Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation, 225 View map Free Event
View map Free Event

Historically, Rochester's Jewish community has been very supportive of the University of Rochester, which is in part due to their positive experiences as students. However, the relationship has not been without friction. There are alumni who experienced antisemitism during their time at Rochester, and there were times when the University excluded Jews in admission.

This complicated history will be shared by Cynthia Gensheimer '74 in a talk co-sponsored by the Department of Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation and UR Hillel.

Gensheimer will cover a lot of ground in a short amount of time including early Jewish student at Rochester, the role Jewish women played in helping Rochester become a coed campus, Jewish Greek life on campus (she was a member of Phi Beta Kappa), and her father's experiences earning his PhD in physics after WWII.

Despite beginning her career in economcs, analyzing tax policy at the Congressional Budget Office in Washington, D.C., and then teaching economics at Vassar College, she was drawn to the study of American Jewish history. Recently, she has focused on the religious, charitable, and educational lives of 19th-century Jewish women. She has published many articles and is now writing a book about the first Jews who attended the Seven Sisters colleges. Rochester's Clara Landsberg (Bryn Mawr Class of 1897), who led Gensheimer to studying the history of her alma mater.

Event Details

See Who Is Interested

0 people are interested in this event

User Activity

No recent activity