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Judah Touro Program Series: "Jews & Race in Early 20th America"
Touro Synagogue Foundation announces the second event of its 2025 Judah Touro Program Series, to be presented via Zoom on Thursday, April 3, at 6:30 pm.
Guest speaker Rabbi Dan Judson will give a talk titled "A Genuinely Candid Conversation: Jews & Race in Early 20th America"
No fee to participate, but reservations are required to receive the Zoom login information. Direct link to register: CLICK HERE.
For recordings of past programs, please visit the "Programs & Events" page on our website: https://tourosynagogue.org/touro-synagogue-foundation/programs-and-events/
Talk Overview:
In his classic 1967 essay on Black anti-Semitism and Jewish racism, James Baldwin writes, “A genuinely candid confrontation between American Negroes and American Jews would certainly prove of inestimable value.”
This lecture will provide background for that conversation by looking closely at how Jews understood themselves as a race and how they interacted with the African-American community in the early 20th century. While some of the texts we explore will be inspiring, reading the Yiddish Forward on racism in the early 1900s, for example, some of the material will be less than ennobling as we attempt to understand the varied and complicated responses of the Jewish community to questions of race.
Speaker Bio:
Rabbi Dan Judson is the Provost of Hebrew College (Newton, MA) and serves as a lecturer in Jewish history. He received his doctorate in Jewish history from Brandeis University. His book, Pennies for Heaven: The History of American Synagogues and Money (Brandeis University Press, 2018), was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award. He is working on a book on American Zionist history, When America Became Zionist: The Lodge-Fish Resolution of 1922. Dr. Judson is also a storyteller who has appeared on the national Moth radio hour: https://themoth.org/storytellers/daniel-judson.
For more information visit www.tourosynagogue.org or write Meryle@tourosynagogue.org
ABOUT the Judah Touro Series and Touro Synagogue Foundation:
The Touro Synagogue Foundation hosts the Judah Touro Series of lectures and events to connect the synagogue's history to significant themes in the American story, both past and present. The Foundation aims to create a relevant voice for that history by bringing it to a broader and more diverse audience.
Originally known as “The Society of Friends of Touro Synagogue,” the Touro Synagogue Foundation was established in 1948 following the designation of Touro Synagogue, America’s oldest synagogue, as a National Historic Site. The Touro Synagogue Foundation is a 501(c) 3 not-for-profit, nonsectarian organization dedicated to promoting and teaching religious diversity, colonial Jewish history, and the history of Touro Synagogue. The Foundation provides public access to the historic site, award-winning history tours, lectures, and educational programs for adults and youth. The Touro Synagogue Foundation operates public programs in partnership with the George Washington Institute for Religious Freedom, the National Park Service, and the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
Event Links
Virtual: https://go.evvnt.com/2957422-0
