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Wandering Jews? The History of Jewish Migrations During the 20th Century
Dr. Tobias Brinkmann
This talk raises the question whether Jewish migrations are an exceptional phenomenon, related primarily to persecution, or whether the experiences and motivations of Jewish migrants resemble those of other migrants. The talk will focus on several scholars who grappled with this question during and after the Holocaust in the 1940s. All were émigrés from Europe who fled Nazi persecution and lost close family members in the Holocaust. Several argued that Jewish migrations were distinctive because Jews were a “wandering people” fleeing constant persecution throughout history. This view still lingers in collective Jewish memory. Another scholar made a case for contextualizing Jewish migrations. Together with several American Jewish social scientists he laid the conceptual foundations of migration and refugee studies.

Dr. Brinkman is the Malvin and Lea Bank Associate Professor of Jewish Studies and History at Penn State.