SYLVIE ANNE GOLDBERG: THE GENIUS OF YOSEF YERUSHALMI

No people has navigated the tightrope between history and memory with greater doggedness than the Jews. We dig up, investigate and argue about the facts of our past — even as we cling to memories that might not be quite accurate but that serve as our national glue.

That tension was at the heart of the work of Dr. Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, a towering Jewish scholar, the Salo Wittmayer Baron Professor of Jewish History, Culture and Society at Columbia University.

During his long career, Dr. Yerushalmi plumbed an eclectic assortment of Jewish subjects, from the Spanish expulsion to Freud’s relationship with his religion. But Jewish memory was his signature concern as he wrestled with the question as to whether scholarship alone could nurture a living culture.

Upon the publication of Transmitting Jewish History, based on conversations with Dr. Yerushalmi, The Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center is honored to welcome its author, Sylvie Anne Goldberg, to discuss his personal and intellectual journey and the mark he’s left on Jewish scholarship and thought.

Sylvia Anne Goldberg is associate professor at the Center for Historical Research and head of the Jewish Studies Program at L’École des hautes études en science sociales (The School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences) in Paris. She is the author of three other books on Jewish history.

In conversation with Elisheva Carlebach, who helped translate and publish the book, and Alexander Kaye, who wrote the book’s introduction.

Elisheva Carlebach is the Salo Wittmayer Baron Professor of Jewish History, Culture, and Society at Columbia University as well as the current Director of the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies at Columbia. She is an award-winning author She has twice held fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities. She served as Editor of the Association for Jewish Studies Review and chaired the Academic Advisory Council of the Center for Jewish History.

Author Alexander Kaye is the Karl, Harry, and Helen Stoll Assistant Professor of Israel Studies at Brandeis University. His research includes the history of Jewish thought, with a special focus on political thought, the history of law and theories of Jewish modernity. He is also an expert in Israel Studies, and he focuses on the relationship between law, religion, and politics, and in particular the history of religious Zionism.