Gil Ribak

Interests

Teaching

Jewish history and culture, religion, interethnic, interracial, and interreligious relations, antisemitism, the Holocaust, comparative politics (Europe, North America, and the Middle East), Israeli and Mid-Eastern History, U.S. foreign policy.

Research

Interethnic, interracial, and interreligious relations, Jewish identities, Yiddish culture and literature, Hebrew culture and literature, World War I and Its Aftermath, and the Israeli-Arab conflict.

Courses

Scholarly Contributions

Books

• Ribak, G., & York, G. N. (2012). Gentile New York. doi:10.36019/9780813552194

Chapters

• Ribak, G. (2020). “Cleanliness like That of the Germans”: Eastern European Jews’ Views of Germans and the Dynamics of Migration and Disillusionment. In Wandering Jews: Global Jewish Migration(pp 119-150). Purdue University Press.
  More info

  My article was published as a chapter in this book.
• Ribak, G. (2019). “’There Was No Uncorrupt Israel’: The Role of Israelis in Delegitimizing Jewish Collective Existence”. In Anti-Zionism, Antisemitism, and the Dynamics of Delegitimization, ed. Alvin H. Rosenfeld(pp 255-280). Bloomington: Indiana University Press, forthcoming.
• Ribak, G. (2017). “’The Shkotsim Were Even Worse than the Dogs’: Yiddish Memoirists and the Reimagining of the Eastern European Jewish Experience in Postwar America”. In Reconstructing the Old Country: American Jewry in the Post-Holocaust Decades, eds. Sheila Elana Jelen and Eliyana Adler(pp 152-172). Detroit: Wayne State University Press.
• Ribak, G. (2017). “’You Can’t Recognize America’: American Jewish Perceptions of Antisemitism as a Transnational Phenomenon after World War I”. In American Jewry: Transcending the European Experience?(pp 281-304). London: Bloomsbury.
• Ribak, G. (2012). "A Victory of the Slavs Means a Deathblow to Democracy": The Onset of World War I and the Images of the Warring Sides among Jewish Immigrants in New York, 1914-1916. In War and Peace in Jewish Tradition: From the Ancient World to the Present(pp 203-217). Routledge. doi:10.4324/9780203802199-22

Journals/Publications

• Ribak, G. (2022). “The Organ of the Jewish People: The Yidishes Tageblat and Uncharted Conservative Yiddish Culture in America”. Jewish Quarterly Review, 112, 795-822.
  More info

  Since the journal Studia Judaica is not-functioning, I withdrew my article and submitted in "Jewish Quarterly Review".
• Ribak, G. (2021). “Israelis Are from Mars, American Jews Are from Venus? Cultural Differences and Rivalry in American Jewish Attitudes toward Israel”. Israelis: A Bilingual Periodical for the Study of Israel & Zionism, 209-236.
• Ribak, G. (2020). Drunkards Lying on the Floor: Jewish Contempt for Non-Jewish Lower Classes. AJS Perspectives, 46-47.
• Ribak, G. (2020). EEJA in Action: “Against Your Will You’re a Jew” (1909): By Tashrak. East European Jewish Affairs, 50, 75-77. doi:10.1080/13501674.2020.1774289
  More info

  Against your will you live, and – against your will you’re a Jew! Bokvil (Bucksville/Foolsville) is a small town in the state of New Jersey, which has about 20,000 residents in all, according to th...
• Ribak, G. (2020). Reportage from Blotetown: Yisroel-Yoysef Zevin (Tashrak) and the Shtetlization of New York City. East European Jewish Affairs, 50, 57-74.
• Ribak, G. (2019). American Jewry and the Re-Invention of the East European Jewish Past by Markus Krah (review). American Jewish History, 103(2), 239-241. doi:10.1353/ajh.2019.0024
• Ribak, G. (2017). “Helpless Refugees or the Seed of Amalek: A Cautionary Note about the Use of Judaism as a Means to justify Various Political Agendas”. CrossCurrents, 67(3), 555-564.
  More info

  While the volume is 2017, I submitted the article in early 2018, and it was first published in August 2018.
• Ribak, G. (2018). “’Mexicans Are Just Like Every Oriental People’: The Southwest in Sholem Asch’s Yiddish Writing”. Legacy: Newsletter of the New Mexico Jewish Historical Society, 32(1), 1, 4-5.
• Ribak, G. (2017). “For Peace, Not Socialism”: The 1917 Mayoralty Campaign in New York City and Immigrant Jews in a Global Perspective. American Jewish History, 101(4), 465-488.
• Ribak, G. (2017). “’Negroes Must Not Be Likened to Jews’: The Attitudes of Eastern European Jewish Immigrants toward African Americans in a Transnational Perspective”. Modern Judaism, 37(3), 271-296.
• Ribak, G. (2016). Between Germany and Russia: Images of Poles and the Ensuing Cultural Trajectories among Yiddish and Hebrew Writers between 1863 and the First World War. Polin Studies in Polish Jewry, 28, 225-248.
• Ribak, G. (2016). “Between Germany and Russia: Images of Poles and the Ensuing Cultural Trajectories among Yiddish and Hebrew Writers between 1863 and World War I”. Polin: A Journal of Polish-Jewish Studies, 28, 225-248.
• Ribak, G. (2009). “’Earning Like Episcopalians, Voting Like Puerto-Ricans’: Why American Jews Voted for Obama” (Hebrew) (with Arnon Gutfeld). Kivunim Chadashim (Hebrew), 20, 28-49.

Presentations

• Ribak, G. (2023, January). My Mom Drank Ink: The ‘Little Negro’ and the Performance of Race in Yente Telebende’s Stage Productions. The Yiddish Press Working Group. New York City: Center for Jewish History.
• Ribak, G. (2023, July). “We Cannot Be Russifiers: The ‘Litvak Invasion’ of Congress Poland in a Historical Perspective”.. The conference “The Litvak Diaspora”.. University of Cape Town, South Africa: Kaplan Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Cape Town with support from the German Historical Institute, Warsaw, the Center for Jewish Studies at Fordham University, and other universities.
• Ribak, G. (2022, December). Who Is More Respectable? Ayzik Meir Dik’s Conceptions of Civility and Race in Di Vistenay Zahara (The Desolate Sahara). 54th annual conference of the Association for Jewish Studies. Boston, Massachusetts: Association for Jewish Studies.
• Ribak, G. (2022, February). Between Translation and Transliteration: Imagination and Racial Terminology in Yiddish. Scholars' Colloquium. Freiburg, Germany: Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies (FRIAS).
• Ribak, G. (2022, February). “Aunt Jemima on the Bronx Express: The Performance of Race in Advertisements in New York’s Yiddish Press, 1880s-1920s”. The scholars’ workshop "Studying Advertisements in Pre-1939 Jewish Press: Methods and Challenges". Wrocław, Poland: University of Wrocław.
• Ribak, G. (2022, June). Report on the situation of Jews in Ukraine, Russia, and the relationship of Israel with those two countries.. Ukraine at War Monitor. Freiburg, Germany: Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies.
  More info

  Shortly after the beginning of the war in Ukraine, the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies (FRIAS) formed a “Ukraine at War Monitor” weekly meetings. I participated as a respondent together with historian Benjamin Nathans (University of Pennsylvania).
• Ribak, G. (2022, June). ’Ignorant Like Wild Beasts’: The Imagery of Africans in Hebrew and Yiddish Adaptations of Abolitionist Literature in the Early 19th Century. The conference “Sharing Jewish Languages: Translation and Identity”. Paris, France: The French National Institute for Oriental Languages and Civilizations & Sorbonne Nouvelle University.
• Ribak, G. (2022, March). Crude Creatures: The Representation of Black People in Yiddish Culture. Invited talk. Freiburg, Germany: Carl-Schurz-Haus (German-American Institute).
  More info

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfrYbz1_yt0&ab_channel=Carl-Schurz-HausFreiburg
• Ribak, G. (2022, May). Academic Freedom under Pressure?. Faculty Colloquium. Freiburg, Germany: Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies.
  More info

  I served as a panelist.
• Ribak, G. (2022, May). ’The Montenegrins Do Not Depend on Assimilation’: The Paradox of Anti-Cosmopolitan Rhetoric among American Jews during World War I. The conference “Reinventing/Reconstructing Cosmopolitanism in Contested Spaces and Post-conflict Zones”. Cres, Croatia: University of Rijeka’s Center for Advanced Studies Southeast Europe, the American University of Paris, and the University of Belgrade.
  More info

  This conference took place via the cooperation of three universities.
• Ribak, G. (2021, June). “America’s Peasantry: Immigrant Jews, Blacks and the Historiographical Myth of ‘America’s Jews’”. The conference "Jewish Immigration in Myth and Reality". Online: The Herzog Centre for Jewish and Near Eastern Religions and Culture at Trinity College (Dublin, Ireland), the Midwest Jewish Studies Association of the United States, and the Western Jewish Studies Association of the United States.
• Ribak, G. (2021, March). “’Cleanliness Like That of the Germans’: Eastern European Jews’ Views of Germans and the Dynamics of Migration and Disillusionment”. A panel that marked the publication of the book, "Wandering Jews: Global Jewish Migration", ed. Steven J. Gold. Online: Michael and Elaine Serling Institute for Jewish Studies and Modern Israel at Michigan State University.
• Ribak, G. (2021, October). "Whiteness Studies: Opportunities and Risks". After-Hours Conversations, Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies (FRIAS) (University of Freiburg, Germany). Freiburg, Germany: Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies (FRIAS), University of Freiburg.
• Ribak, G. (2019, December). Ms. Fitzsimmons Sent Some Pork and Beans: The Representation of the Irish in Tashrak’s Works, and the Shtetlization of New York City. 51st annual conference of the Association for Jewish Studies. San Diego, California: Association for Jewish Studies.
• Ribak, G. (2019, June). ’Your Grandchildren Won’t Know What Is Judaism’: The Strange Comeback of Negation of the Diaspora/Exile in Contemporary Israel. 35th Annual Conference of the Association for Israel Studies. Kinneret College on the Sea of Galilee, Israel: Association for Israel Studies.
• Ribak, G. (2019, March). Fighting Zionism in the Name of Judaism: The Legitimization of Contemporary Antisemitism by Progressive Jews. Contending with Antisemitism in a Rapidly Changing Political Climate. Bloomington, Indiana: Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism, Indiana University.
• Ribak, G. (2019, May). ’My Young Life Was Constantly in Danger’: Yiddish Memoirists and the Reimagining of the Eastern European Jewish Experience in Postwar America. The Usage of Ego-documents in Jewish Historical Research. Akko, Israel: Western Galilee College.
• Ribak, G. (2018, July). “Frightfully Thick Lips and Big White Teeth: The Portrayal of African Physiognomy in Early-20th Century Yiddish Literature”. 11th Congress of the European Association for Jewish Studies. Krakow, Poland: European Association for Jewish Studies.
• Ribak, G. (2018, June). “Israelis Are from Mars, American Jews Are from Venus? Moving beyond Binary Formulations of American Jewish-Israeli Relations”. 2018 Biennial Scholars’ Conference on American Jewish History (Philadelphia). Philadelphia, PA: American Jewish Historical Society.
• Ribak, G. (2017, December). “Reassessing Maurice Samuel”. 49th annual conference of the Association for Jewish Studies. Washington D.C.: Association for Jewish Studies.
• Ribak, G. (2017, June). “The Master of Language and Folklore: The Strange Career of Yisroel-Yoysef Zevin (Tashra”k)”. French National Institute for Oriental Languages and Civilizations, Scholars’ Workshop, “Satires in Jewish Languages (Judeo-Spanish and Yiddish) in Contemporary Times”. Paris, France: French National Institute for Oriental Languages and Civilizations.
• Ribak, G. (2017, June). “’Why Replace a Cow with a Donkey?’ Yiddish and Hebrew Writers and the Question of Cultural Hierarchy in Galicia and Tsarist Russia”. Conference on Jewish Emancipation in the Austro-Hungarian and Russian Empires. Budapest, Hungary: Central European University.
• Ribak, G. (2017, October). Panelist and commentator. Northern Arizona University symposium “Strangers Or Neighbors? Jewish, Muslim, and Christian Perspectives on Refugees”. Flagstaff, AZ: Martin Springer Institute, Northern Arizona University.
• Ribak, G. (2016, April). “A Flight to a Fabricated Universalism: The Role of Israelis in Delegitimizing Jewish Collective Existence”. The conference "Anti-Zionism, Antisemitism, and the Dynamics of Delegitimization". Indiana University - Bloomington: Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism.
• Ribak, G. (2016, December). “’The Polish Language Hisses Like a Snake’: Yiddish Writers and the Question of Acculturation into Polish Society at the Turn of the Twentieth Century”. The 48th annual conference of the Association for Jewish Studies. San Diego: Association for Jewish Studies.
• Ribak, G. (2016, June). “’For Peace, Not Socialism’: The 1917 Mayoral Campaign in New York City and Immigrant Jews in a Global Perspective”. 2016 Biennial Scholars’ Conference on American Jewish History. New York City: American Jewish Historical Society.

Reviews

• Ribak, G. (2021. A book review of Gennady Estraikh, "Transatlantic Russian Jewishness: Ideological Voyages of the Yiddish Daily Forverts in the First Half of the Twentieth Century"(pp 960-961).
• Ribak, G. (2021. A book review of Marc Volovici, "German as a Jewish Problem: The Language Politics of Jewish Nationalism".
• Ribak, G. (2020. A review of Jacob Jay Lindenthal, Abi Gezunt: Explorations into the Role of Health and the American Jewish Dream(pp 307-309).
• Ribak, G. (2019. A book review of Markus Krah, "American Jewry and the Re-Invention of the East European Jewish Past"(pp 239-241).
• Ribak, G. (2018. "Golden Land and Promised City, Revisited"(pp 114-120).
  More info

  This is a review essay about Jeffrey S. Gurock, "The Jews of Harlem: The Rise, Decline, and Revival of a Jewish Community"; and Eli Lederhendler, "American Jewry: A New History". I submitted it in the spring of 2017.The title of my review essay is "Golden Land and Promised City, Revisited".