Dr. Michael Brenner, "How Jew-Hatred Became a Political Weapon: From Anti-Judaism to Antisemitism"
September 30

Lecture: While anti-Jewish hatred is very old, the term antisemitism is relatively new. What are its origins, how does it differ from traditional anti-Judaism, and why does it matter for the modern political discourse?

Bio: Dr. Michael Brenner is Distinguished Professor of History and Seymour and Lillian Abensohn Chair in Israel Studies at American University. He also holds the chair of Jewish History and Culture at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, and serves as International President of the Leo Baeck Institute for the Study of German-Jewish History. In 2021 he was the first recipient of the Baron Award for Scholarly Excellence in Research of the Jewish Experience. He is the author of ten books, translated into over a dozen languages. His latest books are In Hitler’s Munich: Jews, the Revolution, and the Rise of Nazism, (Princeton University Press 2022) and In Search of Israel: The History of an Idea (Princeton University Press, 2018).
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Dr. Pamela Nadell, "Understanding Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism: A Guide for the American University Community"October 7

Lecture: In the spring semester 2023, American University’s Jewish Studies Program published Understanding Antisemitism: A Guide for the American University Community. Lead author Pamela Nadell worked with AU faculty, students, staff, and administrators to create this guide. This session uses the guide as a jumping off point for understanding antisemitism and anti-Zionism.

Bio: Professor Pamela Nadell holds the Patrick Clendenen Chair in Women’s and Gender History at American University. Her book America’s Jewish Women: A History from Colonial Times to Today won the 2019 National Jewish Book Award’s “Jewish Book of the Year.” A National Endowment for the Humanities Public Scholars Award supports her current book project, Antisemitism, an American Tradition. Past president of the Association for Jewish Studies, she consults for the museum planned for the rebuild of Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life and was the fourth witness in the Congressional hearing that included three university presidents.
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Dr. Julie Keresztes, "Antisemitism in Times of Crisis: The Case of Hitler’s Photographer"October 14

Lecture: Antisemitism traditionally escalates in times of crisis. This talk examines the crises that caused many Germans, among them Adolf Hitler’s personal photographer Heinrich Hoffmann, to embrace antisemitism after 1918.

Bio: Dr. Julie R. Keresztes is a historian of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. She is the 2022-2025 Postdoctoral Fellow at American University and at the Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Her first book, Photography and the Making of the Nazi Racial Community will be published in January 2025.
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Dr. Lauren Strauss, "Walking on a Tightrope: How Antisemitism Shapes the Image and Self-Image of America's Jews"October 21

Lecture: How have American Jews navigated their own image in the American political and social arena? Are they far-Left radicals or uber-capitalists? Are they White and therefore suspect in the eyes of some, or non-White (& therefore alien) in the eyes of White suprematists? To what extent have these ideas been internalized and disseminated by Jews themselves? We will look at these contemporary questions through a historical lens, beginning in the early 20th century.

Bio: Professor Lauren B. Strauss is the Director of Undergraduate Studies for American University’s Jewish Studies Program. She teaches widely in the fields of Jewish history, politics and culture. She is coeditor of Mediating Modernity: Challenges and Trends in the Jewish Encounter with the Modern World (2008), and her forthcoming book is Painting the Town Red: Jewish Visual Artists, Yiddish Culture, and Radical Politics in Interwar New York. She is currently researching the history of DC-area Jews and their political activism.
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Dr. Nathalie Japkowicz, "Combatting Antisemitism in Extremist Social Media"October 28

Lecture: This talk will present recent Artificial Intelligence-based strategies developed at American University to discover coded antisemitic terminology in extremist social media posts and analyze the posts’ content to identify the specific kind of antisemitism they convey. The talk will be accessible to a general audience.

Bio: Dr. Nathalie Japkowicz is a Professor of Computer Science at American University. She recently completed a six-year term as the department’s Chair. Her area of expertise is Artificial Intelligence, especially Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing, two areas she has explored for over three decades.

Dr. Robert Williams, "Antisemitism and Its Dynamics during Pandemics and Public Health Crises"
November 4

Lecture: Forms of antisemitism that link to rhetoric on disease serve as particularly effective forms of propaganda that can radicalize communities, lead to social tensions, and inform types of anti-Jewish violence. The justifications for such false linkages have varied over time. Antisemitic themes of disease, contagion, pestilence, and parasitism play upon unconscious fears, making antisemitic claims more insidious and akin to unseen threats to the health and well-being of individuals and their communities.

Bio: Dr. Robert J. Williams, who received his PhD from American University, is the Finci-Viterbi Executive Director of the USC Shoah Foundation, the UNESCO Chair on Antisemitism and Holocaust Research, and the Advisor to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.
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