Faculty News
Jeffrey Shandler Promoted to Distinguished Professor
Jeffrey Shandler, chair of the Department of Jewish Studies, has been promoted to distinguished professor in recognition of his extraordinary scholarly achievements.
Shandler joined the Department of Jewish Studies in 2001, and has since played a vital role in the growth and development of the department, the Bildner Center, and the Littman Holocaust Resource Center. His breadth of research includes American and Eastern European Jewish culture, modern Yiddish culture, Holocaust remembrance, and the role that broadcasting, film, and other media play in modern Jewish life.
He is the author o fnumerous books, including While America Watches: Televising the Holocaust, Adventures in Yiddishland: Postvernacular Language and Culture,and Holocaust Memory in the Digital Age:Survivors’ Stories and New Media Practices.
Shandler has served as president of the Association for Jewish Studies, and he is also a fellow of the American Academy for Jewish Research, the oldest organization of Jewish studies scholars in North America.
Scholar in Israel Studies Joins Rutgers Faculty
Michal Raucher joined the faculty of Jewish Studies this fall after an intensive search process. Her research lies at the intersection of Israel studies, Jewish ethics, and the anthropology of women.
Raucher’s first book, Birthing Ethics:Reproductive Ethics among Haredi Women in Jerusalem (Indiana University Press, forthcoming), is based on ethnographic research she conducted as a Fulbright fellow. Her focus is the ways in which Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) women make reproductive decisions in the technologically advanced Israeli medical system, given that they have the highest birth rate in Israel and adhere strictly to religious laws.
Raucher spent two years in Jerusalem learning from Haredi women, as well as their doctors, nurses, and doulas, and observing ultrasound examinations and prenatal classes. She found that although Haredi women are faced with patriarchal religious authorities and doctors who cater to rabbis instead of their patients, they insist on their autonomy when making decisions about reproductive practices. Raucher was awarded research grants for the book from the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, and the Crown Family Foundation.
Raucher’s second book project, “Tapping on the Stained Raucher’s second book project, “Tapping on the Stained Glass Ceiling: The Ordination of Orthodox Jewish Women in Israel and America,” compares the contemporary phenomenon of Orthodox female clergy in Israel and the United States. She analyzes the contexts and tensions surrounding these ordinations as well as the ways Orthodoxyis changing and the impact of international feminism on the movement.
Before joining the faculty at Rutgers, Raucher was an assistant professor in the Department of Judaic Studies at the University of Cincinnati. She earned her Ph.D. in religious studies, with a concentration in religious ethics and anthropology, from Northwestern University. She has a master’s degree in bioethics from the University of Pennsylvania, and she graduated from the Joint Program with the Jewish Theological Seminary and Columbia University, earning bachelor of arts degrees in Hebrew Bible and religion.
Raucher has been a fellow at the Jewish Theological Seminary and a visiting scholar at the Hastings Center and Yale University’s Center for Bioethics. She has also consulted for the United Nations Population Fund, where she worked with colleagues from around the world to improve reproductive and sexual rights and health for women and children.
A native of Connecticut, Raucher is eager to return to the Northeast with her family. She says she looks forward to“teaching and learning with the exceptionally talented and thoroughly engaged students at Rutgers University, and to being part of a Jewish studies department that is filled with passionate, welcoming, and accomplished scholars.”
Rutgers faculty presents at the Association for Jewish Studies - December 2013
Mapping Ararat: An Imaginary Jewish Homelands Project
Moderator: Jeffrey Shandler (President of the AJS)
Listening to Sara Levy: Time, History, and Music in a Late Eighteenth-Century German Jewish Salon
Rebecca Cypess
Family Memory among German Jewish Refugees in the Aftermath of the Shoah
Judith Gerson
The PLO’s Zionist Idea (Beirut, 1970)
Jonathan Gribetz
Marriage and Conversion to and from Judaism in Medieval Europe
Paola Tartakoff
How the Fruit of the Garden became an Apple
Azzan Yadin-Israel
Jewish Memory/Argentine Truth: On the Boundaries of Violence and Belonging in Contemporary Argentina
Natasha Zaretsky
Seminar on Video Interviews of Holocaust Survivors: Intersecting Approaches
Participants: Ethel Brooks, Douglas Greenberg, Jeffrey Shandler
Jewish Memory and the Public Sphere: The Politics of Collective Memory and National Identity in the Aftermath of Violence
Chair and Respondent: Yael Zerubavel
Brill Reception for Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics (Brill, 2013)
Gary Rendsburg
Dr. Jeffrey Shandler
The Impact of New Media on Jewish Living
Faculty News
Professor Nancy Sinkoff's book, From Left to Right: Lucy S. Dawidowicz, the New York Intellectuals, and the Politics of Jewish History, is the winner of the Natan Notable Book award for fall 2020 and the National Jewish Book Award for 2020 in the biography category.
Professor Michal Raucher new book, Conceiving Authority: Reproduction and Ethics among Haredi Women in Jerusalem is published - Read more
Professor Nancy Sinkoff's blogpost for the Museum of Jewish Heritage - View blog
Article by Professor Nancy Sinkoff about her new book in The Forward - Read article
Review of Professor Nancy Sinkoff's new book, From Left to Right: Lucy S. Dawidowicz, the New York Intellectuals, and the Politics of Jewish History, in Mosaic magazine. - Read now
Music department's Associate Director, Rebecca Cypess, discusses the meaning of music on Work of Art: The Mason Gross Podcast. - Listen now
Professor Paul Hanebrink's book, A Specter Haunting Europe: The Myth of Judeo-Bolshevism, is reviewed by Aidan Beatty. - Read review
"Orthodox Female Clergy Embodying Religious Authority" article by Assistant Professor, Michal Raucher, is published in the Fall 2019 AJS Perspectives. Read article or check out magazine
Department Chair and Associate Professor, Paola Tartakoff's new book, Conversion, Circumcision, and Ritual Murder in Medieval Europe, is now available. - Order now
Professor Nancy Sinkoff's book, From Left to Right: Lucy S. Dawidowicz, the New York Intellectuals, and the Politics of Jewish History, is mentioned in Tablet Magazine. - Read article
Assistant Professor, Michal Raucher, receives AJS Women’s Caucus Cashmere Subvention Award for her book project Birthing Jewish Ethics: Reproduction and Ethics Amon Haredi Women in Jerusalem. This is the first time such additional awards have been given that recognize significant achievement and important scholarship.
Nancy Sinkoff's 2018 volume of Sara Levy's World: Gender, Judaism, and the Bach Tradition in Enlightenment Berlin, has been awarded the 2019 Book Prize from the Jewish Studies and Music Study Group of the American Musicological Society. - Rutgers, The Current
Assistant Professor, Michal Raucher, received a grant to attend the Teaching with Impact Workshop hosted by the Israel Institute this coming January - Read more
Review of Nancy Sinkoff's book, Sara Levy's World: Gender, Judaism, and the Bach Tradition in Enlightenment Berlin - Read review
Azzan Yadin-Israel writes review in the Marginalia Review of Books, "St. Augustine's Jews and the Undeserving Poor" - Read now
Review of Sara Levy’s World: Judaism, Gender, and the Bach Tradition in Enlightenment Berlin, edited by Rebecca Cypess and Nancy Sinkoff, in Notes, journal of the Music Library Association - Read review
Nancy Sinkoff's blogpost about Sara's Levy's World on the Digital Yiddish Theatre Project - Read More
Gary Rendsburg's new book, "How the Bible is Written" has just been published - Book Information
The Daily Targum article on Gary Rendsburg review on translating Hebrew Bible - Read Article
Paul Hanebrink's new book is reviewed by Christopher Browning - Read Review
Jewish History Matters podcast "Holocaust Memory and the Digital Age with Jeffrey Shandler" - Listen Now
Jewish Studies alumna, Amy Weiss, has lead article in the January 2019 journal, American Jewish History - Read Article
Gary Rendsburg's review of Robert Atler's new translation of the Bible - Read Review
Scholar in Israel Studies Joins Rutgers Faculty in Fall 2018 - Read More
Jeffrey Shandler Promoted to Distinguished Professor - Read More
Faculty Member and honors student launch Ben Sira website - Read More