12:00pm - 1:00pm
IASH Room, LN 1106
Join the Center for Israel Studies on October 5th from 12-1pm in the IASH Room (LN 1106) for our Israel Studies Roundtable Lunch featuring Prof. Andrew Atwell of Bard College.
On the Moral Imagination of "Strengthening Jewish Identity" in Central Israel
In May 2021, following an outburst of internecine violence in the central Israeli city of Lod, the city’s “Torah seed” group became the object of regional and international scrutiny and attention. This group is part of a wider national-religious movement aiming in the wake of the Oslo Accords to “settle in the hearts” of their fellow Israeli Jews after “settling in the hills” of the post-1967 West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza. Beginning in the late 1990s the movement built “Torah seed” groups in binational cities inside the Green Line that intervened in these cities through myriad projects including, in the case of Lod, “strengthening Jewish identity.” Through examining this project of “strengthening Jewish identity” in relation to its critics, in this talk I explore how a perhaps surprising sense of national-religious discomfiture has shaped and constrained “Torah seed” group moral imagination and effected political-theological shifts within Israel and far beyond it.
Andrew K. Atwell is an anthropologist, Judaism and Middle East specialist, and Assistant Professor of the Interdisciplinary Study of Religions and Jewish Studies at Bard College.
Vegetarian lunches will be served.
Please register on B-Engaged.
Brought to you by the Center for Israel Studies and the Binghamton University Department of Anthropology.
On the Moral Imagination of "Strengthening Jewish Identity" in Central Israel
In May 2021, following an outburst of internecine violence in the central Israeli city of Lod, the city’s “Torah seed” group became the object of regional and international scrutiny and attention. This group is part of a wider national-religious movement aiming in the wake of the Oslo Accords to “settle in the hearts” of their fellow Israeli Jews after “settling in the hills” of the post-1967 West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza. Beginning in the late 1990s the movement built “Torah seed” groups in binational cities inside the Green Line that intervened in these cities through myriad projects including, in the case of Lod, “strengthening Jewish identity.” Through examining this project of “strengthening Jewish identity” in relation to its critics, in this talk I explore how a perhaps surprising sense of national-religious discomfiture has shaped and constrained “Torah seed” group moral imagination and effected political-theological shifts within Israel and far beyond it.
Andrew K. Atwell is an anthropologist, Judaism and Middle East specialist, and Assistant Professor of the Interdisciplinary Study of Religions and Jewish Studies at Bard College.
Vegetarian lunches will be served.
Please register on B-Engaged.
Brought to you by the Center for Israel Studies and the Binghamton University Department of Anthropology.
7:00pm - 9:00pm
AM 189
Credit to the Nation: East European Jewish Immigrants and American Banking, 1873-1930
2026 Rabbi Moses Margolis Lecture
Thursday, October 22nd | 7:00 p.m.
AM 189 (Admissions Center)
Dr. Rebecca Kobrin, Russell and Bettina Knap Associate Professor of American Jewish History at Columbia University
Based on her just-published book from Harvard University Press, Credit to the Nation: Eastern European Jewish Immigrant Bankers and the Shaping of American Finance, 1873-1930, Kobrin asks, what if the story of Jews and American banking wasn’t about Wall Street titans—but about immigrant families who built commercial banking businesses that helped others thrive? Indeed, many are familiar with the names of famous early-twentieth-century German Jewish bankers such as Jacob Schiff, but far fewer have heard of men like Sender Jarmulowsky, Max Kobre, or Saul Singer. These East European Jewish immigrants helped millions of migrants with a few dollars and a dream buy ship tickets, borrow and save money, and send small sums back home. Millions saw their financial lives shaped by these men whose stories are now in the dustbin of history. In her talk Professor Kobrin shares their stories and explains how they reshaped American banking as well as the businesses of mass migration and real estate development. Signed copies of Kobrin’s book will be on sale at the event.
Rebecca Kobrin works in the fields of immigration history, urban studies, business history, East European history and American Jewish History, specializing in modern Jewish migration. Her book Jewish Bialystok and Its Diaspora (Indiana University Press, 2010) was awarded the Jordan Schnitzer prize (2012). She is the editor of Chosen Capital: The Jewish Encounter with American Capitalism (Rutgers University Press, 2012), Salo Baron: Using the Past to Shape the Future of Jewish Studies in America (Columbia University Press, 2022) and is co-editor with Adam Teller of Purchasing Power: The Economics of Jewish History (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015). In 2015, she was awarded Columbia University’s Lenfest Distinguished Faculty Award for her outstanding teaching and graduate student mentoring. She is one of the principal investigators leading the award-winning digital humanities Historical NYC Project, an award-winning map that visualizes the demographic and spatial changes wrought in New York City between 1850 and 1940.
The talk is sponsoredby the Margolis Family Lecture Fund and the Judaic Studies Department atBinghamton University and is co-sponsored by Binghamton’s College of JewishStudies.
2026 Rabbi Moses Margolis Lecture
Thursday, October 22nd | 7:00 p.m.
AM 189 (Admissions Center)
Dr. Rebecca Kobrin, Russell and Bettina Knap Associate Professor of American Jewish History at Columbia University
Based on her just-published book from Harvard University Press, Credit to the Nation: Eastern European Jewish Immigrant Bankers and the Shaping of American Finance, 1873-1930, Kobrin asks, what if the story of Jews and American banking wasn’t about Wall Street titans—but about immigrant families who built commercial banking businesses that helped others thrive? Indeed, many are familiar with the names of famous early-twentieth-century German Jewish bankers such as Jacob Schiff, but far fewer have heard of men like Sender Jarmulowsky, Max Kobre, or Saul Singer. These East European Jewish immigrants helped millions of migrants with a few dollars and a dream buy ship tickets, borrow and save money, and send small sums back home. Millions saw their financial lives shaped by these men whose stories are now in the dustbin of history. In her talk Professor Kobrin shares their stories and explains how they reshaped American banking as well as the businesses of mass migration and real estate development. Signed copies of Kobrin’s book will be on sale at the event.
Rebecca Kobrin works in the fields of immigration history, urban studies, business history, East European history and American Jewish History, specializing in modern Jewish migration. Her book Jewish Bialystok and Its Diaspora (Indiana University Press, 2010) was awarded the Jordan Schnitzer prize (2012). She is the editor of Chosen Capital: The Jewish Encounter with American Capitalism (Rutgers University Press, 2012), Salo Baron: Using the Past to Shape the Future of Jewish Studies in America (Columbia University Press, 2022) and is co-editor with Adam Teller of Purchasing Power: The Economics of Jewish History (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015). In 2015, she was awarded Columbia University’s Lenfest Distinguished Faculty Award for her outstanding teaching and graduate student mentoring. She is one of the principal investigators leading the award-winning digital humanities Historical NYC Project, an award-winning map that visualizes the demographic and spatial changes wrought in New York City between 1850 and 1940.
The talk is sponsoredby the Margolis Family Lecture Fund and the Judaic Studies Department atBinghamton University and is co-sponsored by Binghamton’s College of JewishStudies.