The October 2018 at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, killing 11, was a stark reminder to college students that anti-Semitism is alive in America, says , a 91探花 associate professor of Germanics and affiliate of the
Block was among many Stroum Center faculty and student affiliates who presented at the 50th annual of the Dec. 16-18 in Boston. The Stroum Center is part of the UW’s Jackson School of International Studies.
At the conference, Block held a roundtable discussion titled “Teaching the Holocaust in the Age of Trump,” where he said participants remarked on how student attitudes had changed since the panel was first proposed last February.
“Until Pittsburgh, students, even in courses dedicated to study of the Holocaust, did not consider anti-Semitism a real threat and did not think of Jews as a vulnerable minority,” Block said.
Though the Holocaust itself seems to have “receded in importance for today’s students,” he said, “students were for the most part more aware of anti-Semitism and more concerned about similar risks to vulnerable groups today.”
Upcoming events at the Stroum Center for Jewish Studies:
Jan. 28, 7-8:30 p.m.: “Jews and Human Rights: Forgotten Past, Uncertain Future,” with James Loeffler, professor of history, the University of Virginia. HUB Room 145.
Feb. 5, 3:30-5 p.m.: “Dancing with the Angel of Death: Demonic Femininity in the Ancient Synagogue,” with Laura Lieber, professor of religious studies and classics, Duke University. Thomson room 317
Feb. 12, 3:30- 5 p.m.: “How Frontier Jews Made American Judaism,” with Shari Rabin, assistant professor of Jewish studies, College of Charleston. HUB room 145.
See more events .
- Read about the Stroum Center celebrating 50 years of the Association for Jewish Studies.
Block said in the last two years, U.S. immigration policies and those elsewhere “have made comparisons between Nazi Germany and these practices necessary and instructive. The vilification of specific groups, the explicit appeal to racist ideologies, and the disrespect for democratic institutions and practices have led even cautious Holocaust historians to warn that the similarities are too close for us to believe it could never happen here.” Jews remain a target of bigotry, he added, and “Jewish life even in America is under renewed threat.”
Missing from the dialogue, Block added, were participants from the South or from schools with religious affiliations. Given the strong response to the December discussion, he said, there may be follow-up discussions at the German Studies Association conference in the fall.
Other presentations by 91探花Stroum Center affiliates included:
- “Uncovering the : Ladino and the Future of Jewish History” by , associate professor of international studies, history and Jewish studies
- “Animals and the Holocaust in Hebrew Literature,” by , professor of Hebrew and comparative literature
- “Radicalism and Violence in Religious Zionist Thought” by doctoral student
- “Ottoman Jews and the Emergence of Modern Psychiatry,” by doctoral student
Two Stroum affiliates 鈥� , 91探花assistant professor of Germanics and , assistant professor in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilization 鈥� also wrote featured articles for the 50th anniversary issue of , the association’s magazine. Oehme reflected on a key teacher and her path to studying Old Yiddish in “From Old Yiddish to Modern Mentorship” and Zafer told of what brought him to study Judaism in “Found in Translation.”
, director of the Stroum Center and professor of international studies, wrote on the center’s that the founders of the association, which has historically been based in the Northeast, “would have likely been surprised to see the especially strong showing of 91探花 faculty and graduate students playing important roles in this jubilee celebration.”