For all candidates within the Department of History, UVA's PhD concentration in Jewish History is offered as a Doctor of Philosophy in History.

Degree Overview

Ph.D. students concentrating in Jewish history find a rich cluster of specialist faculty within the History Department and across related departments and programs, including the interdisciplinary Jewish Studies Program, the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies, the Center for German Studies, and the Religious Studies Department.

There are particularly strong opportunities for students interested in modern Jewish history, with geographical focus on Modern Europe (especially Germany, Poland, and Russia), Israel, the United States, and twentieth-century transnational Jewish history. The Jewish history program leads the field in its concentration on linking traditional areas of scholarship, such as Zionism, antisemitism, and the Holocaust to emerging fields in the larger arena of historiography, including the history of human rights, forced migration, and genocide, legal history, the history of international institutions, and memory studies. Faculty have also worked closely with Jewish Studies specialists in musicology, art history, and literature to promote new directions in cultural history, including sound studies, visual aesthetics, and the history of emotions.

Prospective students are encouraged to review the departmental information.

Course Expectations

Entering graduate students work closely with an advisor to prepare a program of study that fits the specific disciplinary imperatives of Jewish history while also ensuring strong training in related or overlapping fields. These typically include modern European history, modern Russian/ Soviet history, modern Middle Eastern history, U.S. history, or international history. There are many exciting possibilities for combining the field of Jewish history with other geographic or methodological fields, including intellectual history, legal history, and religious history.

Entering students should ideally possess a strong command of the Hebrew language and one or more other relevant languages (typically including German, Yiddish, French, Russian or Polish). Students will be expected to demonstrate language proficiency through exams. Where necessary, language coursework may be required.

Additional information on the program requirements is available here.

Affiliated Faculty

History: Caroline Kahlenberg (Israel/Palestine; social and cultural history)

Religious Studies: Asher Biemann (German and Austrian Jewry; Zionism; Religious Thought; aesthetics and visual studies).