The Modern Period

• In Event: Assessing the "Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research": Early Modern and Modern

Abstract

The story of the representation of modern Jewish history in the Proceedings of the American Academy of Jewish Research is the story of a late bloomer. Though publication of the journal began in 1930 it wasn’t until the mid 1950s that articles dealing with modern Jewish history began to appear with greater regularity. Nevertheless, whatever was lacking in quantity was made up for in both quality and more importantly in the field-shaping nature of those contributions. This talk will focus on three Polish-born historians, Bernard Weinryb, Philip Friedman, and Isaac Eisenstein-Barzilay, who, in the fields of Polish-Jewish history, history of the Holocaust, and Haskalah history, respectively, made signal contributions to areas of study that were either entirely new or were continuations and expansions on the work begun by historians whose lives were cut short because of the Shoah.

Author

• John Efron, University of California, Berkeley