Between the Lines: Between Two Worlds

Mar 20, 2024 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event video | Video Lecture

Facing the harrowing task of rebuilding a life in the wake of the Holocaust, many Jewish survivors, community and religious leaders, and Allied soldiers viewed marriage between Jewish women and military personnel as a way to move forward after unspeakable loss. Proponents believed that these unions were more than just a ticket out of war-torn Europe: they would help the Jewish people repopulate after the attempted annihilation of European Jewry. Historian Robin Judd, whose grandmother survived the Holocaust and married an American soldier after liberation, introduces us to the Jewish women who lived through genocide and went on to wed American, Canadian, and British military personnel after the war.

To Build a New Home: Celebrating the Jewish Wedding

By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary

To Build a New Home: Celebrating the Jewish Wedding featured a collection of rare materials illustrating the creative, often surprising, evolution of Jewish marriage practices over centuries.  

The Jews of Corfu: Between the Adriatic and the Ionian

By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary

This unprecedented exhibition offered a window into the rich history and culture of the little-known Jewish communities of Corfu. Columbia University and JTS, two of the world’s largest repositories of rare materials from Corfu, displayed a selection of illustrated prayer books, historical documents, celebratory poems, and elaborately decorated ketubbot telling the story of the island’s vibrant, distinct, and sometimes contentious Jewish communities. Situated on a major trade route, these communities thrived under Venetian and then Greek rule from the Middle Ages until 1944, when the Jews of Corfu were almost entirely annihilated by the Nazis. 

The Work of Her Hands: The Art of Lynne Avadenka and the Craft of Jewish Women Printers

This exhibit featured a selection of rare books printed by Jewish women from the earliest days of Hebrew publishing alongside new artwork created by American artist/printmaker Lynne Avadenka. 

Living Yiddish in New York

By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary

This exhibit introduced visitors to rare archival materials that provided a snapshot of New York City as an important center of modern Yiddish culture. Between 1880 and 1924, approximately two million Eastern European Jews immigrated to the United States. Many of them settled in New York City, which by 1914 was home to 1.4 million Jews, among them the world’s largest urban population of Yiddish speakers.

A Sacred Space: Synagogue Architecture and Identity

By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary

October 26, 2023–March 7, 2024 The JTS Library exhibit, “A Sacred Space: Synagogue Architecture and Identity,” offers an exciting opportunity to view a large selection of rare prints depicting historic synagogues. The exhibit, co-curated by Samuel D. Gruber and Sharon Liberman Mintz, will trace the history of European synagogue styles from the 17th to the 19th […]

Between the Lines: Perfect Enemy

Mar 13, 2024 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event video | Video Lecture

In a covert laboratory under the streets of Tel Aviv, Akiva Cohen, an Israeli scientist, clones Hitler from old samples of his DNA. Akiva wants to change the world for the good; but he is betrayed by those who want to use this new Hitler for unimaginable terror. Akiva is plunged into a desperate struggle to stay alive and salvage his dream, leading to a trail of murders across the country, collaboration with Hamas terrorists, and the uncovering of a devastating conspiracy at the highest levels of Israeli society. Perfect Enemy is an exciting, suspenseful thriller that poses uncomfortable questions about trauma and revenge, the desire for peace, religious extremism, and the schisms of the Middle East.

Between the Lines: Postwar Stories

Feb 27, 2024 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event video | Video Lecture

Dr. Rachel Gordan joins us to discuss her book Postwar Stories: How Books Made Judaism American. The period immediately following World War II was an era of dramatic transformation for Jews in America. At the start of the 1940s, President Roosevelt had to all but promise that if Americans entered the war, it would not be to save the Jews. But by the end of the decade, antisemitism was in decline and Jews were moving toward general acceptance in American society. Drawing on several archives, magazine articles, and nearly forgotten bestsellers, Postwar Stories examines how Jewish middlebrow literature helped to shape post-Holocaust American Jewish identity.