Dr. Jeffrey S. Gurock questions—through documentary evidence—long-standing definitions of the religious values of American Jews and identifies the nuances of observance that have characterized Jewish life in America from the 17th century to contemporary times.

When: February 18, 2015, 4:30 pm

Location: UA Hillel Center, 1245 E. Second St. 

Suggested Parking: Second Street Garage, on the Southeast corner of Mountain and Second.

Jeffrey S. Gurock is Libby M. Klaperman Professor of Jewish History at Yeshiva University. He is the author or editor of seventeen books. His works include A Modern Heretic and a Traditional Community: Mordecai M. Kaplan, Orthodoxy and American Judaism (Columbia Univ. Press, 1997), which won the 1998 Saul Viener Prize from the American Jewish Historical Society. Gurock's, Orthodox Jews in America (Indiana Univ. Press, 2009) was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award in the area of American Jewish Studies. His work, Jews in Gotham: New York Jews in a Changing City, 1920-2010 (NYU Press, 2012) received the Everett Family Foundation Award for the best non-fiction Jewish book of 2012 from the Jewish Book Council. Gurock's newest book The Holocaust Averted: An Alternate History of American Jewry, 1938-1967  will appear in March, 2015  by Rutgers University Press.