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.