Welcome to the 2026-2027 academic year!

Dear colleagues, students, and friends of the Center,

Welcome back to Jewish Studies at Stanford! Each year, the Taube Center invites scholars, authors, and artists to campus for public events and presents a host of meaningful courses to engage the entire Stanford community. These courses and events reflect the breadth of Jewish Studies and engage with essential questions about Jewish identity in its broadest sense: What makes a historical moment, a work of fiction, a film, or a language "Jewish"? Join us as we study together and reflect on the experiences of Jewish individuals and communities across time and space. 

To address pressing issues in the present moment, we also engage in a series of conversations around the question of Being Jewish Today. Our new postdoctoral fellow, Daniela Tolchinsky, will expand our conversations on contemporary issues through her work in political theory and political theology. We have a long list of courses, events, and other activities scheduled for this year, and I would like to highlight a few new areas of focus. We are initiating a new format for our graduate student conference, which this year will be devoted to the topic of "Correspondences" within the Jewish world and beyond. We will also have a special focus on the Bible, with an international conference devoted to The Bible and Wonder: Literary, Philosophical, and Visual Encounters with the Extraordinary, as well as seminars and talks throughout the year. We are especially pleased to welcome Marc Brettler of Duke University as our visiting scholar in Bible, complementing the range of courses on the Bible and antiquity that we will be offering this year. Another strong focus this year will be Ladino language, history, and literature. Visiting fellow Rachel Kaufman will teach two courses on the topic, while Stanford alum Dina Danon (Binghamton University), an expert on Ladino-speaking Jews in the Ottoman Empire, will return to campus to lead a session. We are also thrilled to welcome award-winning fantasy novelist Leigh Bardugo, whose work engages with Ladino, for a conversation with another Stanford alum, Devin Naar (University of Washington).

The  year will mark our second Jewish Studies Winter Fellows Program, designed to enhance our teaching, strengthen our campus presence, and foster an intellectual community. Our weekly winter meetings bring members of our community together for lively discussions of texts, facts, and ideas.

We look forward to another fruitful year and encourage you to become involved in Jewish Studies in whatever way is most meaningful to you. For those who cannot join us in person, many of our conversations are produced as episodes of our popular podcast, Cite & Sound.

With warm wishes for a wonderful new academic year,

Shana tovah,

Vered Karti Shemtov
Faculty Director, Taube Center for Jewish Studies