The Salo Wittmayer Baron Faculty Research and Development Grant is made possible by a generous gift from Dr. Shoshana B. Tancer and Robert S. Tancer.
This is an ASU faculty award to fund faculty research in Jewish studies, with a preference for non-Eurocentric topics, named for Shoshana Tancer’s father, Professor Salo Wittmayer Baron—the most important Jewish historian in the 20th century.
A $7,500 (USD) award is granted every three years to current ASU faculty members.
- Submission deadline: 5 p.m. (MST) | April 29, 2023
- Awarded summer 2023
application guidelines
- Only current/active ASU faculty members are eligible to utilize this funding.
- Proposed research should anticipate publication (e.g. article).
- Funding may be split between eligible applicants as deemed appropriate by the award committee.
- Award(s) granted at the discretion of the Director of Jewish Studies in consultation with the Dean of Humanities, wherein their judgment as to a suitable project is proposed.
submit no later than 5 p.m. (MST) April 29, 2023:
- A proposal, not to exceed 1,500 words, describing your project, anticipated deliverables, and the significance of the research to Jewish Studies. In addition to the project description, you must include a budget outlining how you anticipate utilizing the funding.
- submit application via email to Lisa Kaplan
previous recipients
2020
Anna Holian
Associate Professor of History
School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies
"Setting Up Shop in the House of the Hangman: Jewish Economic Life in Postwar Germany" examining how Jews (re-)established themselves in business and consider what role their economic activities played in the reconstruction of Jewish life in Germany after the Holocaust, and showing that while most Jews did not initially plan to stay in Germany, their involvement in the economy was the central means by which they (re-)established roots in the country.
Stanley Mirvis
Harold and Jean Grossman Chair of Jewish Studies
Assistant Professor of History
School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies
“The Limits of Jewish Communal Belonging in Twentieth-Century Jamaica” an article-length project using the forgotten communal minutes of the United Congregation of Israelites (UCI) in Kingston, Jamaica, situating the Jewish discourse over racial belonging within deeply racialized early 20th century political discourse.
2017
Anna Cichopek-Gajraj
Associate Professor of History
School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies
Book project: Polish Jewish Refugees in the United States after the War (1940s-1960s). Between 1945 and 1952 approximately 400,000 displaced persons, including more than 140,000 Holocaust survivors, arrived in the United States as refugees. Many of them were born in prewar, wartime, or immediate post-war Poland. This book project examines how Polish- Jewish survivors and their families rebuilt their lives or built a new “home” in the United States after the war.
Eugene Clay
Associate Professor of History
School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies
"The Sabbatarians (Subbotniki) of Russia, 1765-1965" a scholarly article and book chapter on the Russian Sabbatarians (subbotniki). Although ethnically Russian, the Sabbatarians, who first appear in the historical record in the late 18th century, practiced a form of Judaism. The relationship between Judaism and Christianity on the East European plain has been complex, fraught with violence and conflict on the one hand, and, on the other, creative and fruitful cultural exchange.
Anna Holian
Associate Professor of History
School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies
"Reconstructing Livelihoods after Genocide: Jewish Shops and Shopkeepers in Postwar Germany," covers the period between the end of the war and the early
1960s, examining the processes by which Jewish survivors established themselves in trade and consider what role their businesses played in the reconstruction of Jewish life more generally. The project further examines interactions between Jewish shopkeepers and German authorities and show how the history of these (generally hostile) relations was bound up with larger questions about economic and political reconstruction.
Naomi Jackson
Associate Professor of Dance
School of Music, Dance and Theatre
"Jewish Subjectivity and Contemporary Dance Technique: The Role of Conflict,
Improvisation and Corporeal Collaboration," examines the ways in which Jewish dance artists currently working in the realm of contemporary dance develop and teach movement techniques strongly influenced by their conceptions of Jewishness. It illuminates how particular ideas of Jewish embodied subjectivity, especially as related to gender, sexuality and nationality, inform ways of positioning the body in space, sequencing movement through time, and interacting with others.
2014
Anna Holian
Associate Professor of History
School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies
"Jewish Space in Germany after the Holocaust” examining the history of Jews in post-Holocaust Germany from a spatial perspective, extending the critical insights of spatial studies to an examination of Jewish life in post-Holocaust Germany.
Laurie Manchester
Associate Professor of History
School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies
Archival research toward the submission of two articles: "An Extraterritorial Nation Distinct from the Homeland: Attempts to Create a Russian Diaspora Nationality from Below,” and “A Missionizing Diaspora: The Colonial Impulse Among Stateless Russian Emigres in Africa, China and South America in the Interwar Period” to The American Historical Review. Research conducted for the second article will eventually be employed in the monograph, The Colonial World through Russian Eyes.