December 3, 2021

“Jews, Justice, and U.S. Indian Law”

Professor David S. Koffman
Via Zoom

Register: https://bit.ly/LRSTDEC3

This talk analyzes the work of a cadre of American Jewish lawyers, civil servants and intellectual New Dealers who turned centuries-long anti-Indian policy on its head and created the most progressive pro-Native policy the U.S. had ever known. Drawing from extensive, original archival research, the talk situates the work of this generally unknown chapter of modern Jewish advocacy in the twin contexts of American religious minorities’ commitment to liberalism on the one hand, and the ongoing realities and impacts of colonialism on the other.

David S. Koffman is the J. Richard Shiff Chair for the Study of Canadian Jewry in the Department of History at York University. He is the author of The Jews’ Indian: Colonialism, Pluralism, and Belonging in America (Rutgers University Press, 2019), and the editor of No Better Home? Jews, Canada, and the Sense of Belonging (University of Toronto Press, 2021). He serves as the associate director of York’s Israel & Golda Koschitzky Centre for Jewish Studies, and the editor-in-chief of the journal Canadian Jewish Studies / Études juives canadiennes.

The LRST is supported through the funds of the York Research Chair in Pluralism and Public Law

Watch the lecture: