Brandeis Professor of American Civilization to Talk on Experience Jews Faced in America

WORCESTER, Mass. – Stephen J. Whitfield, the Max Richter Chair in American Civilization at Brandeis University, will give a talk titled "Religion and Culture in the New World: Why America was Different for Jews" on April 4 at 4:30 p.m. in the Rehm Library at the College of the Holy Cross. The talk is free and open to the public.

Whitfield, who is interested in the intersection of politics and ideas in 20th-century America, has taught at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Catholic University of Louvain, the Sorbonne (University of Paris IV), and the Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich. He is the author of eight books, including most recently A Death in the Delta: The Story of Emmett Till (1988), The Culture of the Cold War (1991, rev. and expanded ed. 1996) and In Search of American Jewish Culture (1999). Whitfield is also the editor of A Companion to 20th-Century America (2004).

The event is sponsored by the Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture as part of the Kraft-Hiatt lecture series. The Kraft-Hiatt Fund for Jewish-Christian Understanding supports campus and community-wide educational initiatives that foster understanding of Judaism and Jewish culture, and dialogue between Jews and Christians.