Tenenbaum Lecture to Feature Dr. Avinoam Patt on “Israel and the Holocaust: Changing Landscapes of Memory”
The Tam Institute for Jewish Studies (TIJS) at Emory University will feature Prof. Avinoam Patt of New York University as the speaker for this year’s Tenenbaum Family Lecture in Judaic Studies. The lecture, to take place on Thursday, February 27th at 7:00pm, will address the topic: “Israel and the Holocaust: Changing Landscapes of Memory.” This free, on-campus event will be held in the Carlos Museum’s Ackerman Hall. Advanced registration is requested, which you may complete here: tinyurl.com/emorytenenbaumlecture.
Tracing the State of Israel’s evolving and uneasy relationship to the memory of the Shoah, Avinoam Patt will analyze shifting conceptions of Israeli self-understanding and identity, Israel’s relationship to the wider world, its neighbors, the Jewish Diaspora, and the Jewish past, before and after October 7.
Dr. Patt is the Maurice and Corinne Greenberg Professor of Holocaust Studies at New York University and Ingeborg H. and Ira Leon Rennert Director at the NYU Center for the Study of Antisemitism. Prof. Patt has authored multiple books on Jewish responses to the Holocaust. These include Finding Home and Homeland: Jewish Youth and Zionism in the Aftermath of the Holocaust (2009); We Are Here: New Approaches to Jewish Displaced Persons in Postwar Germany (co-ed. with Michael Berkowitz, 2010); Understanding and Teaching the Holocaust (co-ed. with Laura Hilton, 2020); and The Jewish Heroes of Warsaw: The Afterlife of the Revolt (2021). His newest book, Israel and the Holocaust, was published by Bloomsbury Press as part of its Perspectives on the Holocaust series in 2024.
This year marks the 28th Tenenbaum Family Lecture in Judaic Studies, which salutes the family of the late Meyer W. Tenenbaum ’31C-’32L of Savannah, Georgia. Tenenbaum, a native of Poland, arrived in the United States at the age of thirteen knowing no English, and graduated from the Emory School of Law eleven years later. He went on to head Chatham Steel Corporation, now a major steel service center with headquarters in Savannah.
The lectureship was established in 1997 by Meyer’s son, Samuel Tenenbaum ‘65C, and honors the entire Tenenbaum family and its ethos of citizenship and public service, which is expressed through its support of religious, educational, social service, and arts institutions across the United States.
Emory’s Tam Institute for Jewish Studies is one of the leading research and teaching institutions for Jewish Studies in the Southern United States. Bringing together scholars and students from different departments and programs, it awards an undergraduate major and minor in Emory College of Arts and Sciences and provides support for doctoral-level work. In addition to the Tenenbaum Lecture, the Institute also sponsors the annual Rabbi Jacob M. Rothschild Memorial Lecture and many other events designed to share the insights of research in Jewish Studies with a broad public audience.
Contact TIJS Communications Coordinator, Brent Buckley, with any questions at brent.buckley@emory.edu.
Co-sponsors (in formation): Departments of German Studies, History, Middle Eastern and South Asian Studies, and Religion, Emory University Chaplaincy Jewish Life, and the Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry
Published 1/23/25