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20-22/6/2010
Universiteit Antwerpen, Hof van Liere, Prinsstraat 13, 2000 Antwerpen
In cooperation with the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, University of Pennsylvania This international conference challenges scholars to reconsider the economic dimensions of the Jewish past and to integrate that knowledge within the emerging narratives of Jewish experience. Although the field has moved far beyond the need for apologetics, there is an abiding reluctance to engage the Jews’ historic economic functions, which have long nourished anti-Semitic fantasies. Yet these functions formed the basis of Jewish global civilization: mercantile, transnational, and reliant upon money as a source of power. We will explore such topics as Jewish livelihoods, social structures, trade networks, and fiscal mechanisms, thus investigating anew the relationship between the material and cultural components of Jewish civilization. By bringing together scholars from across the humanities and social sciences, we seek to devise a fresh research agenda for exposing the shifting linkages between commerce and culture in Jewish life from medieval to modern times. Keynote Speaker:Derek J. Penslar - University of Toronto
Speakers:
Cornelia Aust - University of Pennsylvania Robert Bonfil - The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Jonathan Dekel-Chen - The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Glenn Dynner - Sarah Lawrence College Yosef Kaplan - The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Jonathan Karp - Binghamton University (SUNY) Rebecca Kobrin - Columbia University Eli Lederhendler - The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Jerry Z. Muller - Catholic University of America Washington D.C. Evelyne Oliel-Grausz - Sorbonne Paris David B. Ruderman - University of Pennsylvania Adam Teller - University of Haifa
Veerle Vanden Daelen - University of Antwerp
Conference Program
Sunday, 20 June 2010
20:00
Vivian Liska - Institute of Jewish Studies (University of Antwerp)
Welcome
David B. Ruderman - Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies
Introduction to the Keynote Lecture
20:30
Keynote Lecture
Derek J. Penslar - University of Toronto
The Persistence of Difference: Jews as Economic Agents in the Modern World
Followed by a reception
Monday, 21 June 2010
9:30 Coffee
10:00 SESSION I: JEWISH ECONOMIC LIFE IN EASTERN EUROPE
Adam Teller - University of Haifa
The Rise and Fall of the Ickowicz Brothers: International Jewish Businessmen in Eighteenth-Century Lithuania
Cornelia Aust - University of Pennsylvania
Commercial Cosmopolitans? The Eighteenth-Century Jewish Mercantile Elite between Warsaw and Amsterdam
Glenn Dynner - Sarah Lawrence College
Tavernkeepers & Crypto-Tavernkeepers: Jews in the Polish Liquor Trade
12:00 Lunch Break
15:15
Veerle Vanden Daelen - University of Antwerp
Jewish Economic Life in a Non-Jewish Surrounding: Antwerp’s Diamond Jews
16:00 Coffee Break
16:30 SESSION II: SEPHARDIC ECONOMIC NETWORKS IN EARLY MODERN EUROPE
Yosef Kaplan - The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
The Western Sephardi Social Elite: Commerce, Religion and Ethnic Solidarity
Evelyne Oliel-Grausz - Sorbonne Paris
Transnational Networks and Intercommunal Solidarity in the Western Sephardic Diaspora: Landmarks, Patterns, Finances
Robert Bonfil - The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Business, Politics and Philanthropy of the Powerless: Doña Gracia Nasi as Metaphor
Tuesday, 22 June 2010
9:00 SESSION III: INTERSECTIONS OF JEWISH ECONOMIC LIFE BETWEEN EUROPE AND NORTH AMERICA
Eli Lederhendler - The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Of Markets and Revolutions: Jews in the Early American Economy
Jonathan Dekel-Chen - The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Jewels from the Earth: Histories and Legacies of Jewish Agriculturalism on Four Continents
10:30 Coffee Break
11:30
Rebecca Kobrin - Columbia University
Exceptional Failures: East European Jewish ‘Bankers,’ Financial Failure and the Reshaping of American Capitalism, 1873-1914
Jonathan Karp - Binghamton University, SUNY
Brokering a Rock ‘n’ Roll International: Jewish Record Men in the US and UK
13:00 Lunch Break
14:30 FINAL LECTURE AND ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION: HISTORICAL REFLECTIONS AND PRESENT REALITIES
Jerry Z. Muller - Catholic University of America, Washington DC
Some Final Reflections on Capitalism and the Jews
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