Rebecca Kobrin’s "Credit to the Nation" Highlighted by Columbia News

IIJS Prof. Rebecca Kobrin discusses her recent book, Credit to the Nation: Eastern European Jewish Immigrant Bankers and the Shaping of American Finance, with Columbia News.

In her new book, Prof. Rebecca Kobrin traces the novel practices of bankers who not only enabled the flourishing of American Jewry but also revolutionized the US financial industry. Drawing on previously unexamined archival materials in Russian, Yiddish, German, and English, Kobrin tells a story that is also crucial to the history of New York, as immigrant bankers’ financing of real estate transformed wide swathes of the city.

“These forgotten East European Jewish immigrant bankers were a twofold credit to the nation: Through their offers of credit, they made it possible for thousands to make it to America, and then make it in America by offering uncollateralized loans.”

Read the full Columbia News article here.

Professor Rebecca Kobrin’s “Credit to the Nation” Featured in The Wall Street Journal

Professor Rebecca Kobrin’s new book, Credit to the Nation: East European Jewish Bankers and American Finance, 1870–1920, was recently featured in The Wall Street Journal. The review highlights the book’s account of how Jewish immigrant bankers extended credit to new arrivals while helping shape economic and communal life in the United States during a period of mass migration.

Published by Harvard University Press, Credit to the Nation explores the networks of trust, migration, finance, and entrepreneurship that connected Eastern Europe and the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Read the full Wall Street Journal article here.

IIJS Professor Rebecca Kobrin Receives 2026 Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching

Prof. Kobrin delivers remarks at the IIJS 75th Anniversary Celebration

The Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies is delighted to share that Professor Rebecca Kobrin, Russell and Bettina Knapp Associate Professor of American Jewish History, has been named a recipient of Columbia University’s 2026 Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching.

This prestigious honor recognizes exceptional dedication to teaching and mentorship across the University. Professor Kobrin was selected following strong endorsement from the faculty nominating committee, which praised her thoughtful, often innovative approach in the classroom and the profound and lasting impact she has had on her students. Testimonials from past and present students spoke to the depth of her mentorship and the meaningful influence of her teaching on their academic paths and personal development.

We warmly congratulate Professor Kobrin on this well-deserved recognition of her outstanding contributions to teaching and mentorship.

New Research by Professor Rebecca Kobrin on October 7 and Its Impact on Israeli Students at Columbia

We are proud to share recent research by IIJS Co-Director Professor Rebecca Kobrin, examining the events and aftermath of the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel. This work offers critical insight into the surge of antisemitic and anti-Israel incidents on U.S. college campuses, including the experiences of Israeli students at Columbia.

Her study examines how the October 7 Hamas attacks and ensuing campus activism affected Israeli students’ sense of belonging at Columbia University, arguing that the concept of “anti-Israelism” is essential to understanding these dynamics fully. 

Read her research in detail, linked below:

Anti-Israelism, Social Media and the College Campus in the Aftermath of October 7: The Case of Columbia

Rebecca Kobrin is the Russell and Bettina Knapp Associate Professor of American Jewish History at Columbia University, specializing in modern Jewish migration, immigration history, urban studies, and business history. She earned her B.A. from Yale and her Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, followed by postdoctoral fellowships at Yale and NYU. Kobrin is the author of Jewish Bialystok and Its Diaspora, which won the Jordan Schnitzer Prize, and has edited several volumes, including Chosen Capital and Salo Baron. Her forthcoming book, A Credit to the Nation (Harvard University Press, 2024), explores the world of East European immigrant bankers in America. She has received Columbia’s Lenfest Distinguished Faculty Award for her exceptional teaching and mentoring and is a principal investigator of the award-winning Historical NYC Project, a digital humanities initiative mapping New York City’s demographic shifts from 1850 to 1940.

Faculty in Columbia News

• “A glimpse into New York City at the turn of the 20th century can now be viewed at an exceptional level of detail: 6.5 million unique census records from 1850, 1880, and 1910 are pinpointed to residential addresses on the recently launched website Mapping Historical New York: A Digital Atlas.” IIJS Professor Rebecca Kobrin was part of the project’s leadership team in this multi-year collaboration between Columbia’s Department of History and the Center for Spatial Research (GSAPP). Read more here.

• Columbia News caught up with Jeremy Dauber to interview him about his latest book, American Comics: A History, as well as which comics he read as a child, what he’s teaching this year, and who he would like to sit next to at a dinner party. Read more here.

Faculty in the News: Remembering Paula Hyman and a Review

• Rebecca Kobrin and other noted scholars reflect on the legacy of “the Feminist Scholar Who Remade Jewish Studies”, Paula Hyman, who taught at Columbia from 1975-1982. Read here.

• The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, Volume 6: Confronting Modernity, 1750–1880, edited by Elisheva Carlebach, is critiqued in the Jewish Review of Books.

Faculty in the News: Mapping Project and COVID and Dybbuks

• Prof. Rebecca Kobrin, along with principal investigators Mae Ngai, Laura Kurgan, Gergely Baics, Leah Misterlein, and staff members Wright Kennedy and Dan Miller have been awarded a major grant from the Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation to create an online, interactive atlas of historic New York City spanning the years 1820 to 1940. The project is a collaboration of Columbia’s History Department and the Center for Spatial Research in the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP).

  Using census data and historical maps, the project digitally displays changes in demography and land use over time. Users will be able to visualize the magnitude of changes that took place in New York City during this time period, including the arrival of new immigrants and the incorporation of parts of Long Island into the city. The project leads hope to also map the entire region at 1820, which would allow them to show the presence of enslaved African Americans, as slavery was not abolished in NY State until 1827.

  No other use of geographic information systems (GIS) has created digital mapping of New York City at this level of detail. The map of Manhattan and Brooklyn 1850-1910 is currently in a beta version, with plans for a public launch of a website this fall. The team at Columbia will continue to expand the site as they collect and refine data for other neighborhoods.

• Read Agnieszka Legutko’s take in this article Fact Check: Does COVID Backwards Mean 'Possession by an Evil Spirit' in Hebrew?

Faculty in the News: Jewish Life in Rhodes

• Adjunct Lecturer Isabelle Levy collaborated on an exhibition titled Los Corassones Avlan: Conversations on Jewish Life on the Island of Rhodes. The project is a collaboration between Kehila Kedosha Janina, the American Sephardi Federation, and Centro Primo Levi. The exhibit at 148 West 4th Street runs through November 24 is free and open to the public. For more information visit http://primolevicenter.org/.

• Prof. Jeremy Dauber on his newest book, what he's working on, and who he'd invite to a dinner party.

• Prof. Rebecca Kobrin lectured on the legacy of Jewish immigrants at the New City Jewish Center. Read more here.

Faculty in the News: The Washington Post and Jewish Veganism and Vegetarianism

• "This week, as we mark the 25th anniversary of the greatest single loss of Jewish lives outside Israel since the Holocaust, it is imperative that we grapple with anti-Semitism as a global issue. An ideology that combines racism and right-wing politics, anti-Semitism has long pervaded Europe and the United States - and South America." Read more in the Washington Post op-ed by Prof. Rebecca Kobrin and Prof. Federico Finchelstein (The New School).

• Prof. Beth Berkowitz’s essay “The Slipperiness of Animal Suffering: Revisiting the Talmud’s Classic Treatment” was published in Jewish Veganism and Vegetarianism.

Faculty in the News: 'The Lehman Trilogy' and More

• Rebecca Kobrin's essay, "A Jewish American Success Story" was featured in the playbill of The Lehman Trilogy now playing at the Park Avenue Armory.

• On March 28, Rebecca Kobrin briefed Mayor Bloomberg on the current rise in global anti-Semitism at Bloomberg News and on April 10, she was invited to participate in a small, high-level consultation with the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief about the trajectory of antisemitism in the United States at the American Jewish Committee.

• Rebecca Kobrin spoke about Jewish migration to the United States at The Global Forum of the National Library of Israel (held March 17-19 in Jerusalem). 

• Jeremy Dauber gave a lecture on his latest book, now in paperback, Jewish Comedy, A Serious History at Ursinus College. Read about the lecture here.

Faculty in the News: Newsweek, Jerusalem Post & The Council on Foreign Relations

• Prof. Rebecca Kobrin weighs in on anti-Semitism in Newsweek.

• Prof. Yinon Cohen, along with Tel Aviv University's Prof. Noah Levin Epstein and Prof. Amit Lazarus, examine the gaps between third generation Mizrachi and Ashkenazi Jews in Israel. Read more.

• Prof. Rebecca Kobrin participated in a panel discussion on the rise of global anti-Semitism. Keep reading for the full transcript and video.