POSTPONED | Ghetto: The History of a Word

4001 E Stevens Way NE,Seattle WA 98195

22 April, 2021

Description

*The University of Washington is closely monitoring developments related to COVID-19. The Stroum Center will update this page as soon as the event has been rescheduled, which most likely be during the 2020-21 academic year.* Daniel Schwartz (George Washington University) will give a talk on the history of the word “ghetto” from 16th-century Venice until today. About the talk Few words are as ideologically charged as “ghetto.” Its early uses centered on two cities: Venice, the site of the first ghetto in Europe, established in 1516; and Rome, where the ghetto endured until 1870, decades after it had been dismantled elsewhere. Over the nineteenth century, as Jews were emancipated and ghettos were dissolved, the word “ghetto” transcended its Italian roots and became a more general term for pre-modern Jewish life. It also came to designate new Jewish spaces — from voluntary immigrant neighborhoods like New York’s Lower East Side to the holding pens of Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe — as dissimilar from the pre-emancipation European ghettos as they were from each other. After World War II, “ghetto” broke free of its Jewish origins and became more typically associated with African Americans than with Jews. Chronicling this sinuous transatlantic journey, this talk will reveal how the history of ghettos is tied up with the struggle and argument over the meaning of a word. About the speaker Daniel B. Schwartz is an associate professor of history and the director of the Judaic Studies Program at George Washington University. His first book, “The First Modern Jew: Spinoza and the History of an Image,” was co-winner of the Salo W. Baron Prize for the best first book in Jewish studies and was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award in history. This event is cosponsored by the Department of History and the African Studies Program at the Jackson School of International Studies. NOTE: This event was rescheduled from its original January date because of inclement weather. Few words are as ideologically charged as "ghetto." Its early uses centered on two cities: Venice, the site of the first ghetto in Europe, established in 1516; and Rome, where the ghetto endured until 1870, decades after it had been dismantled elsewhere. Over the nineteenth century, as Jews were emancipated and ghettos were dissolved, the word "ghetto" transcended its Italian roots and became a more general term for pre-modern Jewish life. It also came to designate new Jewish spaces — from voluntary immigrant neighborhoods like New York’s Lower East Side to the holding pens of Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe — as dissimilar from the pre-emancipation European ghettos as they were from each other. After World War II, "ghetto" broke free of its Jewish origins and became more typically associated with African Americans than with Jews. Chronicling this sinuous transatlantic journey, this talk will reveal how the history of ghettos is tied up with the struggle and argument over the meaning of a word. About the speaker Daniel B. Schwartz is an associate professor of history and the director of the Judaic Studies Program at George Washington University. His first book, "The First Modern Jew: Spinoza and the History of an Image," was co-winner of the Salo W. Baron Prize for the best first book in Jewish studies and was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award in history.