ChaeRan Freeze, an associate professor in Jewish history at Brandeis University, has focused her research on the Jews of Russia and women’s and gender studies. Her first book, Jewish Marriage and Divorce in Imperial Russia (Waltham, 2001) examines the impact of modernization on Jewish family practices and patterns in Imperial Russia based on newly-declassified archival materials from the former Soviet Union. It received the Koret Foundation Publication Award and the Salo Baron Award for the Best First Book in Jewish Studies. She also edited Polin: Jewish Women in Eastern Europe, Volume 18 (Oxford, 2005) with Paula Hyman and Antony Polonsky. This volume is the first collection of essays devoted to the study of Jewish women’s experiences in Eastern Europe. She is presently completing a project, “Everyday Jewish Life in Imperial Russia, 1825-1914: Select Documents” (coauthored with Jay Harris, Harvard University) which documents the “everyday” (Alltags) as a site of interaction with modernity where Jews confronted the unfamiliar, and negotiated their environment in strategic and creative ways. This project received a Collaborative NEH Grant, and will be published by the Brandeis University Press. Her new project is to publish the eight diaries of Zinaida Poliakova (1862-1952), a noble Jewish woman who described elite Jewish culture and life in tsarist Russia.

This event is made possible by generous support from the Helen Diller Family Foundation. Staff support provided by the Institute for Humanities Research.