UVA Jewish Studies is celebrating its 25-Year Anniversary this year, with special events planned the weekend of October 31 to November 2, 2025. Learn more about the events below that are open to the public for virtual attendance.
Livestreamed Alumni Presentations
Join us virtually for a conversation with UVA undergraduates-turned-Jewish Studies scholars Sam Brody (U Kansas), Rachel Gross (San Francisco U), and Jessica Kirzane (U Chicago) at 1 PM on November 1st. Hear about their journeys from UVA undergraduate to Jewish Studies scholar, how UVA prepared them for this path, and what they teach and research now.
Stay tuned on the livestream for our 3 PM poetry and fiction reading with accomplished writers, and UVA Jewish Studies alumni, Erika Meitner, Laura-Eve Engel, Gahl Pratt Pardes, Raisa Tolchinsky, and Alexa Luborsky.
About our Alumni Scholars
Samuel Hayim Brody studied Political and Social Thought and Middle-Eastern Studies at the University of Virginia before turning his attention to the study of traditional Jewish sources at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, where he received his MA. His Ph.D. in the History of Judaism is from the University of Chicago Divinity School, where he focused on the modern German-Jewish intellectual tradition, while also studying philosophical hermeneutics, Christian exegesis, and varying conceptions of the relationship between religion and politics. He has previously taught at the University of Chicago and the University of Cincinnati.
Rachel B. Gross is Associate Professor and John and Marcia Goldman Chair in American Jewish Studies in the Department of Jewish Studies at San Francisco State University. She is a religious studies scholar who studies twentieth- and twenty-first-century American Jews. Her book, Beyond the Synagogue: Jewish Nostalgia as Religious Practice, was a 2021 National Jewish Book Award finalist in American Jewish Studies. She is currently working on a book about the religious adventures of the twentieth-century American Jewish writer Mary Antin. She received a BA in Jewish studies in 2007 and an MA in religious studies in 2008 from UVa.
Dr. Jessica Kirzane is a scholar of Yiddish Studies, specializing in questions of race, gender, and regionalism in American Yiddish fiction. She is the Associate Instructional Professor of Yiddish in the Department of Germanic Studies at the University of Chicago, where she teaches all levels of Yiddish language, as well as courses in Yiddish culture and literature. She is also the editor-in-chief of In geveb: A Journal of Yiddish Studies, a central forum for academic and public scholarship, literary translation, and pedagogical materials for the field of Yiddish Studies. A literary translator, she has also translated three Yiddish novels.
About our Alumni Writers
Laura-Eve Engel is the author of Things That Go (Octopus Books). A recipient of fellowships from the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center and the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing, her work appears in Best American Poetry, Boston Review, and The Nation.
Alexa Luborsky is a writer and multimedia artist of Western Armenian and Jewish descent. Her poems have appeared in Adroit, AGNI, Black Warrior Review, and more. She is a 2025–26 USC Shoah Foundation Non-residential Fellow.
Erika Meitner is the author of six books of poems, including Holy Moly Carry Me, winner of the National Jewish Book Award. Her poems appear in The New Yorker, Orion, and VQR. She is Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and directs its Creative Writing program.
Gahl Pratt Pardes is a writer and former Stegner Fellow at Stanford. A UVA MFA graduate, her short fiction has been recognized by the Balch Prize, and her stage and screen work has been produced across the U.S., Canada, and Nepal. She is at work on her debut novel.
Raisa Tolchinsky is the author of Glass Jaw (Persea Books, 2024), named one of the New York Public Library’s Best New Poetry Books of 2025. Her poems appear in Boston Review and Kenyon Review. She is Visiting Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Indiana University.