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Between Two Worlds: Jewish War Brides After the Holocaust

Between Two Worlds: Jewish War Brides after the Holocaust
January 10, 2024
12:00PM - 1:00PM
Virtual

Date Range
2024-01-10 12:00:00 2024-01-10 13:00:00 Between Two Worlds: Jewish War Brides After the Holocaust Facing the harrowing task of rebuilding a life in the wake of the Holocaust, many Jewish survivors, community and religious leaders and Allied soldiers viewed marriage between Jewish women and military personnel as a way to move forward after unspeakable loss. Proponents believed that these unions were more than just a ticket out of war-torn Europe: they would help the Jewish people repopulate after the attempted annihilation of European Jewry. Historian Robin Judd, whose grandmother survived the Holocaust and married an American soldier after liberation, introduces us to the Jewish women who lived through genocide and went on to wed American, Canadian and British military personnel after the war. In her book, she offers an intimate portrait of how these unions emerged and developed—from meeting and courtship to marriage and immigration to life in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom—and shows how they helped shape the postwar world by touching thousands of lives, including those of the chaplains who officiated their weddings, the Allied authorities whose policy decisions structured the couples' fates and the bureaucrats involved in immigration and acculturation. The stories Judd tells are at once heartbreaking and restorative, and she vividly captures how the exhilaration of the brides' early romances coexisted with survivor's guilt, grief and apprehension at the challenges of starting a new life in a new land. Panelists: Robin E. Judd, Associate Professor of History, The Ohio State University, Director of the Hoffman Leaders and Leadership in History Program, and President, Association for Jewish Studies Nicholas Breyfogle (Moderator), Associate Professor of History and Director, Goldberg Center for Excellence in Teaching, The Ohio State University Please use the button below to register to join us for this riveting talk about loss, love and life. Register now This webinar is brought to you by the Department of History, Goldberg Center, the Clio Society and the magazine Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective. Virtual College of Arts and Sciences asccomm@osu.edu America/New_York public

Facing the harrowing task of rebuilding a life in the wake of the Holocaust, many Jewish survivors, community and religious leaders and Allied soldiers viewed marriage between Jewish women and military personnel as a way to move forward after unspeakable loss. Proponents believed that these unions were more than just a ticket out of war-torn Europe: they would help the Jewish people repopulate after the attempted annihilation of European Jewry.

Historian Robin Judd, whose grandmother survived the Holocaust and married an American soldier after liberation, introduces us to the Jewish women who lived through genocide and went on to wed American, Canadian and British military personnel after the war. In her book, she offers an intimate portrait of how these unions emerged and developed—from meeting and courtship to marriage and immigration to life in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom—and shows how they helped shape the postwar world by touching thousands of lives, including those of the chaplains who officiated their weddings, the Allied authorities whose policy decisions structured the couples' fates and the bureaucrats involved in immigration and acculturation.

The stories Judd tells are at once heartbreaking and restorative, and she vividly captures how the exhilaration of the brides' early romances coexisted with survivor's guilt, grief and apprehension at the challenges of starting a new life in a new land.

Panelists:

  • Robin E. Judd, Associate Professor of History, The Ohio State University, Director of the Hoffman Leaders and Leadership in History Program, and President, Association for Jewish Studies
  • Nicholas Breyfogle (Moderator), Associate Professor of History and Director, Goldberg Center for Excellence in Teaching, The Ohio State University

Please use the button below to register to join us for this riveting talk about loss, love and life.

Register now


This webinar is brought to you by the Department of History, Goldberg Center, the Clio Society and the magazine Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective.

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