International Jewish Humanitarianism in the Age of the Great War Book launch and Q&A with Dr Jaclyn Granick (Cardiff University)

Together with The Centre for the Study of Religion and Politics the School of International Relations presents a book launch and conversation between centre director Professor Mario I Aguilar and author of International Jewish Humanitarianism in the Age of the Great War Dr Jaclyn Granick of Cardiff University.

In 1914, seven million Jews across Eastern Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean were caught in the crossfire of warring empires in a disaster of stupendous, unprecedented proportions. Dr Granick will present her new book about how, in response, American Jews developed a new model of humanitarian relief for their suffering brethren abroad, wandering into American foreign policy as they navigated a wartime political landscape.

The effort continued into peacetime as long-term international refugee, child welfare, public health and poverty alleviation projects. Through multi-archival research in several countries and languages, Dr Granick's empirical findings demonstrate how American Jews constructed a new form of humanitarianism and re-drew the map of modern philanthropy against the backdrop of war, revolution and reconstruction and, in so doing, rebuilt the Jewish Diaspora itself in the image of the modern social welfare state.

Dr Granick is Lecturer in Modern Jewish History at Cardiff University. She received her PhD in international studies from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva and was then a Newton International Fellow postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oxford.

Her first monograph, International Jewish Humanitarianism in the Age of the Great War, is published this spring by Cambridge University Press as part of its Human Rights in History series. Dr Granick's interests lie at the intersection of Jewish studies and international history, especially on diaspora and non-state politics, philanthropy and humanitarianism, and gender.

The event will be held on MS Teams: please email [email protected] to register.