CJS Faculty Accomplishments, 2025-2026

Shir Alon published Static Forms: Writing the Present in the Modern Middle Eastern (Columbia University Press, 2025) as well as an essay on “Revival Modernities and the Modernist Present” and an article on “Identity and Cultural Diplomacy of the Abraham Accords.” She also delivered a lecture in 2026 at the University of Washington and presented a paper on “Fictions of the Future in Palestine and SWANA: A Critical Reconsideration,” at the American Comparative Literature Association. In fall 2025, Prof. Alon taught an undergraduate class on “Hebrew Literature: Settlement and Ideology.” In May 2026, Prof. Alon was promoted to the rank of Associate Professor with tenure!

Patricia Ahearne-Kroll presented a paper in fall 2025 on “Reconstructions Reconsidered: The Future of Pseudepigrapha Studies and the Case of 'Aseneth'” and delivered presentations to Cong. Or Emet and the Presbyterian Church in Canada. She was also honored with a College of Liberal Arts Mid-Career Faculty Research Award to support her commentary on Aseneth, which is believed to have been originally composed by a Jewish author in Hellenistic Egypt around the first century B.C.E. In 2026, Prof. Ahearne-Kroll taught an undergraduate Jewish Studies course on “Sex, Murder, and Bodily Discharges: Purity and Pollution in the Ancient World.”

Marc Caplan published an article in 2026 on “Between Stravinsky and the Shtetl: Oyzer Varshavski’s Polytonal Discourse and the Challenges of Interwar Yiddish Literature.” He served, during the past academic year, as the Brownstone Visiting Professor in Dartmouth’s Jewish Studies Program. His courses there included, among other subjects, Modern Jewish Thought, American Jewish Literature, Yiddish Folklore and the Afterlife, and Autobiographies and Autofiction in Modern Jewish, Arabic, and African American literature. He also co-directed a tour of memory sites in and around Berlin and Warsaw for Dartmouth students. In 2026-2027, in addition to serving as Associate Director of CJS, Marc will be the Emmanuel Patt Research Fellow at the YIVO Institute, writing a book on the Yiddish theater and politics in the nineteenth century.

Bruno Chaouat published an essay on “On the Use and Abuse of ‘Genocide’ in Postmodern Thought.” He also delivered lectures at the University of Toronto, the Centre for Human and Social Sciences of the Spanish National Research Council, and the Klaus and Renate Heinrich Foundation (Berlin).

Ron Krebs published several articles in 2025-2026 that explored Israel in cross-national perspective, including among others “Why Populists Love Dead Soldiers and Hate Live Officers,” “Citizenship Traditions and Cultures of Military Service: Patriotism and Paychecks in Five Democracies,” and “The Soldier in the State: Explaining Public Trust in the Armed Forces.” He delivered lectures on these themes at, among other institutions, King’s College London (UK), the London School of Economics (UK), the University of Cambridge (UK), the University of Notre Dame, and Brown University. Prof. Krebs regrettably had to postpone his planned teaching at the Hebrew University in spring 2026.

Bernard Levinson published essays on “Deuteronomy’s Revolutionary Concept of Kingship,” “It’s Tradition! How Deuteronomy’s Reform Permits Non-Sacrificial Slaughter,” and “The Utopian Vision of Legal Rewriting in the Jubilee Legislation of Leviticus 25,” in 2026. He delivered lectures at, among others, the University of Melbourne (Australia), the Alttestamentliche Sozietät Wuppertals (Germany), the Gustav Dalman Institute of Advanced Studies at the University of Greifswald (Germany), and the University of Zurich (Switzerland). In fall 2026, he is offering a new undergraduate class on “Scripture and the Other: Reading the Bible after the Holocaust.”

Hanne Loeland Levinson published an essay in 2026 on “The Creator and Her Creation: The Representation of Ruth Handler as God in the Barbie Movie.” She also presented on “What Makes Eve an Eve? Hybrid Eve Characters in Dystopian Literature" at the Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in fall 2025 and gave a workshop on “Metaphor and the Hebrew Bible” at the University of Melbourne (Australia) in summer 2026.

Hernán Matzkevich delivered a talk in March 2026 to the U’s Center for Premodern Studies on “Bodies Outside the Law: Syphilis, Deviance, and Jewish Literary Resistance in the Early Modern World.”

Leslie Morris published in 2026 essays on “Broken Jewish: Plurilingual Poetics in Germany Today” and “Teaching in Jewish: Multilingualism, Translation, and the Place(s) of German Jewish Studies.” In fall 2025 she presented at a roundtable at the German Studies Association on “Genealogies of Memory: Writing the Past in the Present.” Prof. Morris also served on the Hadassah Brandeis Institute Advisory Board and the Editorial Board of Nexus Journal of German Jewish Studies.

Karen Painter published an essay in 2026 on “Music after Kristallnacht: Cultural Reportage in the Jüdisches Nachrichtenblatt” and composed program notes on various Mahler symphonies for the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Berlin Philharmonic. She also gave a public presentation at Augsburg College on “Music after Kristallnacht: Mourning and Resilience,” as part of the Voices of Resilience and Hope program.

Noam Sienna published Jewish Books in North Africa: Between the Early Modern and Modern Worlds (Indiana University Press, 2025), which won the Jordan Schnitzer First Book Publication Award from the Association for Jewish Studies and the 2025 Book Award from the Middle East Librarians Association. He also published essays in 2026 on “Wrapping the Word: The Textiles of the Torah Scroll,” “A Maghrebi Rabbi Describes Local Women’s Magical Practices (Constantine, 1858),” and “Hebrew Typography and Typefaces.” Prof. Sienna delivered lectures at, among other institutions, Columbia University, Princeton University, Rutgers University, and the Library of Congress. He also curated an exhibition at the University of Minnesota Libraries, titled “Faith in the Press: Jewish Printers and Printing in the Twin Cities, 1890-1950.”In 2026 Prof. Sienna was Lilly Scholar-in-Residence Research Fellow at the Library of Congress.

Rotem Tamir participated in 2026 in the Ras Al Khaimah Biennale and in the group exhibition Dreamsong in Minneapolis. They also participated in a published roundtable in VoCA Journal on deaf* experiences and perspectives in relation to contemporary art, artistic practice, and access. Prof. Tamir was a Visiting Artist at the invitation of the Jewish Studies Workshop at Ball State University. In May 2026, Prof. Tamir was promoted to the rank of Associate Professor with tenure!