E. Franklin Robbins/UJA-Federation Lecture: On How the West Became Antisemitic
Wed, 9/25 · 4:30 pm—6:00 pm · 219 Aaron Burr Hall
Ivan G. Marcus, Yale University
Join the Program in Judaic Studies and the Humanities Council’s Program in Medieval Studies for an E. Franklin Robbins/UJA-Federation Lecture with Ivan G. Marcus on Wednesday, September 25. This event is part of Judaic Studies’ 2024-25 Lecture Series on Antisemitism.
Contrary to the widely accepted picture of Jewish history, medieval Jews were assertive agents. The Jews of the Middle Ages were convinced of their chosenness, and Christian rulers inadvertently reinforced Jewish solidarity by recognizing Jews as legal, self-governing communities, not just as individuals, if only to tax them better. This talk reexamines not only how the Christian majority understandably affected the Jewish minority but surprisingly how the Jews – real and imagined – so challenged the Christian majority that it became a society that was religiously and culturally antisemitic in new ways between 800 and 1500. That new self-understanding remained part of European cultural identity down to the time of the Holocaust and beyond.
Open to the public. Refreshments will be available.
More about Ivan G. Marcus
Ivan G. Marcus is the Frederick P. Rose Professor of Jewish History, Professor of History and of Religious Studies at Yale University. He received his BA from Yale University, his MA from Columbia University, and his MHL and PhD from The Jewish Theological Seminary of America.
Before joining the Yale faculty, he was Professor of Jewish History at The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, where he was Provost from 1991 to 1994. He has also taught at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and at Princeton, where he has served on the Advisory Council of the Department of Religion.
He has written Piety and Society: The Jewish Pietists of Medieval Germany (E. J. Brill, 1981), which was a finalist for a National Jewish Book Award, Rituals of Childhood: Jewish Culture and Acculturation in Medieval Europe, which was published by Yale University Press in 1996; The Jewish Life Cycle: Rites of Passage from Biblical to Modern Times (University of Washington Press, 2004) based on the 1998 Samuel and Althea Stroum Lectures. His book Sefer Hasidim and the Ashkenazic Book in Medieval Europe (UPenn, 2018) is a chapter in the history of the book in medieval Europe. His most recent book is, How the West Became Antisemitic (Princeton, 2024).
He has received numerous fellowships including a research fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities and a Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship.
