The Peggi Einhorn Art Lecture
Circa 1776: Jews and the American Revolution

Laura Arnold Leibman, Professor of American Jewish Studies and Director of Judaic Studies at Princeton University, will deliver this year’s Peggi Einhorn Art Lecture. The theme will be based on the exhibition Circa 1776: Jews and the American Revolution, currently on display at the Jewish Museum, which Laura helped curate and for which she authored the companion publication. The event will include a lecture, followed by a Q&A and a light reception

More about Lecturer, Laura Arnold Leibman:

Laura Arnold Leibman is the Leonard J. Milberg ’53 Professor in American Jewish Studies and Director Judaic Studies at Princeton University. Her books on Jews in early America have won four National Jewish Book Awards and a Jordan Schnitzer Book Award. She is the immediate President of the Association for Jewish Studies.

More about the Exhibition, Circa 1776: Jews and the American Revolution:

Although numerically only a small proportion of the people living in the thirteen colonies, Jews played a disproportionate role in the American Revolution. Jews fought on both sides of the conflict, with the war fracturing the small community between loyalists and patriots. In addition to serving in militias, Jews contributed essential funding and ran supplies. The war would also reshape Jewish communities. As patriots fled the British invasion, families were brought together and romances and marriages flourished. In the wake of displacements, new communities rose while other older centers of Jewish life faltered. For generations after the war ended many families held on to mementos of the conflict, weaving the objects into the story of Jewish belonging. 

Please see below a sample of work from the exhibition.

Frederick R. Spencer, Portrait of Sally Salomon Andrews, 1846. Oil on canvas, 12 1/4 × 11 1/2 × 2 1/4 in. (31.1 × 29.2 × 5.7 cm). The Jewish Museum, NY. Gift of Howard Dreyfous.