New focus on Modern Jewish History

Cardiff University’s School of History, Archaeology and Religion has welcomed its first lecturer in Modern Jewish History.

Dr Jaclyn Granick’s new role is the first to sit across History and Religion courses, meaning students on both undergraduate programmes will get the opportunity to attend her lectures.

Specialising in Jewish international politics and philanthropy in the 19th and 20th centuries, Dr Granick is working on her forthcoming book on Jewish humanitarianism during and after the Great War which will be published by Cambridge University Press. Granick’s research explores the creation of American Jewish humanitarianism — efforts to help Jewish war and pogrom victims and refugees in Eastern Europe and the Middle East — as America itself rose to international pre-eminence in the Great War era.

She has also recently been focusing on gender and the role of elite Jewish families. She will be co-investigating a collaborative research project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) entitled, “‘Jewish’ country houses - objects, networks, people,” with Professor Abigail Green (PI, Oxford), Dr Tom Stammers (Co-I, Durham), and project partners the National Trust, the European Association for the Preservation and Promotion of Jewish Culture and Heritage, Waddesdon, and Strawberry Hill.

Dr Granick said: “It is very exciting to be taking up this entirely new post in Jewish history and bring my expertise on the Jewish experience of the recent past to Cardiff and Wales.

“Scholars in Jewish Studies always grapple with questions of the particular and the universal, and with how far the Jewish experience can be fruitful for critically thinking through difference and sameness. I look forward to being able to discuss these issues with my students in History and in Religion, as they learn about Jews and Judaism in the last few hundred years.”

Gaining a BA from Harvard, Dr Granick then moved to the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, Switzerland, for her MA and PhD. A Fulbright Scholar and Swiss Government Excellence Scholar, her PhD was also supported by the Davis Foundation and by research fellowships at the Center for Jewish History and American Jewish Archives.

She has been at St Peter’s College and the History Faculty at the University of Oxford since 2015, first as a Newton International Fellow and then as a Rothschild Foundation Hanadiv Europe Post-Doctoral Fellow.

Dr Granick will be teaching students a module entitled, The War Against the Jews: Antisemitism, the Holocaust, and Jewish Experience, from September.

Head of the School of History, Archaeology and Religion Professor James Hegarty said: “We are delighted to welcome Dr Granick to the University, who is a leading voice in Modern Jewish History. Her new role is part of an exciting new era for the School and demonstrates our commitment to what is a fascinating and important area of research.

“Students across our undergraduate programmes will benefit hugely from Dr Granick’s insights and I look forward to seeing how her research evolves and informs our understanding of this key period.”