Behind the Lens: New York Jews Between the Wars

Join us for a panel exploring the cultural and social life of New York’s Jewish population in the 1920s and 1930s. Four historians will share their archival research into this rich chapter of American Jewish life between the restrictive Immigration Act of 1924 and the onset of World War II.  They will examine the world of the Jewish Daily Forward, including its cartoons and ads, as well as YIVO autobiographies written by recent immigrants, film footage and home movies capturing interwar New York Jewish life, and the key role of the Landsmannschaften organizations in consolidating Jewish American identity.

Roberta Newman, Director of Digital Initiatives at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research

Daniel Soyer, Professor of History, Fordham University

Rebecca Kobrin, Professor of History, Columbia University

Edward Portnoy, Adjunct Professor of Jewish Studies at Rutgers University and Academic Advisor at YIVO

Annie Polland (moderator), Senior Vice President of Programs & Education, The Lower East Side Tenement Museum

Co-presented with the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.