He was like one of us! Abraham Lincoln and American Jewry

The departments of History, and of Classics and Religion present guest Dr. Gary Zola in a lecture based on his 2014 volume, We Called Him Rabbi Abraham: Lincoln and American Jewry (Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press, 2014), a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award. Very few people are aware of the remarkable historical relationship between Abraham Lincoln and the American Jewish community. In this lecture, Dr. Zola will provide the audience with an informative and entertaining explanation as to why many of Lincoln’s personal and professional characteristics caused American Jews to embrace the 16th president as a man who possessed a Jewish soul. Gary Zola is executive director, The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives and Edward M. Ackerman Family Distinguished Professor and the American Jewish Experience and Reform Jewish History, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. Zola received both his rabbinic ordination (1982) and his PhD in American Jewish History (1991) from HUC-JIR. He has authored and edited numerous publications, among them A Place of Our Own: The Rise of Reform Jewish Camping in America; The Dynamics of American Jewish History: Jacob Rader Marcus’s Essays on American Jewry; Women Rabbis: Exploration and Celebration and We Called Him Rabbi Abraham: Lincoln and American Jewry, a Documentary History.

Location:

Social Science 623

More information at http://www.ucalgary.ca/events/calendar/he-was-one-us-abraham-lincoln-and-american-jewry