Lauren Crawford, Ph.D. student, History
Lauren Crawford’s dissertation, “Antisemitism, Islamophobia, and the ‘War on Terror’ in Germany,” examines how increasing western involvement and intervention in Muslim-majority countries, from the early 1980s on, has shaped the contours of Holocaust memory culture. In so doing the dissertation reconceptualizes how Holocaust memory culture became the basis for the reunified German state’s liberal humanist ethical commitments, encapsulated in the language of “never again” and denoting the right to be protected from (genocidal) violence.
Dylan Gunn ’25, History
This project seeks to explore the nature of antisemitism in Ireland. Ireland’s Jewish population, while small and primarily concentrated in Dublin, has a long history within the country and the Irish diaspora. As the Republic of Ireland seeks to place itself as a global advocate for peace, it has been a steadfast critic of Israel’s conduct in its war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. This research will complement the current focus on international affairs with a greater attention towards the lived experiences of Irish Jews in Ireland itself. Given the geographical concentration of this community, this research will include interviews and engagement with community leaders and spaces to more fully understand their experiences with antisemitism and other aspects of modern Irish culture, and there will also be a photojournalist component to the project.
Maya Rabinowitz, Ph.D. student, Psychology
This project investigates current perceptions of solidarity and betrayal between Black and Jewish Americans. Historically, Black and Jewish Americans have collaborated in advocating for collective social and racial justice, connected by shared experiences of discrimination and marginalization. However, recent tensions surrounding the conflict in Israel and Gaza have strained this relationship, and instances of both antisemitism and anti-Black racism are on the rise. This project investigates how Jewish Americans and Black Americans perceive the actions, attitudes and status of the other group, and the impact of these intergroup perceptions on intentions for future solidarity. In the ongoing effort to combat collective discrimination, it is essential to investigate the barriers and facilitators of intergroup cooperation, to more effectively advocate for shared social justice.
Eran Rubinstein, Ph.D. student, Political Science
This research examines the involvement of Jewish Germans in the Imperial German Army during WWI and how this might have affected local Anti-Semitism trends in the Weimar Republic between 1919-1933. Following Germany’s defeat in World War I, nationalists propagated the Stab-in-the-Back Myth (Dolchstoßlegende), which asserted that the country’s loss stemmed from the perceived disloyalty of internal groups, particularly the Jewish population. This claim is contradicted by historical evidence: approximately 12,000 Jewish soldiers lost their lives in combat out of an estimated 100,000 who served. This research investigates how varying degrees of participation, sacrifice, and commemoration among Jewish soldiers from different towns in Germany influenced local anti-Semitic sentiments during the Weimar era and public acceptance of the Stab-In-The-Back Myth.
Ellen VanDyke Bell ’25 M.A.R., Divinity School
This project addresses antisemitism on university campuses through the lens of Jews of Color (JoCs). Drawing from the experiences of JoCs in higher education—as well as the author’s perspective as an African American Jewish woman her academic work in ethics and religious studies — this project explores how racialized perceptions of Jewish identity shape campus experiences and responses to antisemitism. This work will show how institutional definitions and approaches to antisemitism often overlook the racial and ethnic diversity within Jewish communities and will focus on how antisemitism uniquely affects JoCs, including how their experiences are rendered invisible or misunderstood in academic spaces. These patterns will be documented to elevate strategies that promote solidarity, education, and more inclusive responses. Ultimately, this project seeks to broaden how antisemitism is understood and addressed in university settings, and to encourage campus conversations that reflect the full complexity of contemporary Jewish identity.
Faculty:
Alice Kaplan is Sterling Professor of French and is a specialist of 20th-century France. Her teaching and research have focused on the Second World War, the Liberation, and the Algerian War, and on the writers Céline, Proust, and Camus. Kaplan is a recipient of the French Légion d’Honneur. She was awarded the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in History for her book The Collaborator: The Trial and Execution of Robert Brasillach and the Henry Adams Prize for The Interpreter. Kaplan’s current project is a history of the preparation of the Nuremberg war crimes trials by her father, American prosecutor Sidney J. Kaplan (1909-1962).
Mark Oppenheimer is a research associate at Yale and is professor of practice at the Danforth Center on Religion and Politics, at Washington University in St. Louis. He is the author of five books, including, most recently, Squirrel Hill: The Tree of Life Synagogue Shooting and the Soul of a Neighborhood. His current research is for his forthcoming book, The Dirty Bicker: Princeton, the Jews, and the Antisemitism Scandal of 1958, which details the outrage that ensued when 35 students, about half of whom were Jewish, received no bids to join Princeton’s elite eating clubs.