Jan

27 2019

Two Histories of Women and Intermarriage in America

10:00AM - 11:00AM  

Jewish Studies Center 96 Wentworth Street

Contact Mark Swick
swickmn@cofc.edu

This presentation will reimagine Jewish intermarriage by explaining how womanhood influences lived experiences and meaning. The stories of Jewish women, those raised Jewish and those who chose Judaism later in life, are an essential ingredient to understanding intermarriage in America. Jewish women have long been thought of as keepers of the domestic flame of Judaism and women of other faith backgrounds who marry Jewish men have often shouldered much of the responsibility for raising Jewish children. Come learn about how these women of valor shape Jewishness and Judaism.

Keren R. McGinity is a 2018 Forward 50 honoree for her clarion call for a Jewish response to the #MeToo movement, published in the New York Jewish Week. She is named on Lilith magazine’s 7 Jewish Feminist Highlights of 2018 list. Her pioneering books, Still Jewish: A History of Women and Intermarriage in America (NYU Press 2009), a National Jewish Book Award Finalist, and Marrying Out: Jewish Men, Intermarriage, and Fatherhood (Indiana University Press 2014), changed the narrative about Jewish continuity by focusing on gender and change over time. Dr. McGinity is the inaugural director of the Interfaith Families Jewish Engagement Program at Hebrew College’s Shoolman Graduate School of Jewish Education, where she also teaches, and a research associate at the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute at Brandeis University. She earned her PhD from Brown University, and was the Mandell L. Berman Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Contemporary American Jewish Life at the University of Michigan’s Frankel Center for Judaic Studies. Dr. McGinity serves on the Sexual Misconduct Taskforce of the Association

Sponsor: Yaschik/Arnold Jewish Studies Program