Prof Robin Judd (Ohio State University)
This talk will consider the ways in which late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century German deliberations about circumcision can help us understand the transformation of modern German Jewry. Examining the ways in which ritualized markings of difference served as guideposts to discussions concerning Jewish acculturation and state growth, Judd will analyze the impact these deliberations had on the formation of German state and Jewish communal policies and political strategies. According to Judd, diverse German interest groups, governments and Jewish communal leaders often looked to Jewish rites when they debated the nature and limits of religious and social tolerance. As participants in the ritual questions, they disputed the boundaries between German Jews and gentiles. Robin Judd is an Associate Professor of Jewish and European History at the Ohio State University in Columbus, OH. Professor Judd's manuscript, Contested Rituals: Circumcision, Kosher Butchering, and German-Jewish Political Life in Germany, 1843-1933, was recently published by Cornell University Press (Autumn 2007). Her new project is Love at the Zero Hour: European War Brides, GI Husbands, and European Strategies for Reconstruction. Professor Judd has received several prominent grants & fellowships including a DAAD, Fulbright, NEH summer stipend & the Coca Cola grant for Critical Difference.
