For hundreds of years, the shtetls of Eastern Europe were home to much of the world’s Jewish population. Today, most American Jews can trace at least some of their ancestors to a shtetl. But what exactly was a shtetl? Who lived there? How did women and men experience the shtetl differently?

Professor Shaul Magid will give a public lecture on “Hasidism and Second Wave Neo-Hasidism: From Jewish Exclusivity to a Globalized Judaism.” The talk will take place on Friday, February 26, from 11:00 to 12:10 in Baskin Auditorium (Baskin 101). The talk is sponsored by the Center for Jewish Studies with support from the David B. Gold Foundation.

For almost 50 years, Yiddish American actress Molly Picon spent her life on stage and screen performing in trousers. Why did Picon spend so much time in cross-dressed roles and what might such roles reveal about Jewish American identity in the first half of the 20th century?