Rebecca A Kobrin

Courses

Fall 2020

• Contemporary Western Civilization I (4 Credits)
  College Core (CORE) CC1101
  Taught by members of the Departments of Anthropology, Classics, English and Comparative Literature, French, German, History, Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies, Philosophy, Political Science, Religion, Slavic Languages, and Sociology; and members of the Society of Fellows. A study in their historical context of major contributions to the intellectual traditions that underpin contemporary civilization. Emphasis is on the history of political, social, and philosophical thought. Students are expected to write at least three papers to complete two examinations, and to participate actively in class discussions.

Bio

Rebecca Kobrin, Russell and Bettina Knapp Associate Professor of American Jewish History, works in the fields of immigration history and American Jewish History.  Professor Kobrin served as the Hilda Blaustein Post-Doctoral Fellow at Yale University (2002-2004) and the American Academy of Jewish Research Post-Doctoral Fellow at New York University (2004-2006).

Her areas of specialty include American Jewish history, immigration history, international history, and Jewish economic history. Her research, teaching and publications engage in the fields of international history, urban history, Jewish history, American religion and diaspora studies.

Education

• PhD, University of Pennsylvania
• MSEd, University of Pennsylvania
• MA, University of Pennsylvania
• BA, Yale University

Selected Publications

Books

• Jewish Bialystok and Its Diaspora (Indiana University Press, 2010)
  Winner, Jordan Schnitzer Prize, best book in modern Jewish History, Association for Jewish Studies, 2012
  Finalist, National Jewish Book Awards, American Jewish Studies, 2010
• Editor, Chosen Capital: The Jewish Encounter with American Capitalism (Rutgers University Press,2012), Recommended Reading, Jewish Book Council
• Co-Editor (with Adam Teller), Purchasing Power: The Economics of Jewish History(University of Pennsylvania Press, Spring 2015).

Articles

• “Destructive Creators: Sender Jarmulowsky and Financial Failure in the Annals of American Jewish History,” American Jewish History Vol. 97:2 (Spring 2013), 105 - 137.
• “Żydzi w międzywojennym Białymstoku. Między lokalnością a diasporą,” in Żydzi w Białymstoku(Bialystok, 2013), 150-79
• “American Jewish Philanthropy, Polish Jewry and the Crisis of 1929” in 1929: Mapping the Jewish World, Hasia Diner and Gennady Estraikh, eds. (New York University Press, 2013), 73-93.
• “The Other Polonia: The Responses of Yiddish Immigrant Writers in New York and Buenos Aires to the New Polish State, 1920-1925” in Choosing Yiddish, Lara Rabinovich, Hannah Pressman and Shiri Goren, eds. (Wayne State University Press, 2012), 99-119.
• “’The Murdered Hebrew Maid Servant of East New York:’" Gender, Class, and the Jewish Household in Eastern Europe and Its Migrant Diaspora,” in Gender and Jewish History, Deborah Dash Moore and Marion Kaplan, eds. (Indiana University Press, 2010), 72-87.
• “Espoirs déçus en Terre promise: Faillites financières et pauvreté parmi les Juifs immigrés à New York, 1914,” Les Cahiers du Judaïsme 29 (Summer 2010), 56-74.
• ’When a Jew was a Landsman:’ Rethinking Jewish Regional Identity in the Age of Mass Migration,”Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 7:3 (November, 2008), 357-376.
• “The 1905 Revolution Abroad: Mass Migration, Russian Jewish Liberalism and American Jewry, 1903-1914,” in The 1905 Revolution: A Turning Point in Jewish History? Ezra Mendelsohn and Stefani Hoffman, eds. (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008), 227-246
• “The Shtetl by the Highway: The Literary Image of the East European City in New York’s Yiddish Landsmanshaft Press, 1921-1939,” Prooftexts: A Journal of Jewish Literary History 9:4 (2006), 107-137.
• “Rewriting the Diaspora: Eastern Europe in the Yiddish Landsmanshaft Press, 1921-1932,” Jewish Social Studies 12:3 (Fall 2006), 1-38.
• “Contested Contributions: American Jewish Money and Polish-Jewish Relations in Inter-War Poland, 1919-1929,” Gal-Ed: A Journal of Polish Jewish History (Fall 2005), 49-62.

Full list of courses taught

• Jews and the City: Comparative Urban History
• Immigrant New York
• American Jewish History
• Holocaust and American Culture
• Approaches to International and Global History
• Religion in the Writing of American History (graduate seminar)