American Jewish Politics in an Age of Global Turbulence

About American Jewish Politics in an Age of Global Turbulence

Forum for Fairness in Discourse Lecture Series


Formed in the middle decades of the twentieth century, the settled-upon pillars of American Jewish self-definition (Americanism, Zionism, and liberalism) have begun to collapse. The binding trauma of Holocaust memory grows ever-more attenuated; soon there will be no living survivors. After two millennia of Jewish life defined by diasporic existence, the majority of the world’s Jews will live in a sovereign Jewish state by 2050. Against the backdrop of national political crises, resurgent antisemitism, and the recent Gaza war, the future of American Jewish life appears more uncertain than at any point in recent memory.

In this conversation, journalist and historian Joshua Leifer will join UF Shorstein Professor of American Jewish Culture and Society, Dr. Rachel Gordan, to discuss how these historic shifts are unfolding and why they matter.



About the Speakers:

Joshua Leifer is a journalist and historian. A columnist for Haaretz, his essays and reporting have also appeared in The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, and The Guardian. His first book, Tablets Shattered: The End of an American Jewish Century and the Future of Jewish Life (2024), won a National Jewish Book Award. He is currently a doctoral candidate in history at Yale University, where his research sits at the nexus of modern intellectual history, modern Jewish politics, U.S. foreign policy, and Holocaust memory. His dissertation project examines the politics of antisemitism and the crisis of the liberal order.

Rachel Gordan is the Shorstein Professor of American Jewish Culture and Society at the University of Florida. She is a scholar of American religion, she researches Judaism and Jewish culture from the early 20th century to the present, with a particular focus on the immediate Post-WWII era, middlebrow culture, and American Jewish literary history.



About the Forum for Fairness in Discourse:

The Forum for Fairness in Discourse is a lecture series that invites thought leaders and scholars to highlight how Jewish thought intersects with issues such as justice, identity, ethics, and community.

Funded by a generous donation by Audrey Adams and Dr. Jon D. Morris, this series creates space for ideas that both honor the past and shape a more thoughtful, inclusive future.