Jewish Studies at Manchester. The Centre draws together staff related to Jewish Studies from across the University of Manchester and was formally established in 1996, although Jewish studies of one sort or another has been taught at Manchester since 1866. The co-directors are Alex Samely (Jewish Thought), Jean-Marc Dreyfus (Holocaust Studies), and Daniel Langton (Jewish History), and it is administered by PhD student Kerry McCall.
Over the last year, the Centre’s candidate Rabbi Aaron Lipsey was successful in winning an AHRC PhD studentship for a project entitled 'The Responses of the Lubavitcher Rebbe to the Holocaust: A Study of His Letters, Talks and Teachings’. Two Rothschild Foundation postdoc fellowships were awarded, starting in 2024 and 2025 respectively, namely, Nina Valbousquet on ‘Jewish-Catholic Odysseys: “Non-Aryan” Refugees, the Holocaust, and Pius XII’s Vatican (1938-1950)’, and Hannah Wilson on ‘"These things are part of us, almost like limbs of our body”: The Material Memory of the Holocaust in Domestic Spaces, Private Memories and Public Spheres’.
In additional to many individual staff publications, there were two major collaborative achievements. The first was the completion of the Hebrew Manuscripts catalogue of holdings at the Rylands Library of the University of Manchester; this project began in 1992 and includes over 400 manuscripts dating back to the 14th century. The second was a ten-part podcast series entitled 'What Would Jesus the Jew Do?', which explored the Jewish background to the New Testament.
The Centre’s event programme over the last year included the Bogdanow Lectures in Holocaust Studies 2024, which featured Prof. Omer Bartov (Brown University) on 'The Return of the Repressed: Ukraine's Unresolved Pasts’, and the Sherman Community Lecture 2024 which was presented by Prof. Hava Tirosh-Samuelson (Arizona State University) on 'Judaism and Climate Change: Religious Responses to the Eco-Crisis.’ The Sherman Conversation day-conference was entitled ‘Encountering Others, Encountering Ourselves: Reflexivity and the Jewish Studies Researcher’ and organised by Dr Katja Stuerzenhofecker and Rabba Dr Lindsey Taylor-Guthartz. There was the normal programme of the Biblical Hebrew Reading group and the Scriptural Encounters seminar series for discussion of difficult scriptural texts. In addition to papers given by various staff members, there were, among our other events and activities, public lectures (eg to the Muslim-Jewish forum) and workshops (eg at the Washington Holocaust Memorial Museum).
Over the last year, the Centre’s candidate Rabbi Aaron Lipsey was successful in winning an AHRC PhD studentship for a project entitled 'The Responses of the Lubavitcher Rebbe to the Holocaust: A Study of His Letters, Talks and Teachings’. Two Rothschild Foundation postdoc fellowships were awarded, starting in 2024 and 2025 respectively, namely, Nina Valbousquet on ‘Jewish-Catholic Odysseys: “Non-Aryan” Refugees, the Holocaust, and Pius XII’s Vatican (1938-1950)’, and Hannah Wilson on ‘"These things are part of us, almost like limbs of our body”: The Material Memory of the Holocaust in Domestic Spaces, Private Memories and Public Spheres’.
In additional to many individual staff publications, there were two major collaborative achievements. The first was the completion of the Hebrew Manuscripts catalogue of holdings at the Rylands Library of the University of Manchester; this project began in 1992 and includes over 400 manuscripts dating back to the 14th century. The second was a ten-part podcast series entitled 'What Would Jesus the Jew Do?', which explored the Jewish background to the New Testament.
The Centre’s event programme over the last year included the Bogdanow Lectures in Holocaust Studies 2024, which featured Prof. Omer Bartov (Brown University) on 'The Return of the Repressed: Ukraine's Unresolved Pasts’, and the Sherman Community Lecture 2024 which was presented by Prof. Hava Tirosh-Samuelson (Arizona State University) on 'Judaism and Climate Change: Religious Responses to the Eco-Crisis.’ The Sherman Conversation day-conference was entitled ‘Encountering Others, Encountering Ourselves: Reflexivity and the Jewish Studies Researcher’ and organised by Dr Katja Stuerzenhofecker and Rabba Dr Lindsey Taylor-Guthartz. There was the normal programme of the Biblical Hebrew Reading group and the Scriptural Encounters seminar series for discussion of difficult scriptural texts. In addition to papers given by various staff members, there were, among our other events and activities, public lectures (eg to the Muslim-Jewish forum) and workshops (eg at the Washington Holocaust Memorial Museum).
