America and Its Jews at 250: A Community Learning Series
Join the Konikoff Center for Learning of the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater for an exploration of America and Its Jews at 250, an engaging lecture series produced by Brandeis University. Featuring leading scholars and distinguished guest speakers, the series traces 250 years of American Jewish history while examining timely questions of identity, belonging, immigration, antisemitism, Israel, democracy, and the evolving American Jewish experience.
Each week, participants will receive an email with a link to a recorded Brandeis lecture, making it easy to engage with the series on your own time. The lectures bring world-class scholarship directly to our community, offering an opportunity to learn, reflect, and explore the many people and ideas that have shaped the American Jewish experience.
More about the course
Want to take the learning further?
Pair the recorded America and Its Jews at 250 lectures with Rabbi Michael Panitz’s in-person 10-week course, In Their Own Words, also offered through the Konikoff Center for Learning.
His class will bring the stories of many of these remarkable Jewish Americans to life, offering an opportunity to learn together, ask questions, and explore their contributions and experiences in greater depth.
September 22 - December 1
Tuesdays, 11:00am • Reba and Sam Sandler Family Campus
PLAYLIST - America and its Jews at 250
Welcome! Class description and introduction.
Dr. Dalia Wassner explores the emergence of the Sephardic Jewish diaspora and the development of Jewish communities across Europe, the Caribbean and the Americas. She considers how migration, trade, religious freedom and changing ideas of identity shaped Jewish life across the Atlantic world.
Professor Jonathan Sarna explores Jewish life during the American Revolution and the contributions of Jewish communities to the emerging United States. He also examines George Washington’s landmark letter to the Jewish community of Newport and what it reveals about religious liberty, citizenship and the rights of religious minorities in early America.
Brandeis University PhD candidate Joseph Weisberg explores the complex relationship between slavery and Jewish life in the early Atlantic world. Drawing on his research into Jewish communities across North America and the Caribbean, Weisberg examines how trade, migration, religious practice, and slavery shaped the development of Jewish life before the American Revolution.
Professor Adam Mendelsohn explores the overlooked role of the American Civil War in shaping American Jewish history. He examines how wartime antisemitism, economic change, questions of loyalty, and figures such as Ulysses S. Grant influenced Jewish identity and the development of national Jewish organizations in the United States.
Professor Ayelet Brin explores the transformation of American Jewish life during the era of mass Eastern European Jewish immigration in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
For more information about "America and Its Jews at 250" contact Sierra Lautman, Senior Director of Jewish Innovation at SLautman@UJFT.org or (757) 965-6107.