Lecture
18.06.2023

European Jews between Globalization and Deglobalization

Tara Zahra's lecture will examine the history of Jewish as emblems of globalization, as a lens on both the history of Jews and the history of globalism in the 20th century.

  • 18 June (Sunday), 6:30 PM
  • Conference room A
  • Lecture in English with Polish translation
  • Free admission

In the past two centuries, European Jews have been both agents of globalization, and objects of anxieties about globalism. Their transnational networks have reflected Jewish entrepreneurship, but have also been formed in response to persecution, flight, or genocide.  They have included international businesses, philanthropic and humanitarian organizations; colonial networks; and diasporic communities; and they have resulted in the diffusion, transfer and transformation of literature, journalism, theater, music, and religious practices, as well as social, political, and economic life. But the perceived prominence of Jews in the process of globalization has also been the source of anti-Semitic discourses about Jews as agents of cosmopolitanism, national indifference, international capitalism and Bolshevism. My talk will examine the history of Jewish as emblems of globalization, as a lens on both the history of Jews and the history of globalism in the 20th century.

Tara Zahra is the Homer J. Livingston Professor of East European History at the University of Chicago. Prof. Zahra’s research focuses on the transnational history of modern Europe, migration, the family, nationalism, and humanitarianism. Her latest book, "Against the World: Anti-Globalism and Mass Politics Between the World Wars" will be published by W.W. Norton Press in 2023. With Pieter Judson, she is currently working on a history of the First World War in the Habsburg Empire. Zahra is also the author of "The Great Departure: Mass Migration and the Making of the Free World" (Norton, 2016) and, with Leora Auslander, "Objects of War: The Material Culture of Conflict and Displacement" (Cornell, 2018). Her previous books include "The Lost Children: Reconstructing Europe's Families after World War II" (Harvard, 2011) and "Kidnapped Souls: National Indifference and the Battle for Children in the Bohemian Lands" (Cornell, 2008).

Logos of organizers and partners of conference East Central Europe at the Crossroads: Jewish Transnational Networks and Identities in POLIN Museum