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May 1 , 2006
Holocaust scholar Feingold to give annual Stein Lecture, May 4

by Chanmi Kim

Renowned Holocaust and American Jewry scholar Henry Feingold will deliver this year’s Max K. and Mathilda Wertheim Stein Lecture on Modern Jewish and Israeli History, to be held Thursday, May 4, at 7:30 p.m. in the Miller-Ward Alumni House.

Feingold, who will give a lecture on “German-Jewish Immigration to the U.S. in the 1930s,” is professor emeritus of history at Baruch College in CUNY (City University of New York). He is considered one of America’s most distinguished scholars in the history of German Jews in America.

“[Feingold’s] broader knowledge of 20th century Jewish history is extraordinary,” said Ken Stein, director of the Institute for the Study of Modern Israel at Emory.

Feingold’s research on the American Holocaust witness role and the reaction of the American Jewry to the Holocaust has earned him national recognition, Stein said. His published works include The Politics of Rescue: The Roosevelt Administration and the Holocaust, 1938–1945 (1971) and Bearing Witness, How America and Its Jews Responded to the Holocaust (1995). As one of the foremost scholars of American Jewry, his other works include Zion in America: The Jewish Experience from Colonial Times to the Present (1974); A Midrash on the History of American Jewry (1982); A Time for Searching: Entering the Mainstream, 1920–1945 (1992); and Lest Memory Cease, Finding Meaning in the American Jewish Past (1996).

Feingold also is the general editor of The Jewish People in America (1992), a five-volume series published by Johns Hopkins University, and he has served in the American Jewish Historical Society, the American Jewish Congress, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council and the Museum of Jewish Heritage.

“The lecture series’ overall goal is to introduce the Emory and Atlanta communities to ideas and information that pertain to modern Jewish history and modern Israel,” Stein said. “Historical perspective is always necessary in analyzing contemporary events, hence our committed effort to impart the best ideas from the best scholars we can identify.”

Named after Ken Stein’s parents, Max and Tillie Stein, the lecture series primarily honors Tillie Stein’s two decades of research and writing on German-Jewish social history of the 19th and 20th centuries, which led to the publication of a detailed account of Jews living in rural villages called The Way It Was: The Jewish World of Rural Hesse (Frederick Max Publications, 2003).

The lectures cover current scholarship dealing with modern European Jewish history, Zionism, the yishuv [Hebrew for “settlement”], and aspects of modern Israeli society, history and culture. Now in its ninth year, the series has featured such guest speakers as Michael Myer, professor of Jewish History at Hebrew Union College and co-author of German-Jewish History in Modern Times (Columbia University Press, 1997); Marion Kant, professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania; and Imar Schorsch, chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary.

Feingold’s lecture is free and open to the public. For more information, visit www.ismi.emory.edu or contact Diane Rieger at diane.rieger@emory.edu.

 

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