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Paul Finkelman

Paul Finkelman is the chancellor and Distinguished Professor of History at Gratz College. His most recent book is Supreme Injustice: Slavery in the Nation’s Highest Court (Harvard University Press).

Winter 2022

An Israelite with Egyptian Principles

Paul Finkelman

Judah Benjamin was a brilliant New Orleans lawyer who became the most important cabinet member in Jefferson Davis’s Confederate government. He was, Senator Benjamin Wade correctly declared, one of the “Israelites with Egyptian principles.”

Spring 2021

Jews, Genes, and the Black Death

Kathryn A. Glatter, Paul Finkelman

This is the version of history that many of us heard in Hebrew school: Jews were saved from the plague by handwashing, kashrut, and burying their dead quickly.