Richard I. Cohen is the academic director of the Israel Center of Research Excellence (I-Core) for the Study of Cultures of Place in the Modern Jewish World. Among his many publications are The Burden of Conscience: French-Jewish Leadership during the Holocaust and Jewish Icons: Art and Society in Modern Europe. He is an Emeritus Professor of Jewish History in the Department of Jewish History and Contemporary Jewry, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Notions of place have always permeated Jewish life and consciousness. The Babylonian Talmud was pitted against the Jerusalem Talmud; the worlds of Sepharad and Ashkenaz were viewed as two pillars of the Jewish experience; the diaspora was conceived as a wholly different experience from that of Eretz Israel; and Jews from Eastern Europe and "German Jews" were often seen as mirror opposites, whereas Jews under Islam were often characterized pejoratively, especially because of their allegedly uncultured surroundings. Place, or makom, is a strategic opportunity to explore the tensions that characterize Jewish culture in modernity, between the sacred and the secular, the local and the global, the historical and the virtual, Jewish culture and others. The plasticity of the term includes particular geographic places and their cultural landscapes, theological allusions, and an array of other symbolic relations between locus, location, and the production of culture.
The 30th volume of Studies in Contemporary Jewry includes twelve essays that deal with various aspects of particular places, making each location a focal point for understanding Jewish life and culture. Scholars from the United States, Europe, and Israel have used their disciplinary skills to shed light on the vicissitudes of the 20th century in relation to place and Jewish culture. Their essays continue the ongoing discussion in this realm and provide further insights into the historiographical turn in Jewish studies.

Symposium
Place in Modern Jewish Culture and Society
Natan M. Meir, Home for the Homeless? The Hekdesh in Eastern Europe
Yuval Tal, The Social Logic of Colonial Anti-Judaism: Revisiting the Anti-Jewish
Crisis in French Algeria, 1889-1902
Scott Ury, The Urban Origins of Jewish Degeneration: The Modern City and the End
of the Jews, 1900-1939
Saskia Coenen Snyder, An Urban Semiotics of War: Signs and Sounds in Nazi-
occupied Amsterdam
Andrea A. Sinn, Restoring and Reconstructing: Munich for Jews after the Second
World War
Vivian Liska, Jewish Displacement as Experience and Metaphor in 20th-Century
European Thought
Asher D. Biemann, Imagining a Homeland: The Election of Place and Time
Mirjam Rajner, The Orient in Jewish Artistic Creativity: The Case of Maurycy
Gottlieb
Alec Mishory, Artists' Colonies in Israel
Björn Siegel, Envisioning a Jewish Maritime Space: Arnold Bernstein and the
Emergence of a Jewish Shipping Industry in the Interwar Years
Roy Greenwald, Shifting Places: Representations of Sand in Pre-state Hebrew Poetry
Vered Madar, Where is Paradise? Place and Time in the Memoirs of Women from
Yemen
Book Reviews (arranged by subject)
Antisemitism, Holocaust, and Genocide
Alon Confino, A World without Jews: The Nazi Imagination from Persecution to
Genocide, Richard Breitman
Laura Jockusch and Gabriel N. Finder (eds.), Jewish Honor Courts: Revenge,
Retribution, and Reconciliation in Europe and Israel after the Holocaust,
Shimon Redlich
Dov Levin and Zvie A. Brown, The Story of an Underground: The Resistance of the
Jews in Kovno in the Second World War (trans. Jessica Setbon), David
Silberklang
Alvin H. Rosenfeld (ed.), Deciphering the New Antisemitism, Judy Baumel
-Schwartz
Milton Shain, A Perfect Storm: Antisemitism in South Africa 1930-1948, Patrick
Furlong
David Silberklang, Gates of Tears: The Holocaust in the Lublin District, Samuel
Kassow
Darius Stali?nas, Enemies for a Day: Antisemitism and Anti-Jewish Violence in
Lithuania under the Tsars, Samuel Barnai
Cultural Studies, Literature, and Religion
Monique R. Balbuena, Homeless Tongues: Poetry and Languages of the Sephardic
Diaspora, Judith K. Lang Hilgartner
Emily Miller Budick, The Subject of Holocaust Fiction, Michael P. Kramer
Natasha Gordinsky, Bishloshah nofim: yetziratah hamukdemet shel Leah Goldberg
(In Three Landscapes: Leah Goldberg's Early Writings), Allison
Schachter
Yfaat Weiss, Nesi'ah venesi'ah medumah: Leah Goldberg begermanyah 1930-1933
(Journey and Imaginary Journey: Leah Goldberg in Germany, 1930-1933),
Allison Schachter
Judy Jaffe-Schagen, Having and Belonging: Homes and Museums in Israel, Osnat
Zukerman Rechter
Ken Koltun-Fromm, Imagining Jewish Authenticity: Vision and Text in American
Jewish Thought, Maya Balakirsky Katz
Nelly Las, Jewish Voices in Feminism: Transnational Perspectives (trans. Ruth
Morris), Debbie Weissman
Erica Lehrer and Michael Meng (eds.), Jewish Space in Contemporary Poland,
Jackie Feldman
Diana L. Linden, Ben Shahn's New Deal Murals: Jewish Identity in the American
Scene, Samantha Baskind
Tabea Alexa Linhard, Jewish Spain: A Mediterranean Memory, Cynthia Gabbay
Shaul Magid, Hasidism Incarnate: Hasidism, Christianity and the Construction of
Modern Judaism, David Biale
Jonatan Meir, Kabbalistic Circles in Jerusalem (1896-1948) (trans. Avi Aronsky),
Jonathan Garb
Raanan Rein, F?tbol, Jews and the Making of Argentina (trans. Marsha Grenzeback),
Moshe Zimmermann
Raanan Rein and David M.K. Sheinin (eds.), Muscling in on New Worlds: Jews,
Sport, and the Making of the Americas, Moshe Zimmermann
James Ross and Song Lihong (eds.), The Image of Jews in Contemporary China,
Shalom Salomon Wald
Henia Rottenberg and Dina Roginsky (eds.), Sara Levi-Tanai: ?ayim shel yetzirah
(Sara Levi-Tanai: A Life of Creation), Yael Guilat
Benjamin Schreier, The Impossible Jew: Identity and Reconstruction of Jewish
American Literary History, Noam Gil
Carol Zemel, Looking Jewish: Visual Culture and Modern Diaspora, Barbara E.
Mann
Shelly Zer-Zion, Habima beBerlin: miysudo shel teatron tziyoni (Habima in Berlin:
The Institutionalization of a Zionist Theater), Na'ama Sheffi
History, Biography, and Social Science
Michael Beizer (ed.), Toledot yehudei rusiyah, vol. 3, mimapekhot 1917 'ad nefilat
brit hamo'atzot (History of the Jews in Russia: From the Revolutions of
1917 to the Fall of the Soviet Union), Theodore H. Friedgut
Pierre Birnbaum, L?on Blum: Prime Minister, Socialist, Zionist, David Weinberg
Irith Cherniavsky, Be'or shineihem: 'al 'aliyatam shel yehudei polin lifnei hashoah
(In the Last Moment: Jewish Immigration from Poland in the 1930s), Rona
Yona
Carmel U. Chiswick, Judaism in Transition: How Economic Choices Shape Religious
Tradition, Esther Isabelle Wilder
Daniella Doron, Jewish Youth and Identity in Postwar France: Rebuilding Family and
Nation, Shannon L. Fogg
Adam Ferziger, Beyond Sectarianism: The Realignment of American Orthodox
Judaism, Samuel Heilman
Sylvia Barack Fishman (ed.), Love, Marriage, and Jewish Families: Paradoxes of a
Social Revolution, Harriet Hartman
Theodore H. Friedgut, Stepmother Russia, Foster Mother America: Identity
Transitions in the New Odessa Jewish Commune, Odessa, Oregon, New York,
1881-1891, together with Israel Mandelkern, Recollections of a Communist
(ed. and annotated Theodore H. Friedgut), Jonathan Dekel-Chen
Norman J.W. Goda, Barbara McDonald Stewart, Severin Hochberg, and Richard
Breitman (eds.), To the Gates of Jerusalem: The Diaries and Papers of James
G. McDonald, 1945-1947, Moshe Fox
Zvi Jonathan Kaplan and Nadia Malinovitch (eds.), The Jews of Modern France:
Images and Identities, Pierre Birnbaum
Ethan B. Katz, The Burdens of Brotherhood: Jews and Muslims from North Africa to
France, Yuval Tal
Rebecca Kobrin and Adam Teller (eds.), Purchasing Power: The Economics of
Modern Jewish History, Luisa Levi D'Ancona Modena
Eli Lederhendler and Uzi Rebhun (eds.), Research in Jewish Demography and Identity, Steven M. Cohen
Rebeca Raijman, South African Jews in Israel: Assimilation in Multigenerational
Perspective, Sergio DellaPergola
Dov Waxman, Trouble in the Tribe: The American Jewish Conflict over Israel,
Allan Arkush
Zionism, Israel and the Middle East
Orit Abuhav, In the Company of Others: The Development of Anthropology in Israel,
Jack Kugelmass
Gur Alroey, Zionism without Zion: The Jewish Territorial Organization and Its
Conflict with the Zionist Organization, Anita Shapira
Hezi Amiur, Meshek beit haikar: hameshek hame'urav bama?shevet hatziyonit
(Mixed Farm and Smallholding in Zionist Settlement Thought), Arnon
Golan
Naomi Brenner, Lingering Bilingualism: Modern Hebrew and Yiddish Literatures in
Contact, Yaad Biran
Yakir Englander and Avi Sagi, Sexuality and the Body in New Religious Zionist
Discourse (trans. Batya Stein), Sander L. Gilman
Liora R. Halperin, Babel in Zion: Jews, Nationalism, and Language Diversity in
Palestine, 1920-1948, Yael Reshef
Anat Helman, Israeli National Ideals and Everyday Life in the 1950s, Michael
Berkowitz
Orit Rozin, A Home for All Jews: Citizenship, Rights, and National Identity in the
New Israeli State (trans. Haim Watzman), Moshe Naor