THE CENTRAL EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY
JEWISH STUDIES PROGRAM
AND
THE CEU INSTITUTE FOR ADVANCED STUDY
cordially invite you to a lecture by
David B. Ruderman
Joseph Meyerhoff Professor of Modern Jewish History, University of Pennsylvania
Current Fellow at the IAS of CEU
The Cultural Significance of the Ghetto in Jewish History
In this talk, I examine the way the ghetto, especially in Venice, was perceived by previous historians, as a moment of cultural decline and isolation from the Christian majority and I offer an alternative understanding of this institution both in the context of Italian Jewish history as well as early modern Jewish culture in general. The lecture also commemorates the 500th anniversary of the Ghetto which will take place next year.
Tuesday, January 27 at 6 p.m.
In Popper Room, Monument Building
David B. Ruderman is presently the Joseph Meyerhoff Professor of Modern Jewish History and was formally Ella Darivoff Director of the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania from 1994-2014. Prior to coming to Pennsylvania, he taught at the University of Maryland [1974-83] and at Yale University [1983-94]. He is the author of many books and articles including The World of a Renaissance Jew, 1981; Kabbalah, Magic, and Science, 1988; A Valley of Vision, 1990; Jewish Thought and Scientific Discovery in Early Modern Europe, 1995, 2001, published also in Italian, Hebrew, and Russian; Jewish Enlightenment in an English Key: Anglo-Jewry’s Construction of Modern Jewish Thought, 2000; Connecting the Covenants: Judaism and the Search for Christian Identity in Eighteenth Century England, 2007, Early Modern Jewry: A New Cultural History, 2010; and A Best-Selling Hebrew Book of the Modern Era, 2014. Three of these books, including the last, won national book awards in Jewish history. He has also edited or co-edited five other books and co-edited two popular textbooks. He is a past president of the American Academy for Jewish Research. The Great Courses/Teaching Company has produced two of his Jewish history courses, each in 24 lectures. In 2001, the National Foundation for Jewish Culture honored him with its lifetimeachievement award for his work in Jewish history. In 2014, his colleagues presented him with a festschrift entitled Jewish Culture in Early Modern Europe: Essays in Honor of David B. Ruderman, eds. Richard Cohen, NatalieDohrmann, Adam Shear, and Elhanan Reiner (Pittsburgh, 2014).
A reception will follow
