Crossroads Events

Event Description

Guest speaker, Jerome Chanes will give a talk titled, “America is Different!”  Antisemitism: Why Can’t Jews Take “Yes” for an Answer?

Antisemitism, in the USA and abroad, has experienced a resurgence in recentyears.  This lecture explores and analyzes the “antisemitism crisis” (as it is known)in the context of the history of American pluralism and American exceptionalism. The crucial question, “Why has antisemitism never taken firm root in the UnitedStates, whatever problems there may have been?” is analyzed from an historicalperspective.  The lecture explores the nature and extent of antisemitism; reviewsand critiques the varied methods for measuring antisemitism; and looks at methodsof counteracting antisemitism, again from an historical perspective. At bottom is the core question: What is antisemitism?

Jerome A. Chanes is an adjunct professor at Baruch College of the City University of NewYork. He was national affairs director of the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council (now the Jewish Council for Public Affairs) and was associate executive director of the National Foundation for Jewish Culture. He has taught at Barnard College, Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, Tel Aviv University School of Law, Yeshiva University, and the Academy of Jewish Religion. His books include Antisemitism: A Reference Handbook, Antisemitism in America Today: Exploding the Myths, A Portrait of the American Jewish Community, A Primer on the American Jewish Community, A Dark Side of History: Antisemitism through the Ages, and most recently The Future of Judaism in America. Jerome Chanes is the author as well of more than 100 articles, book-chapters, reviews, and encyclopedia entries on Jewish public affairs and arts-and-letters. His current project is a volume setting the historical, political, and social context for a hundred years of Israeli theatre.