Riv-Ellen Prell, is currently writing a book on the creation of an American Jewish youth culture following World War II. The decades following World War II brought about a major transformation in the lives of American Jews as well as other ethnic and racial groups. Suburbanization and a "religious revival," reshaped the experience of urban dwellers. Youth emerged not only as a new category, but a hopeful response to the destruction of European Jewry. Youth was also a contested category, with various groups vying to define a new American Judaism for young Jews. In these youth oriented settings, camps, youth groups and education, issues of class, race, nation gender, and religion were re-envisioned and challenged.

Education:

Ph.D., Anthropology, University of Chicago
M.A., Anthropology, University of Chicago
B.A., Anthropology, Religious Studies, University of Southern California

Scholarly Works:

Book in press: Women Remaking American Judaism. Riv-Ellen Prell, editor. Wayne State University Press.

In Press: 2005 “Antisemitism” (a 40 page commissioned article on gender and antisemitism) The Encyclopedia of Women and Religion in North America. Rosemary Keller and Rosemary Radformd Ruether editors. Indiana University Press.

2003 “Judaism and Assimilation,” Gary Laderman and Luis Leon, Encyclopedia of Religion and Popular Culture.

2001 “Developmental Judaism: Challenging the Study of American Jewish Identity in the Social Sciences,” Contemporary Jewry, Vol. 21, Spring 2000. pp 33-54.
Guest Editor for special section on the personal narrative in the social sciences of American Jews and “Introduction,” pp1-2.

2001 “Gender, Class and Jewishness: New Approaches to the Study of Identity,” Transversal: the Journal of the David-Herzog-Center for Jewish Studies, Gratz College, Austria. First Issue (January), pp21-25.

2000 “The Ghetto Girl and the Erasure of Memory.” In Hasia Diner, Jeffrey Shandler, Beth Wenger eds. Remembering the Lower East Side. Indiana University Press. pp 86-112.

2000 “Communities of Choice and Memory: Conservative Synagogues in the Late Twentieth Century,” In Jack Wertheimer, ed. Jews in the Center: Conservative Synagogues and their Members. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press. pp 269-358.

Prayer and Community: The Havurah in American Judaism, 1989 Wayne State University Press.

Fighting to Become Americans: Jews, Gender, and the Anxiety of Assimilation, 1998 Beacon Press.

Interpreting Women's Lives: Personal Narrative and Feminist Theory, 1989 Indiana University Press, co-editor.

Additional Scholarly Activities:

Vice President, Association for the Social Scientific Study of Jewry
Board of Directors, Association for Jewish Studies
Bronfman Distinguished Visting Professor of Jewish Studies, College of William and Mary
Executive committee
American Jewish Historical Society Academic Council
Melton Visiting Research Scholar, Hebrew University

Awards:

Fellow, Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, University of Pennsylvania 2003-2004
College of Liberal Arts, Scholar of the College, University of Minnesota, 2002
National Jewish Book Award, 1989

Professional Service:

Editor, Perspectives, Newsletter of the Association for Jewish Studies, 2003-present
Board of Directors, Association for Jewish Studies, 2000-present
VP Assoc for the social scientific study of Jewry, 1999-2002
Executive Committee, American Jewish Historical Society Academic Council, 1999-2002
Founder and co curator, American Jewish Counterculture Archive, American Jewish Historical Society, 2000-present

Recent Courses:

Amst 3252W: Politics and Popular Culture 1900-1945
Jwst 3632W: Jewish Women in America
Jwst 3116: Jews and Popular Culture
AmSt 8801 Dissertation Seminar