The Center for Jewish Studies at the Graduate Center, CUNY

01/21/2026

CfA for all full-time CUNY Faculty!

This interdisciplinary initiative invites scholars throughout CUNY to join a collaborative and intellectually stimulating effort to explore urgent themes in Jewish Studies in a seminar setting.

10/24/2025

Leading scholars explore politics, , , and the legacy of as a center of Jewish culture.

10/22/2025

If you missed Shulamit Magnus' presentation of her new book, Jewish Marital captivity, you can view it now on YouTube:

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

10/06/2025

Please join us for our first Fall 2025 public program:

Shulamit Magnus, Jewish Marital Captivity: The Past, Present, and End of a Historic Abuse

October 16, 12:15pm on Zoom

Register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/TYzlwtLrQ9Wu_lAvS2dq3w

Prof. Magnus presents her new book, Jewish Marital Captivity: The Past, Present, and End of a Historic Abuse (NYU Press, 2025). Jewish Marital Captivity is the first global, social history of women trapped in marriages (agunot) under rabbinic law, under which divorce is a male-controlled privilege, from early medieval times to the present, across the map of Jewish life. Magnus explores pre-modern, traditional women’s aggressive and transgressive responses to marital captivity (iggun), which she studies as an enduring, if also evolving, institution in Jewish societies and rabbinic policy throughout Jewish history. She argues for addressing the problem as that of Jewish society, not limited to Orthodoxy or Israel, an end to which will only come through broad public understanding of its origins, history, and workings and the reasons for its persistence, and concerted communal policy by Diaspora communities and Israeli Jews, alike.

Shulamit S. Magnus is Professor Emerita of Jewish Studies and History, Oberlin College. She is the author of several books, including the 2-volume Pauline Wengeroff, Memoirs of a Grandmother: Scenes from the Cultural History of the Jews of Russia in the Nineteenth Century, the first volume of which was awarded the National Jewish Book Award.

Co-sponsored with the Queens College Center for Jewish Studies

Welcome! You are invited to join a meeting: Shulamit Magnus, Jewish Marital Captivity. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the meeting.

04/16/2025

Please join us for what will certainly be a poignant and important conversation

Reconciliation instead of Revenge - Parents Circle Family Forum Dialogue Meeting (on Zoom)

April 22, 12:15pm EST

Parents Circle - Family Forum Dialogue Meeting with Bassam Aramin and Robi Damelin

On Zoom, register here:
https://gc-cuny-edu.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Fb5JhHRgRjWvAlkrsX1tZA #/registration

Please join the GC Jewish Connection Group and the Center for Jewish Studies at the CUNY Graduate Center for a Dialogue Meeting with Parents Circle - Family Forum spokespersons Bassam Aramin and Robi Damelin.

The Parents Circle - Families Forum is a joint Israeli-Palestinian organization made up of more than 800 bereaved families. Their common bond is that they have lost a close family member to the conflict. But instead of choosing revenge, they have chosen a path of reconciliation. Through their educational activities, these bereaved members have joined together to take tens of thousands of Palestinians and Israelis on journeys of reconciliation. It is often raw and always emotional. But out of these interactions, comes change. Not the kind of change that makes headlines, but a more personal and profound shift in perspective.

As a joint Israeli-Palestinian peace organization, the PCFF models constructive dialogue around shared values. Even since October 7th, 2023, its staff, members, and thousands of participants are still committed to peace and a way forward that centers around empathy and humanization. The PCFF focuses on the shared value of the sanctity of human life. This conversation brings our attention to the values that Palestinians and Israelis can agree upon even in the darkest of times.

Bassam Aramin lives in the West Bank. At the age of 17, he was incarcerated and spent 7 years in an Israeli jail. He went on to study history and holds an MA in Holocaust studies from the University of Bradford, England. He became a member of the Parents Circle in 2007 after losing his 10-year-old daughter Abir, who was killed by an Israeli border policeman in front of her school. Bassam devotes his time and energies to his conviction for a peaceful, nonviolent end to the Israeli occupation of Palestine and to Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation. Bassam is the former Palestinian Co-director of the Parents Circle – Families Forum and is the current international spokesperson.

Robi Damelin, spokesperson and director of International Relations for the Parents Circle - Families Forum joined the organization after her son was killed by a Palestinian Sniper. All her work on the ground in Palestine, Israel, and internationally is geared towards non-violence and reconciliation as a means to end the occupation. Robi was named as a 2015 Woman of Impact by Women in the World.

Sponsored by GC Jewish Connection Group and the Center for Jewish Studies at the The Graduate Center, CUNY

04/16/2025

We are honored to partner again with the Museum of Jewish Heritage - A Living Memorial to the Holocaust for their Annual Gathering of Remembrance. This annual event commemorates Yom HaShoah and will be taking place on Sunday, April 27th at 2pm at Congregation Emanu-El in New York City. You can learn more about the Gathering here:

Every year, the Museum brings together thousands of New Yorkers at our Annual Gathering of Remembrance to collectively vow to never forget.

01/30/2025

The working group on Jewish migration is open to CUNY faculty; apply by February 14.

10/16/2024

The Center for Jewish Studies at the CUNY Graduate Center presents:

Definitions of Antisemitism: A Roundtable Discussion

Please join us for two roundtables on the current debate over the definition of antisemitism and its implications for activists, politicians, university officials, and the general public. The second discussion, on November 1, will explore the impact of these definitions on college campuses and in the public arena with Ethan Katz (UC Berkeley), Pamela Nadell (American University), and Avinoam Patt (NYU). The first discussion, on September 19, featured participants in the crafting of the IHRA, JDA, and Nexus definitions and can be viewed here.

Friday November 1, 11am EST
Definitions of Antisemitism: A Roundtable Discussion Series (webinar)

Roundtable #2: Impact on College Campuses and Beyond

with Ethan Katz (UC Berkeley), Pamela Nadell (American University), and Avinoam Patt (NYU)

Register here: https://gc-cuny-edu.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_F5GIXgFzRVip67foY6x4-Q

Co-sponsored with the Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Crimes against Humanity

Ethan Katz is Associate Professor of History and Faculty Director of the Center for Jewish Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, where he also co-founded the Antisemitism Education Initiative. He is the author or co-editor of 4 books, including The Burdens of Brotherhood: Jews and Muslims from North Africa to France (2015), and currently completing a book entitled Jews and Other Strangers: Dilemmas of Zionism, Colonialism, and Antisemitism.

Pamela Nadell is the Patrick Clendenen Chair in Women's and Gender History and Director of the Jewish Studies Program at American University. She is the author of the award-winning America’s Jewish Women: A History from Colonial Times to Today (W.W. Norton), among many publications. Her next book Antisemitism, an American Tradition: A History will be published in September 2025.

Avinoam Patt is the Maurice Greenberg Professor of Holocaust Studies at New York University where he also serves as Director of the Center for the Study of Antisemitism. He is the author of multiple books on Jewish responses to the Holocaust, including The Jewish Heroes of Warsaw: The Afterlife of the Revolt (2021) and Israel and the Holocaust (2024).

Part II of our “Definitions of Antisemitism” series A panel discussion on defining antisemitism with invited scholars, Ethan Katz, Pamela Nadell, and Avinoam Patt