—and how their global dispersal reshaped Moroccan Jewish diasporic identities across multiple continents. The conversation touches on hakétia, Zionism, Spain, marginalization in Israel, and the renewed […]
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Professor Rachel Gordan’s chapter on “Cold War American Judaism” was recently published in the new Oxford Handbook of American Jewish History. The chapter addresses the way Cold War American politics and culture shaped American Jews and Judaism during the second half of the twentieth century.
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A new volume has been published in Professor Raanan Rein’s book series, Jewish Latin America: Issues and Method (Brill). Evelyn María Dean-Olmsted’s Coming of Age as Syrian Jewish Mexicans is a linguistic ethnography of Shami and Halebi Jewish communities in contemporary Mexico City. Focusing on language in everyday life, the book examines how young adults negotiate often stigmatized diasporic […]
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Professor Raanan Rein’s co-edited volume, Nazi and Nazi Sympathizers in Latin America (2024) was favorably reviewed in the Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies. The review emphasizes: “Notably, Raanan Rein’s chapter provides a well-balanced historiographical assessment of the Peronist government’s role in the arrival of former Nazis, significantly contributing to the debunking of simplistic and […]
Since joining the Bud Center in mid-August, Post Doctoral Affiliate Aviad Moreno has published and co-edited several new works. Together with Noah Gerber, he co-authored the article “The Trajectories of Separation: Transatlantic Networks, Disciplinary Boundaries, and the Isolated Histories of Mizrahim,” published in AJS Review. It traces how academic traditions in Europe, Israel, and the […]
Affiliate Professor Jonathan R. Cohen published, “The Ethical Duty to Listen and Consider,” in Discussions in Dispute Resolution (Volume II): The Coming of Age (2000-2009), edited by A. Hinshaw, A. Schneider, and S. Cole, published by Oxford University Press, 2025, pp. 52-56. This chapter is a commentary on an earlier article he wrote, “When People are the […]
A new article by Professor Raanan Rein, “Eliminate Antisemitism from Spanish School Texts. A Campaign of the Jewish-Christian Friendship Association”, was published in Germany in an edited volume titled Antisemitismusprävention und jüdische Kultur im Schulunterricht (Antisemitism Prevention and Jewish Culture in School Education).
Professor Raanan Rein has been invited to join the Academic Committee of the PhD program in International Relations at the National University of Córdoba, Argentina. This appointment represents yet another acknowledgement of Dr. Rein’s significant contributions to—and longstanding influence with—Argentine academia.
Professors Rachel Gordan and Yaniv Feller were recently selected as finalists for the prestigious 2025 Jordan Schnitzer Book Awards. Gordan’s book, Postwar Stories: How Books Made Judaism American (Oxford University Press, 2024), was recognized in the category of Modern Jewish History & Culture: Africa, Americas, Asia, & Oceania. Feller’s book, The Jewish Imperial Imagination: Leo Baeck and German-Jewish […]
On December 3, Professor Dragan Kujundžić presented “Against the Stream: The Danube, the Video, and the Non-biodegradables of Europe,” at the Center for Urban History in Lviv, Ukraine.
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On December 5, Professor Norman JW Goda presented, “Accusations of Genocide: Assessing Israel’s Right to Self Defense” at the Chai Mitzvah Scholars’ Circle. Goda examined how accusations of genocide against Israel have a long history dating back to 1948 and have often been used to justify terror operations and delegitimize the Jewish State. He argued […]
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On December 4, Professor Natalia Aleksiun participated in the concluding round table of the international conference “Good Citizens, Terrible Times: Notions of Individuality, Community, and Responsibility in the Holocaust—History, Memory, Learning.” The conference convened for two intensive days at the Evangelische Akademie Tutzing in Germany, bringing together scholars to explore new perspectives on Holocaust history […]
On November 24, Professor Robert Kawashima spoke at the Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature and the American Academy of Religion in Boston. He presented a paper about “The Invention of Literature in the Bible: From Epic Poetry to Prose Fiction”. Kawashima was one of four scholars invited to speak at a panel reassessing […]
Professor Natalia Aleksiun was reappointed to the Academic Committee of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. The committee is an important resource for helping to advance the work of the Museum.
Professor Rachel Gordan was invited to serve on the Executive Committee of the Academic Council of the American Jewish Historical Society (AJHS). The Council directs and supports the organization’s academic programs and research activities. Founded in 1892, the AJHS is the oldest ethnic and cultural archive in the United States. Its mission is to promote […]
Professor Yaniv Feller was recently awarded the Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship for returning fellows at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. The Foundation supports outstanding researchers from around the world. Feller will spend the upcoming summer in Munich with the University’s history department, where he will focus on his new book project Jew in a Box: […]
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Shorstein Center Office Manager, Sonya Leonore Stahl, is an accomplished composer. Her orchestral work, Symphonukkah, was performed by the Volusia Community Arts Symphony Orchestra at the Holiday Pops and Concertos event on November 22.
On November 20–21, 2025, Professor Natalia Aleksiun participated in the 57th Annual Convention of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES) in Washington, D.C. She presented her paper, “Jewish Children’s Emotional Communities amid a Genocide,” as part of a panel on Jewish childhood in ego documents. Her talk explored the challenges of […]
On November 17, Shorstein Center Hebrew Instructor, Iris Cohen, presented at Hitkadmut, the annual Hebrew educators’ conference. Her presentation was titled “What is the Difference Between Using and Integrating Technology in the Language Classroom? A Perspective Through the TPACK Model.”
On November 10, 2025, Prof. Natalia Aleksiun delivered a talk titled “Accounting for Gratitude: Jewish Survivors and Their Rescuers in the First Postwar Decade” as part of the Postwar Research Center / IMS research seminar series at the Institute of International Studies, Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic. Her lecture was followed by a lively […]
On November 7, the Shorstein Center welcomed Professor Avraham Sela for a faculty seminar. The discussion centered around his chapter titled “Israel’s Hostage Quandary: Ethics and Politics,” which will be included in Sela’s forthcoming book. He is the A. Ephraim and Shirley Diamond Chair in the Department of International Relations and a senior research fellow […]
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