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American Shtetl: The Making of Kiryas Joel, a Hasidic Village in Upstate New York
Mar 21 @ 5:00 pm - 6:30 pm
Join the Magnes and Berkeley Center for Jewish Studies for a book talk with Nomi M.Stolzenberg and David N. Myers, authors of American Shtetl.
Thursday, March 21, 2024 | 5:00pm
In person at The Magnes Collection, 2121 Allston Way, Berkeley, CA
In 1972 leaders of the Satmar Hasidic dynasty in Williamsburg purchased a small tract of land in upstate New York. Five years later Kiryas Joel was born, a legal jurisdiction granted to the Satmars by the state of New York. American Shtetl (Princeton University press, 2021), by Nomi M. Stolzenberg and David N. Myers, is the story of Kiryas Joel, an American town with few parallels in Jewish history—but many precedents among religious communities in the United States. Stolzenberg and Myers document how this group of pious, Yiddish-speaking Jews has grown to become a thriving insular enclave and a powerful local government in upstate New York.
American Shtetl won the National Jewish Book Award, was a New Yorker Best Book of the Year, and received Honorable mention for the Saul Veiner Book Prize, American Jewish Historical Society.
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If you have any questions about accessibility or require accommodations to participate in this event, please contact us at magnes@berkeley.edu or call us at (510) 643-2526 with as much advance notice as possible.
Nomi M. Stolzenberg holds the Nathan and Lilly Shapell Chair at the University of Southern California Gould School of Law. She has written widely on law and religion.
David N. Myers holds the Sady and Ludwig Kahn Chair in Jewish History at the University of California, Los Angeles. His many books include Jewish History: A Very Short Introduction.