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  • Senior Research

    Seniors present their research at an event each spring.

  • Rare Book Room Bird's-Eye View

    Students in Professor Beth Wenger's Jewish history class enjoying the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts.

  • Moldovan Jewish Scribe

    "Photograph of a Jewish scribe, ca. 1917." From the Moldovan Family Collection of Judaica, University of Pennsylvania Libraries.

Welcome

Our program reflects the full range and diverse dimensions of the Jewish experience as well as different approaches to studying Jewish life and culture. We welcome students of all backgrounds to take our courses and participate in our programs. We also offer a host of opportunities outside the classroom. Come join us!

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The Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies

The Katz Center is driven by the mission to deepen and broaden the understanding of Jewish history, texts, cultures, ideas, and experiences. The research it supports spans all periods of Jewish history, from distant antiquity through to the present day; it reaches into every part of the globe where Jews have lived, and it is grounded in a wide range of disciplines and approaches. 

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Events



The Return to Sepharad: History and/as Fiction in Modern Jewish Literatures

Marina Mayorski
Oct 29, 2024 at - | Cherpack Seminar Room, 543 Williams Hall, 255 S. 36th Street

The persecution and expulsion of Jews from Spain – or Sepharad – played a pivotal role in Jewish history and collective memory. In the modern era, the historical legacy of…



Traces of a Jewish Artist: The Lost Life and Work of Rahel Szalit

Kerry Wallach
Nov 11, 2024 at - | Class of '55 Room, Room 241, Van Pelt Library

What strategies can we use to recover lives and artworks nearly lost to history—especially when there is little archival material available? This talk focuses on the process of rediscovering Rahel Szalit (1888–1942…



Plague and the Persecution of Minorities:

How the New Sciences of Plague Are Changing Our Understanding of Responses to the Black Death
Nov 14, 2024 at - | College Hall 209

Even before COVID-19, major rethinking was already underway about the causes, timing, and geographic spread of what is still considered the world’s worst pandemic, the Black Death of the late medieval period. Since…

Jewish Studies @ Penn

Read the latest issue of the newsletter of the Jewish Studies Program, the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, and the Judaica Collections at the Penn Libraries.

Jewish Studies Administered Research Awards

Each fall and spring the Jewish Studies Program offers Goldfein Research Awards, Brenner Special Opportunity Awards, and Schwartz Awards to both undergraduate and graduate Penn students. Learn More >