“Jews in the Outer Regions of American Life” by Bob Abzug

The changing shape of Jewish life in a cluster of adjacent states that might be called a diaspora within the diaspora:: Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and the Dakotas. The talk will be based on demographic sources, archival materials, and forty-five years of personal observation, and will place this experience within the context of multi-cultural societies that are often seen from a distance as simply White Christian America.

Dr. Robert Abzug has taught at Berkeley, UCLA, the University of Munich, and at UT Austin from 1978 to 2020. He served as director of the American Studies Program, founding director of the Liberal Arts Honors Program (1996-2002), and founding director of the Schusterman Center for Jewish Studies (2007-2017). Abzug taught general courses on American culture, American religion and psychology, the history of the Holocaust, and photography in American life. He has written extensively on pre-Civil War social movements, American views of the Holocaust, and most recently about the growth of psychotherapy and its intersection with American spiritual life, Abzug has held the Audre and Bernard Rapoport Regents Chair of Jewish Studies sInnce 2011, and in 2024 was honored by the College of Liberal Arts with the Pro Bene Meritis Award.

This talk is a part of the Gale Collaborative on Jewish Life in the Americas Lecture Series.
Lunch provided for those who RSVP by Thursday, April 9.

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Host or Publisher Schusterman Center for Jewish Studies