Participation Level: Grant Center Participation

This year’s Shabbat Shuvah guest speaker was Dr. Michael Cohen, the Stuart and Suzanne Grant Professor in the American Jewish Experience at Tulane University, and the Director of Tulane’s Grant Center for the American Jewish Experience. On September 25, 2024, Mike convened a group of leading journalists and historians in New York City to address the current moment in time for Jewish Americans. The Beinner Symposium’s goal was to explore how this moment fits into the larger arc of American Jewish history, and Mike talked about some of his observations from the discussions. He shared with us a series of questions that emerged which may help us to make sense of this moment, touching upon events on college campuses, the past and future of progressive alliances, the ways in which antisemitism plays out in an era of polarization, as well as the utility of definitions.