Centres and Margins in Postwar Jewish Worlds, University of Birmingham (UK)
July 4-5, 2022
In a climate of rising secularism within some Jewish communities and increasing religiosity in others, amid significant struggles for social change within and beyond the Jewish world, the postwar period has witnessed substantial challenges relating to belonging, leadership, and participation in diasporic Jewish communal life.
This workshop will investigate some of the key areas of change, focusing in particular on contributions and challenges emerging from feminist, interfaith, queer, and Black Jewish individuals, communities, and organisations. How have diasporic Jews’ multiple affiliations–overlapping, intersecting, but at times also conflicting–helped to redefine Jewishness in the modern era? We will question drivers of change and continuity, exploring evolving borders of inclusion and exclusion in different kinds of Jewish communities and what they might tell us about Jewish postwar lived experiences.
We invite papers on any aspect of queer-Jewish, feminist-Jewish, interfaith, or Black-Jewish studies.