Jews Across the Americas, 1492-present

Learning and Teaching Jewish American History

Jews Across the Americas, 1492-present

Misha Klein

Misha Klein is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the U of Oklahoma. She is Chair of the Clyde Snow Social Justice Award. Her book, Kosher Feijoada and Other Paradoxes of Jewish Life in São Paulo, addresses the relationship between ethnic and national identity, with the multicultural and transnational Jewish population as her entry point into an exploration of the meanings of race, class, and belonging. Other publications include: “Anthropology” in the Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Jewish Cultures, on anthropological contributions to Jewish Studies, both historical and through the “new Jewish ethnography;” and “Privileges of the First World: Reflections on Another Life in Brazil” in Detours: Travel and the Ethics of Research in the Global South. Her current research is a transnational and interdisciplinary collaboration with Brazilian historian Michel Gherman, in a wide-ranging project that considers the changing concept of race in Brazil; the circulation of transnational discourses on race, Israel, Zionism, and anti-Semitism; the shifting political landscape in Brazil, including the rise of the evangelical right-wing; the reverberations among leftist activists; and the impact of all of this on Jewish identity and political participation. Their publications include “From Beacon to Siren: The Transformation of Brazil from Racial Utopia to Racist/Antisemitic Dystopia.”

She is available to give talks or class visits online or in person for a fee. Languages: English and Portuguese.

Recent Publications:

  • Klein, Misha. 2012. Kosher Feijoada and Other Paradoxes of Jewish Life in São Paulo. Gainesville: University Press of Florida.
  • Klein, Misha. 2015. “Anthropology,” in The Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Jewish Cultures, Laurence Roth and Nadia Valman, eds. Pp. 17-34. London: Routledge.
  • Klein, Misha and Michel Gherman, 2021. “From Beacon to Siren: The Transformation of Brazil from Racial Utopia to Racist/Antisemitic Dystopia.” Revista Videre (Brazil) 13(28): 65-88, https://ojs.ufgd.edu.br/index.php/videre/article/view/15413/8410.
  • Gherman, Michel and Misha Klein. 2021. “Aquela Noite: o lugar da Israel imaginária na nova direita brasileira.” Revista Anthropológicas, ano 25, 32(2): 111-140. https://doi.org/10.51359/2525-5223.2021.251633.
  • Gherman, Michel and Misha Klein. 2019. “Entre ‘conversos’ e ‘desconversos’: O caso da influência da Nova Direita Brasileira sobre a comunidade judaica do Rio de Janeiro.” Estudios Sociales del Estado (Argentina) 5(9): 101-123. https://doi.org/10.35305/ese.v5i9.173.

CV: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BYDdwL1u0atlrMS8bmJsB3JU19wFvQDs/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=106474229448062704715&rtpof=true&sd=true

Academic website: https://ou.academia.edu/MishaKlein

 

Laura Leibman

Laura Arnold Leibman is Professor of English and Humanities at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Her work focuses on religion and the daily lives of women and children in early America, and uses everyday objects to help bring their stories back to life. She is the author of "The Art of the Jewish Family: A History of Women in Early New York in Five Objects" (BGC 2020), "Indian Converts" (UMass Press, 2008) and "Messianism, Secrecy and Mysticism: A New Interpretation of Early American Jewish Life" (Vallentine Mitchell, 2012), which won a National Jewish Book Award, a Jordan Schnitzer Book Award from the Association for Jewish Studies, and was selected as one of Choice’s Outstanding Academic Titles for 2013. Laura has been a visiting scholar at Oxford University, Utrecht University, the University of Panama, and the Leon Levy Foundation Professor of Jewish Material Culture at Bard Graduate Center. Laura, who earned her PhD from UCLA, is currently at work on a book that uses material culture to trace the history of members of a multiracial family who began their lives enslaved in the Caribbean but became some of the wealthiest Jews in New York.