The Center for Jewish Studies invites you to attend:
A presentation by Eliyahu Stern
Jewish Materialism:
The Shattering of the Rabbinic Tradition and the Rise of Nationalism

Friday, December 12th, 11:00 AM
CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue, NY
Room 9207

Material anxiety has always been intrinsic to Jews’ social and spiritual identities. However, it was in the second half of the nineteenth-century that we first witness on Russian lands the conscious privileging of materiality (not just economics) above and in some instances against all other Jewish characteristics.
This talk will explain when and why Jews began to see themselves in terms of class, race, and demography and the role historical-materialism played in the emergence not only of new political movements, such as Zionism and Jewish Socialism, but also new theories of collectivity and religion.

Eliyahu Stern is Associate Professor of Modern Jewish Intellectual and Cultural History at Yale University. He received his Ph.D. from University of California, Berkeley. He researches the transformation and development of traditional and religious world views in Western life and thought, focusing on modern Eastern European Jewry, Zionism, secularism, and religious radicalism. His first book, entitled The Genius: Elijah of Vilna and the Making of Modern Judaism, was published by Yale University Press in 2012. Currently he is working on a book project on the emergence of Jewish nationalism and the secularization of Eastern European Jewry.
This event is sponsored by the Center for Jewish Studies
www.gc.cuny.edu/centerforjewishstudies