Date: Wednesday, November 11th
Time: 7:00 pm
Location: Emory's Carlos Museum, Ackerman Hall (571 South Kilgo Cir NE, Atlanta, GA 30322)
The Tam Institute for Jewish Studies (TIJS) at Emory University will feature Pulitzer Prizer-winner Prof. Benjamin Nathans of the University of Pennsylvania as the speaker for this year’s Rabbi Jacob M. Memorial Rothschild Lecture. The lecture, to take place on Wednesday, November 11th at 7:00pm, will address the topic: “Refuseniks and Rights-Defenders: Jews and the Soviet Dissident Movement.” This free, on-campus event will be held in Emory's Carlos Museum, Ackerman Hall (571 South Kilgo Cir NE, Atlanta, GA 30322).
The exodus of Jews from the former Soviet Union transformed the Jewish landscape on three continents and has been called the preeminent case of Jewish human rights activism. It is often identified – and confused – with the Soviet dissident movement and the struggle for rights in Russia. In this lecture, Prof. Nathans will explore what brought the two movements together – and what kept them apart?
Dr. Nathans is the Alan Charles Kors Endowed Term Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania. His most recent book, To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement was awarded the 2025 Pulitzer Prize in general non-fiction as well as the Pushkin House Book Prize. His multiple award-winning book Beyond the Pale: The Jewish Encounter with Late Imperial Russia has been translated into Hebrew and Russian. Nathans chaired an international committee of scholars hired by Ralph Appelbaum Associates, the New York-based museum design firm, to help create the Jewish Museum in Moscow, which opened in 2012. He contributes regularly to the New York Review of Books, the Times Literary Supplement, and other periodicals.
This program will be the 18th Rothschild Lecture, which is named for the late rabbi and civil rights activist Jacob M. Rothschild, who led Atlanta’s Hebrew Benevolent Congregation (“The Temple”) from 1946 to 1973. In 1958, Rothschild’s synagogue was bombed by white supremacists in response to his outspoken support for desegregation. The annual lecture focuses on issues related to social justice and other themes that resonate with the concerns of Rabbi Rothschild’s career.