Director and Certificate Advisor

Rachel Kranson (Associate Professor of Religious Studies): American Jewish history, modern and contemporary Judaism, religion in America, gender and sexuality studies, Holocaust.

Program Faculty

Christopher Drew Armstrong (Associate Professor and Director of Architectural Studies, History of Art and Architecture): Architecture and modernization.

Jeff Aziz (Senior Lecturer and Advisor, English): Detective fiction, early modern England.

Brock Bahler (Lecturer II, Religious Studies): Philosophy of Religion, Faith & Reason, Jewish Philosophy (e.g., Levinas, Maimonides).

Aidan Beatty (Scholar Mentor): Areas of Research: Antisemitism & Sexuality; Irish Nationalism & Zionism

Dainy Bernstein (ey/em/eir) (Visiting Lecturer, English): childhood and education/socialization as represented in literature; Jewish children’s literature, especially American Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) Jewish children’s literature; and religious children’s literature more broadly.

Barbara Burstin (Part-Time Instructor, History): The United States and the Holocaust.

Frayda Cohen (Director of Undergraduate Studies, Senior Lecturer, and Undergraduate Advisor for the Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies Program): Children, gender, adoption, reproduction and population policy, transnationalism, and food studies.

Amy-Diana Colin (Associate Professor, German): Holocaust literature, Paul Celan, German-Jewish culture and literature.

Vivian Curran (Distinguished Professor, Law): Comparative Law, transnational law, international human rights, estates and trusts, law and language.

Rebecca Denova (Senior Lecturer Emeritus, Religious Studies): Hellenistic Judaism, the historical Jesus, Gospels, Paul, Jewish-Christian relations in antiquity, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Greco-Roman culture and religions, women in early Judaism and early Christianity, Gnosticism, biblical literary-criticism and textual studies.

Haya Feig (Lecturer II, Religious Studies): Modern and Biblical Hebrew language, Israeli culture.

Benjamin Gordon (Assistant Professor and Perlow-Rosenberg Fellow, Religious Studies): Ancient Near East, early Judaism, Syro-Palestinian archaeology in the classical periods, history of Jerusalem, Second Temple Priesthood.

Laura Gotkowitz (Associate Professor, History): Jews in Latin America, modern Latin America, the Andes, colonial Latin America, political violence and human rights in Latin America.

Keila Grinberg (Professor, Director of the Center for Latin American Studies): Areas of Interest: Slavery & Abolitionism in Brazil; Jews in Brazil.

Lina Insana (Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies, French and Italian): Primo Levi, Holocaust literature, 20th-century Italy.

Hannah Johnson (Associate Professor, English): Historiography of medieval Jewish-Christian relations.

Alissa Klots (Assistant Professor, History): Russian and Soviet History, Gender History, and History of Aging.

Adam Lowenstein (Professor, Film and Media Studies)

Jan Musekamp (Associate Professor, History): Nationalism, Comparative European History, Introductory Seminar, Germany in the Cold War.

Hilla Nehushtan (Visiting Lecturer/Israel Institute Fellow, Jewish Studies): Israel Studies, Sociology of Medicine, Gender and the Body.

Irina Reyn (Associate Professor, English): Creative writing, American Jewish literature.

Adam Shear (Associate Professor and Department Chair, Religious Studies): medieval and early modern Jewish history, history of the Jewish book, Zionism and Israel studies.

Oscar Swan (Professor and Advisor, Slavic): Polish and Russian linguistics, Polish cinema and culture.

Richard Weisberg (Visiting Professor, School of Law)

Jonathan Zisook (Visiting Lecturer, Sociology) 

Program Affiliates

Emeritus Affiliates

Past Directors of the Program

• Bernard Goldstein, 1973-1991
• Jerome L. Rosenberg, 1991-1999
• Alexander Orbach, 1999-2010
• Adam Shear, 2010-2018
• Irina Livezeanu, 2018-2021

Recent Visitors

• Jill Joshowitz (New York University) 2021-2022