The 2026-27 Frankel Institute will examine how anti-Jewish policies and attitudes manifest themselves in varied regions and eras; how they shape the realities and social position of Jews and Jewish communities; and how Jewish communities are responding today and have responded historically. The urgency of convening scholars to consider these issues and questions emerges from the heightened political and social stakes of current global affairs. Many Jews around the world are considering whether the social contracts that seemed to secure their safety and place in civic, campus, and general societal spaces are illusory. In the face of these changing public realities and shifting discourses, scholars have also been reexamining prevailing views on antisemitism; testing methods to better measure its impact and prevalence; and searching for effective means to identify, combat, and limit its influence.
Approaches might include scholarship that deepens historical, cultural, and/or literary understandings of antisemitism; investigates how classic antisemitic tropes emerge in contemporary discourses; examines the effectiveness of anti-bias trainings and inclusivity efforts in relationship to antisemitism; collects and analyzes data on antisemitic incidents and sentiments around the globe; or places antisemitism within the context of other forms of bigotry, bias, and hatred.
The 2026-2027 Frankel Fellows and their fields of research are:
Karla Goldman (Co-Head Fellow), University of Michigan, “'Their Presence is Not Altogether Welcome:' Archival Interventions into the University of Michigan’s Narratives of Inclusion”
Jeff Veidlinger (Co-Head Fellow), University of Michigan, “Pure Michigan: A History of Antisemitism in the Great Lakes Region”
Tova Benjamin, Davidson College, “Storming the South: Global Trade, Social Unrest, and the Violent Makings of Ethnicity in the Russian Empire, 1871-1905”
Matt Berkman, Oberlin College, “The 'New Anti-Semitism Paradigm' Since October 7: A Critical Juncture?”
Heather Blurton, University of California, Santa Barbara, “Piety and Prejudice: The Ritual Crucifixion Accusation in Late Medieval England”
Ben Bornstein, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, “The Hermeneutics of Antisemitism: Jewish Sense–Making of October 7th and its Aftermath”
Jonathan Elukin, Trinity College, “A New Intellectual History of Antisemitism and Racism”
Deborah Forger, University of Michigan, “Weaponizing the Gospel: The Afterlives of John and the Making of Christian Antisemitism”
Jonathan Judaken, Washington University in Saint Louis, “Remnant and Renaissance: Being Jewish in French Philosophy after Auschwitz”
Alice Mishkin, University of Michigan, “They are Anti-Jewish Because They're Anti-Israel: American Jews, Palestine Solidarity, and Antisemitism in the Post-October 7th Era”
Cassandra Euphrat Weston, University of Michigan, “White Slavers, Bolsheviks, and Special Prosecutors: Sex, Jews, and the American State, 1906-1929”
Marcel Stoetzler, Bangor University, “The Place of Antisemitism in the Changing Theorizations of Racism"
Ryan Szpiech, University of Michigan, “The Body of Belief: Rethinking Antisemitism and the Premodern “Social Body”
