After a very difficult year that prevented many scholars from conducting their research at NYPL in person, we are thrilled to welcome them back to our reading rooms and to meet them in person. We can once again indulge in intellectually powered, inspiring, and nurturing conversations with our research fellows that constitute such an important and treasured part of our work.

Some of the 2020–2021 fellowship recipients had to postpone their trips to New York during the pandemic year.  Therefore, this academic year, the Dorot Jewish Division is hosting an exceptional cohort of four scholars who were awarded the prestigious Fordham-NYPL Research Fellowship in Jewish Studies in 2020–2021 and 2021–2021. Based in Israel, England, and the United States, they specialize in a great variety of topics, demonstrating the inclusiveness and broad variety of the Dorot Jewish Division collection and the rich resources for Jewish Studies research in other departments of NYPL.

The Fordham-NYPL fellowship program was established in 2017 with the support of the Eugene Shvidler Gift Fund along with additional gift funds to foster and advance Jewish Studies scholarship at these distinguished New York institutions and provide talented scholars from outside of the New York City metropolitan area with the opportunity to spend the necessary time with the collections. In 2017–2018, 2018–2019, 2019–2020, and in 2020–2022, now in its fifth year, this highly selective program has supported 18 fellowship recipients from Argentina, France, Germany, Great Britain, Israel, Italy, and the United States. The subjects of research include various aspects of American Judaism, anti-Semitism, Jewish history and literature in Europe, Jewish involvement in twentieth century political and social movements, the complexity of the Hasidic community in New York City, the life of immigrants from Eastern Europe and their Holocaust memories, their relationships with other communities in the US, the social history of Yiddish and Hebrew songs, Jewish liturgical traditions, and Yiddish theater. 

Fordham University’s Jewish Studies Program and The New York Public Library are delighted to introduce the recipients who will be part of our community during this academic year.

Mid-Term Fellow

Ephraim Shoham-Steiner, from Ben Gurion University, will join us for the full academic year as a mid-term fellow to work on his project titled “The ‘Holy Community of Cologne’: New Perspectives on the Medieval Jewish Community.” Cologne is one of the only Jewish communities in medieval Europe that received serious and meticulous archaeological attention. The Cologne Judenviertel (Jewish quarter) located at the heart of the city’s historical center in close proximity to the city hall (Rathaus) was excavated twice over the past 60 years. One of the earliest scholars studying Cologne was Adolf Kober (1879-1958), and Ephraim will study pertinent materials relating to him and by him that are held at NYPL and the Center for Jewish History in New York.

Short-Term Fellows

Tamara Gleason-Freidberg, from University College London, will conduct research as a short-term fellow on a project titled "'Our Golden Chain is Broken': Responses to the Holocaust in the Bundist Journal Foroys from Mexico (1941-1947)." Tamara will explore the variety of texts about the Holocaust that appeared in Foroys, a Yiddish journal published by a group of left-wing activists who had founded the association Kultur un Hilf in 1941 as a Mexican branch of the Jewish Labour Committee, which had been established in New York City.  During her time at NYPL, Tamara will focus on texts published in Foroys between 1941–1947, with a special focus on articles and poems that tried to explain the significance of the annihilation of Eastern European Jewry, analyzing the specifically Jewish Mexican context of these Yiddish publications.

Zohar Segev, from the University of Haifa, will work on a project titled “Philanthropy, Politics, and the Shaping of a Nation: The Nathan Straus Papers in the NYPL.” Nathan Straus is most known for his co-ownership of Macy’s and his promotion of the pasteurization of milk in the US and in Palestine. The projects Straus initiated and funded in Palestine exemplify the dramatic transformation in the reciprocal relations between US Jews and Jewish communities in Europe and Palestine during the interwar period. Zohar's research at NYPL, which holds the Nathan Straus Papers, will examine the full scope of Straus’s philanthropic work in Palestine.

Sharon Weltman, from Louisiana State University, will focus on a project titled “Elizabeth Polack: British Melodrama and Jewish Emancipation.”  Elizabeth Polack was the first Anglo-Jewish woman playwright, and perhaps the first Jewish woman dramatist in any language. Her melodramas appeared in print and on the London stage from 1835 to 1838. But very little is known about her. Sharon aims to fill that gap, recovering forgotten plays and investigating how a Jewish woman found an audience in London’s theater scene when Jews had almost no civil rights, were typically reduced to antisemitic stereotypes on stage, and when women playwrights faced serious obstacles to production and publication. Polack’s use of melodrama in the context of a decades-long fight for Jewish emancipation helped bring Britain to the condition of a modern state where all adults hold equal rights under the law.

We will also feature spotlight interviews with the scholars in the upcoming weeks so that we can hear more about their projects, research interests, and tips for working at the Library.

Please stay tuned for more news and the next round of applications for the 2022–2023 academic year!