Leiden Jewish Studies Network convenes 'Care and the Jewish Experience Conference'
Building off the success of the 'Jews at Home' conference in December 2023, the Leiden Jewish Studies Network convened its second conference 'Care and the Jewish Experience' this past September 2025 in Leiden.
More than 100 students, professors and friends of Jewish Studies at Leiden attended the event and heard about care in a variety of contexts, from the Jews who stayed in Babylonia after the so-called 'Babylonian Exile' in the 6th century B.C.E and Jews writing in Aramaic on Elephantine in the 5th century to Arabic speaking mothers in modern Hebrew literature and the 'Jewish roots' of the trad-wife movement capturing attention today.
Leiden staff members Prof. dr. Caroline Waerzeggers, Prof. dr. Albert de Jong, Dr. Rebekka Grossmann, Dr. Margaretha Folmer, Dr. Lital Abazon, Dr. Kate Brackney and Prof. dr. Sarah Cramsey presented alongside invited guests from abroad like Prof. Robin Judd (former president of AJS), Dr. Eyal Lewinson, Dr. Sarah Ifft-Decker, Dr. Mary Fraser Kirsh, Mr. Konstaty Gebert and Dr. Nicolette van den Bogerd. Two Leiden alumni, Ms. Nasreen Javanjoo and Ms. Lotte-Sophie Groenendijk presented their award-winning masters theses to the rapt audience which assembled in the Winter Garden Room of the Hortus Botanicus for the daytime program. The paper titles and presenters can be found on the schedule linked to this news item.
More than fifty people joined the keynote address delivered by Professor Elisheva Baumgarten, Dean of the Humanities at The Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Entitled 'The Kindness of Others: Jews, Christians and Early Childhood Care in Medieval Europe', this lecture surveyed Baumgarten’s numerous publications while offering an original argument about the way historians use care in the past and demonstrate care in the complex present. A reception followed the keynote and students from the History M.A. class 'New Approaches to the Holocaust' and the Religious Studies M.A. class 'Religion on the Move' enjoyed an opportunity to discuss the work of the conference over bitterballen and beers.
'Care and the Jewish Experience' was co-sponsored by Prof. dr. Cramsey’s European Research Council Starting Grant 'A Century of Care: Invisible Work and Early Childcare in central and eastern Europe, 1905-2004'. The organizing committee for the conference included doctoral students Ms. Sophia Pekowsky and Ms. Borka Balogh as well as the student assistant of the LJSN Ms. Anna Kowal. The Leiden Jewish Studies Network connects ten Leiden staff members and is chaired by Cramsey, Dr. Jonathan Stockl and Prof. dr. Jurgen Zangenberg.