In Conversation with Rabbi Sisenwine: Professor Jonathan D. Sarna (Online)

Join Rabbi Sisenwine as he joins in conversation with Professor Jonathan D. Sarna, Preeminent scholar of American Jewish History at Brandeis University. Professor Sarna will speak on several topics, including the history of Jewish conspiracies in America, and connections between Jewish conspiracy and antisemitism and the January 6th riots.

Please note that this event has been changed to online only.

The In Conversation with Rabbi Sisenwine Speaker Series brings distinguished guests to talk about many of the modern Jewish and secular issues of our time. Other parts of the Fall/Winter series include Jonathan Ornstein,CEO of JCC Krakow, Poland on November 30 and Elizabeth Warren on December 9.

Registration and Health & Safety: This event is available on Zoom and pre-registration is required. Please click the purple registration bar above to pre-register. Once you have registered, your unique access link will be emailed to you. If you’re new to Zoom, watch a tutorial or read written instructions on how to join a Zoom video call.

More about Dr. Sarna
Dr. Jonathan Sarna is University Professor and the Joseph H. & Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History as well as the Director of the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies at Brandeis University. He is also past president of the Association for Jewish Studies and Chief Historian of the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia.

Dubbed by the Forward newspaper in 2004 as one of America’s fifty most influential American Jews, Jonathan is recognized as a leading commentator on American Jewish history, religion and life.

From 1979-1990, Dr. Sarna taught at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati, where he rose to become Professor of American Jewish history and Director of the Center for the Study of the American Jewish Experience. He has also taught at Harvard, Yale, the University of Cincinnati, and at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Dr. Sarna came back to Brandeis in 1990 to teach American Jewish history in its Department of Near Eastern & Judaic Studies. Dr. Sarna has written, edited, or co-edited more than thirty books, including the new Coming to Terms with America as well as Lincoln and the Jews: A History (with Benjamin Shapell) and When General Grant Expelled the Jews. He is best known for the acclaimed American Judaism: A History, which recently appeared in a second, revised edition. Winner of the Jewish Book Council’s “Jewish Book of the Year Award” in 2004, it has been praised as being “the single best description of American Judaism during its 350 years on American soil.”

Dr. Sarna is married to Professor Ruth Langer, and they have two married children and two delightful grandsons.