Campus Directory

Division Graduate Studies Division

Department/College/Unit History Department

Title Ph.D. Candidate

Affiliation Graduate

Other UCSC Campus Affiliation Jewish Studies

Primary Office Location Humanities & Social Sciences Building
1

Additional Location(s) Humanities and Social Sciences Building Room 150 (Grad Lab)

Office Hours By appointment

Mail Stop History Department

Biography, Education and Training

Education

• Ph.D., History, University of California, Santa Cruz (Expected Graduation June 2024)
  • Dissertation: "Noshing in the Midwest: Foodways in Midwestern Jewish Communities"
• M.A. History, University of California, Santa Cruz (2019)
  • Thesis: "Noshing in the Hawkeye State: Food and Foodways in the Construction of Iowa's Jewish Communities, 1890-1940"
• M.A. U.S. History, Southern New Hampshire University (2016)
  • Thesis: "To Lend a Helping Hand: A Comparative Look at Jewish and Italian Ethnic Organizations in Buffalo and New York City, 1870-1924"
• B.A. History, California State University, East Bay (2015)

TA and Teaching Experience

• History 57 - History of the English Language (Summer 2022)
• History 15 - U.S. History from Founding to Our Time (Spring 2022)
• History 10B - U.S. History After 1877 (Winter 2022)
• History 74 - Introduction to Jewish History (Fall 2021)
• History 10A - U.S. History to 1877 (Summer 2021)
• History 75 - Film and the Holocaust (Spring 2021)
• History 74B - Introduction to Middle Eastern and North African Jewish History, 1500-2000 (Winter 2021)
• History 100 - Historical Skills and Methods (Fall 2020)
• History 10A - U.S. History to 1877 (Summer 2020)
• History 100 - Historical Skills and Methods (Spring 2020)
• History 163B - Genesis: A History (Winter 2020)
• History 155 - History of Modern Israel (Fall 2019)
• History 100 - Historical Skills and Methods (Summer 2019)
• History 76 - The Holocaust (Spring 2019)
• History 100 - Historical Skills and Methods (Winter 2019)
• History 70B - Modern European History, 1815-Present (Fall 2018)
• History 2A - The World to 1500 (Spring 2018)
• History 113C - Women and American Religious Culture (Fall 2017)
• Invited Guest Lecture - History 190R - Research in the History of American Religions - "Crypto-Jews in Early America" (Winter 2018)

Summary of Expertise

My research focuses on U.S. Jewish history, with a particular emphasis on Jewish foodways and Jewish communities. My dissertation, entitled "Noshing in the Midwest: Foodways and Midwestern Jewish Communities,"  explores the various roles that food played in the construction and upkeep of Jewish communities in the Midwest in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It argues that Jewish foodways were a particularly important cornerstone in the development of communal relationships between Jews of differing backgrounds, as well as between Jews and non-Jews. In addition to my dissertation research, I am also working on an annotated research bibliography of Jewish life in Minnesota, as well as an article that discusses Jewish women's responses to Holocaust relief in the Twin Cities. I am also interested in questions on critical food studies, citizenship, business history, Jewish immigration, and midwestern history.

Research Interests

• U.S. Jewish History
• Jewish Immigration/Ethnic Studies
• Jewish Food Culture and Food Studies
• U.S. History
• Citizenship
• Midwestern History
• Cultural History

Teaching Interests

• U.S. History
• Jewish History
• Food Studies
• Midwestern History
• Jewish Food Culture and Religion
• Food and World History

Awards, Honors and Grants

• University of California, Santa Cruz History Department Quarter Dissertation Sabbatical Fellowship (2022)
• The Humanities Institute Dissertation Completion Fellowship (2022
• University of California, Santa Cruz Graduate Dean's Travel Grant (2022)
• Association for Jewish Studies Conference Travel Grant (2021)
• Loewenstein-Wiener Fellowship, American Jewish Archives, Hebrew Union College (2021)
• University of California, Santa Cruz History Department Dissertation Summer Research Grant (2021)
• American Academy of Jewish Research Summer Fellowship (2021)
• University of California, Santa Cruz History Department Pre-Dissertation Summer Research Grant (2020)
• American Historical Association Conference Travel Grant (2019-2020)
• Dr. Linda Mack Schloff Summer Research Fellowship, Jewish Historical Society of the Upper Midwest (2019)
• University of California, Santa Cruz History Department Pre-Dissertation Summer Research Grant (2019)
• State Historical Society of Iowa Research Grant (2019)
• Organization of American Historians Conference Workship Grant (2019)
• YIVO Uriel Weinreich Program in Yiddish Language, Literature, and Culture Tuition Grant (2018)
• University of California, Santa Cruz Graduate Student Association Travel Grant (2018)
• The Humanities Institute Summer Research Fellowship (2018)
• University of California Regents Fellowship (2017-2018)

Selected Presentations

• "A Necessary Friendship?: Jewish Relations between Themselves and non-Jews on North Dakota Homesteads" - The History of Jewish Friendship, 1650-1950 Conference, University of Michigan (October 26-27, 2022)
• "Kosher on the Plains: Foodways, Negotiation, and Community on Dakota Jewish Homesteads" - American Jewish Historical Society Bienneial Scholars Conference, New Orleans, Louisiana (May 15-17, 2022)
• "Power Through Food and Charity: The Roles of Minnesota's Jewish Women's Organizations in Response to World War II and the Holocaust" - Presented at Association for Jewish Studies Conference, Chicago, IL (Forthcoming, December 19-21, 2021)
• "Tzedakah and Gefilte Fish: Jewish Foodways and Philanthropy in the Twin Cities" - Presented at Midwestern History Conference, Grand Valley State University (May 26-27, 2021)
• "More Than Just a Store: Jewish Food Entrepreneurship in Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century Iowa" - Presented at Western Jewish Studies Association Conference, University of Nevada, Las Vegas (March 29-30, 2020)
• "Iowa Jews and Their Ties to Community" - Presented at Upper Midwest Jewish Archives, University of Minnesota (July 11, 2019)
• "Open for Business: Jewish Food Entrepreneurship in Late-Nineteenth and Early-Twentieth Century Iowa" - Presented at Rocky Mountain Interdisciplinary History Conference, University of Colorado, Boulder (September 20-22, 2019)

Selected Publications

• Review of Salvage Poetics: Post-Holocaust American Jewish Folk Ethnographies, in Journal of American Ethnic History (June 2022)
• Review of The Many Cinemas of Michael Curtiz, in Jewish Film and New Media (January 2022)
• Review of Unwanted: Italian and Jewish Mobilization against Restrictive Immigration Laws, 1882-1965, in H-Net Migration (December 2020) https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.php?id=5558