Women’s Initiative for Jewish Studies (WIJS) at Young Israel of New Rochelle is proud to present Dr. Ellie Schainker on Sunday, December 20 at 8:00 p.m. (ET) on Zoom. Schainker will be the third speaker in the monthly scholarly programming offered by WIJS at YINR. She will speak on the subject “Epidemics, Agunot and Mass Media: Debates on Reforming Judaism in Tsarist Russia.”

Schainker is the Arthur Blank Family Foundation Associate Professor of History and Jewish Studies and Winship Distinguished Research Professor at Emory University. She received her PhD in history from the University of Pennsylvania and is the author of “Confessions of the Shtetl: Converts from Judaism in Imperial Russia, 1817-1906,” National Jewish Book Award winner in 2017. She has worked on her current book, “Rites of Empire: Jewish Religious Reforms in Imperial Russia,” as a Fulbright Global Scholar and Yad Hanadiv/Beracha Foundation Visiting Fellow in Jewish Studies.

Schainker also teaches courses on East European Jewish history, modern Jewish history, conversions to/from Judaism, and religion and empire. Prior to academia, Schainker was involved in informal Jewish education in Belarus and Germany, working for Yeshiva and University Students for the Spiritual Revival of Soviet Jewry, Inc. (YUSSR) and the Lauder Foundation. This engagement with Jewish communities in the former Soviet Union sparked her academic interest in the history of Russian Jewry.

All WIJS programming is open to women and men. Please visit www.yinr.org/wijs to view the complete WIJS 2020-21 schedule. For more information or to be added to the WIJS email list, please call 914-636-2215 or email: [email protected]. For Zoom information, please email: [email protected].

By Tamar Croog