Kenneth B. Moss
Kenneth B. Moss is the Harriet and Ulrich E. Meyer Professor of Jewish History and director of the Jacob and Joyce Z. Greenberg Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Chicago. He is the author of An Unchosen People: Jewish Political Reckoning in Interwar Poland (2021), which received the 2022 National Jewish Book Award for History from the Jewish Book Council, the 2022 Oskar Halecki Award for Polish and East Central European History from the Polish Institute for Arts and Sciences in America, and honorable mention for the 2022 Kulczycki Book Prize in Polish Studies; and of Jewish Renaissance in the Russian Revolution (2009), which received the 2010 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature and has now appeared in a revised Hebrew version as Yemei ha-ma’asim: Tkhiat ha-tarbut ha-yehudit bi-tkufat ha-mahpekhah ha-rusit. With Ben Nathans and Taro Tsurumi, he coedited From Europe’s East to the Middle East (2021). From 2014 to 2020, he coedited Jewish Social Studies. He is the coeditor, with Israel Bartal, of The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, Volume 7: National Renaissance and International Horizons, 1880–1918.
Content by Kenneth B. Moss
Guide
Jewish Intellectual Inquiry at the Turn of the Twentieth Century
1880–1918From 1880 to 1918, Jews made major contributions to history, social sciences, psychology, and philosophy.
Guide
Jewish Visual and Material Culture at the Turn of the Twentieth Century
1880–1918Increasingly culturally integrated, Jewish fine artists, designers, and photographers produced dazzling works of art and considered cultivating a distinctive national art.
Guide
Politics, Culture, and Religion at the Turn of the Twentieth Century
1880–1918Jewish politics became more ideological, driving cultural change and defining nationalism. Tensions arose between secular movements and religious traditionalism.
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Preserving Tradition in the Modern Age: The Jewish Anthological Impulse
1880–1918Turn-of-the-century Jews considered what to include in a new Jewish canon, producing anthologies and musical collections of Jewish culture.
Guide
The Birth of Modern Secular Writing at the Turn of the Twentieth Century
1880–1918As a generation of Jewish novelists, poets, and dramatists came of age, modern Jewish secular texts and journalism flourished in Jewish and European languages.
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The Expansion of Jewish Performance Art: Theater, Dance, and the Birth of Cinema
1880–1918Jewish creativity in theater, dance, and early cinema expanded dramatically around the world, taking on nationalist significance for a Jewish cultural renaissance.
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The Rise of Popular Culture: From Folk Traditions to Mass Media
1880–1918Jewish popular culture evolved from following folk traditions to creating new forms of mass media, strengthening ethnic identity while depleting cultural heterogeneity.