Hebrew Union College Welcomes Ayelet Brinn, Ph.D. as the Kutz Chair in Jewish History

Hebrew Union College is pleased to announce that Ayelet Brinn, Ph.D. will be joining the faculty of the Louchheim School as the Milton and Hattie Kutz Chair in American Jewish History. Established in 1965, and initially held by American Jewish Archives founder Dr. Jacob Rader Marcus, the Kutz Chair has been foundational to the field of American Jewish history.

Brinn comes to Hebrew Union College from the University of Hartford, where she has served since 2022 as Assistant Professor of Judaic Studies and History, holder of the Philip D. Feltman Professorship in Modern Jewish History, and Associate Director of the Greenberg Center for Judaic Studies.

Brinn earned her Ph.D. in History from the University of Pennsylvania in 2019, following an M.A. in History and an M.L.S. focused on Rare Books and Special Collections Librarianship from Indiana University, Bloomington, and an A.B. in Comparative Literature, magna cum laude, from Brown University.

A historian of American Jewish life and the Yiddish press, Brinn is the author of A Revolution in Type: Gender and the Making of the American Yiddish Press (New York University Press, 2023). The book received the Association for Jewish Studies' Jordan Schnitzer Book Award in Modern Jewish History & Culture and was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award in Women's Studies, with reviews appearing in The American Historical Review, In geveb, The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, and The American Jewish Archives Journal, among others.

At the Louchheim School, which serves as the undergraduate Jewish Studies department at the University of Southern California, Dr. Brinn will offer classes for both USC students and Hebrew Union College seminary students. In the Fall, she will teach a course focused on educating students about extremism, rising hate, and antisemitism as a gateway to broader bigotry, funded by the Younes & Soraya Nazarian Family Foundation. Her research has also appeared in American Jewish History and Studies in American Jewish Literature, as well as in edited volumes including The Future of American Jewish Pasts and Freedom's Fullness: Histories of Jewish Anarchism. She is currently at work on a second book, Censorship and the Transformation of American Jewish Culture, 1917-1922, supported in part by a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend.

"Ayelet Brinn is exactly the kind of scholar we hope to bring to the Louchheim School," said Karen E.H. Skinazi, Ph.D., Director of the Louchheim School. "Her work on the American Yiddish press has fundamentally reshaped how we understand gender, media, and Jewish life in the United States, and her award-winning book is already a touchstone in the field. We are thrilled to welcome her as the Kutz Chair in Jewish History and know that our students and colleagues alike will benefit enormously from her scholarship, her teaching, and her generous spirit of collaboration."

Brinn's honors include fellowships from the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, the Frankel Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan, the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute, and the American Jewish Archives, where she currently holds the Bernard & Audre Rapaport Fellowship.

An active teacher and lecturer, Brinn has taught courses ranging from American Jewish History and Ancient and Medieval Jewish History to Banned Books and the History of Gender, Race, and U.S. Media, at both the University of Hartford and Fordham University. She frequently presents her works at international conferences and has lectured at institutions including Columbia University, New York University, Harvard University, and the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.

Fluent in Yiddish, Hebrew, and Spanish, with reading knowledge of German, Brinn brings a rich linguistic and archival expertise to her research and teaching.

"Dr. Brinn's appointment reflects our continued commitment to bringing outstanding scholars of American Jewish life to Hebrew Union College," said Andrew Rehfeld, The Gus W. Hermann President and Professor of Political Thought. "Her research illuminates how the Jewish press helped shape American Jewish identity, and her presence will strengthen both the Louchheim School and the College's broader mission of scholarship in service of the Jewish people."

Hebrew Union College looks forward to the intellectual energy, scholarship, and mentorship Dr. Brinn will bring to our community as the Kutz Chair in Jewish History.