Orthodox Jews vs. the State: Responses to COVID-19 in the US, UK, and Israel

Join us for a panel discussion about responses to the pandemic in Jewish ultra-Orthodox communities on three continents. Social scientists from the UK, the US, and Israel will share how ultra-Orthodox communities have negotiated, worked with, and sometimes defied the state in the course of the pandemic and consider potential lasting impacts.

Panelists:

Ben Kasstan (HUJI and University of Sussex, UK) holds a Ph.D. from Durham University and is a medical anthropologist with field experience in the UK, Ireland, Israel, Lesotho, Gambia and Nigeria. Currently serves as Associate Editor for Anthropology & Medicine, and Queer Here. Dr. Kasstan is committed to applying anthropological research to inform public debates and policy. He has written for The Huffington post, CORTH at Sussex, Ha’aretz, and Times of Israel, and most recently led a response to claims that the US Center for Disease Control & Prevention was being advised to revise its language (#CDC7words), published in PLOS Public Health Perspectives and Somatosphere. Dr. Kasstan has also served as a consultant for the recent BBC Radio 4 and British Museum series Living with the Gods.

Schneur Zalman Newfield (BMCC, CUNY) holds a Ph.D. from NYU’s Department of Sociology. His research interests focus on cultural sociology and the study of identity, narrative, and resocialization. In particular he is interested in the process individuals undergo when making major life transitions. His book, Degrees of Separation: Identity Formation While Leaving Ultra-Orthodox Judaism (Temple University Press, April 2020) explores the lives of a group of men and women who were raised in ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities and decided to leave that way of life.

Lea Taragin-Zeller (Cambridge University, UK and Technion, Israel) trained at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and at Cambrige, Dr. Taragin-Zeller’s interests lie in anthropology of religion (esp. Judaism, Islam and interfaith relations); medical anthropology (esp. health decision making, reproduction and ethnic minority and migrant health); gender and sexuality (esp. body, modesty, and transnational feminism), and anthropology of education (esp. sex education; science and technology). She has published widely in leading journals in sociology, anthropology and religion and serves as a section editor in Cambridge’s journal of Reproductive Biomedicine and Society Online. Her current project: “Communicating Science among the Jewish Ultra-Orthodox in Israel: Journalistic Praxis and Audience Reception in Insular Communities” explores whether and how the Haredi community in Israel is legitimating and appropriating scientific knowledge.

Moderator:

Ayala Fader (Fordham) received her PhD from New York University and is currently Professor of Anthropology at Fordham University. She is the author of the award-winning book Mitzvah Girls: Bringing Up the Next Generation of Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn (Princeton 2009). Recent fellowships include the National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities in support of her latest book, Hidden Heretics: Jewish Doubt in the Digital Age (Princeton, 2020). Fader is the co-founder and co-convener of the New York Working Group on Jewish Orthodoxies at Fordham’s Center for Jewish Studies.

All Fordham events in Jewish Studies are free.

Questions? Contact:
Fordham Jewish Studies
[email protected]
718-817-3929