Hadassah-Brandeis Institute

 “Confusion Between the Language of Ḥesed and the Language of Passion":  Misidentification of Sexual Abuse among Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Women

Dr. Nehama HaCohen is a clinical psychologist specializing in the treatment of sexual trauma and culturally sensitive psychotherapy. She is a faculty member at Achva Academic College in Israel where she leads a research lab focused on multicultural identities. She also lectures in the psychology program at Bar-Ilan University. Her multidisciplinary research spans topics such as women's health and psychological perspectives on ultra-Orthodox society. Dr. HaCohen is also a founding member of the Briah Foundation, an organization dedicated to improving women’s health in Israel. Through all these endeavors, her work aims to contribute meaningfully to mental health knowledge, practices, and policies, always through a culturally sensitive lens.

At HBI, HaCohen will examine "the Language of Ḥesed" as an explanation for the misidentification of sexual abuse among ultra-Orthodox Jewish women. The study offers a new lexicon which rejects deeply ingrained cultural, religious, and linguistic values that shape the consciousness of ultra-Orthodox women in order to impact therapeutic practices and community awareness regarding sexual trauma while respecting cultural context and avoiding the perpetuation of patterns of acquiescence.

Who Will Draw Our History? Graphic Witnessing by Jewish Women Holocaust Survivors

Dr. Rachel Perry teaches in the Weiss-Livnat Graduate Program for Holocaust Studies at the University of Haifa. Her research straddles the fields of art history, visual culture, and Holocaust studies, focusing on the representation and memory of the Holocaust in the immediate postwar period and questions of ethics, exhibition design, and cultural diplomacy. She is the recipient of fellowships from EHRI, the Getty, the Center for Advanced Studies in Visual Arts, Yad Vashem, the Dedalus Foundation, the Hadassah Brandeis Institute and the Fondation pour la Mémoire de la Shoah. Her articles have appeared in "History and Memory, Holocaust Studies: A Journal of Culture and History, French Cultural Studies", "RIHA, Art Bulletin", "Ars Judaica, MIEJSCE, the Journal of Holocaust Research", "Images: A Journal of Jewish Art and Visual Culture" and "Holocaust and Genocide Studies". 

Perry’s current project examines graphic albums and artwork created by Jewish women survivors of the Holocaust. She is particularly interested in the perspective of gender and how it impacted and shaped early Holocaust research institutions and artistic initiatives. At HBI, Perry will be working on her manuscript which will consist of six chapters, one on each survivor artists: Ágnes Lukács, Edith Bán Kiss, Elżbieta Nadel, Regina Lichter-Liron, Zofia Rosenstrauch, and Luba Krugman Gurdus.

"Selfie of her Own" - Feminine Identity in Orthodox Women’s Comics in Israel and Western Communities - a comparative study

Dr. Noa Lea Cohn is an Art lecturer at Efrata College in Jerusalem where she specializes in creative education for women. She is also a postdoctoral candidate at the Mofet Institute, researching the use of visual art among Ultra-Orthodox women teachers and their influential roles within their communities. Her research positions these women as key agents of change through their artistic practices.

Dr. Cohn’s academic journey includes a doctorate from Bar Ilan University, supported by a President’s Fellowship. Her dissertation, “Kabbalistic Representations in the Work of Contemporary Jewish Artists Drawn to Orthodoxy in Israel,” received an honorable mention from the Israeli Association for the Study of Religions (IASR). Her dissertation explores the American “Baal Teshuva” artists, who experienced a heightened mystical spirituality in the 1960s that led them to traditional Jewish observance. She identifies their artistic output as “Visionary Jewish Art,” a term she coined to describe their unique contributions. In addition to her academic achievements, Dr. Cohn held a fellowship at the Mandel Programs for Leadership Development in the Haredi Community through which she served as a curator and social entrepreneur, founding the first Haredi gallery, ArtShelterGallery. 

At HBI, Cohn will investigate the cultural and religious tensions among Orthodox and Ultra-Orthodox women comic artists. This pioneering work addresses an understudied area in the art world, contributing new scholarship in this burgeoning field.

Delivering Knowledge: Jewish Midwives and Hidden Healing in Early Modern Europe

Dr. Jordan Katz is Assistant Professor of Judaic Studies at University of Massachusetts Amherst. She received her Ph.D. in History from Columbia University in 2020. Katz has received fellowships from the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture; the Consortium for History of Science, Technology and Medicine; the Center for Jewish History, and the Women's Studies in Religion Program at Harvard Divinity School. Her work has been published in Jewish Quarterly Review, Jewish Social Studies, and in Be Fruitful! The Etrog in Jewish Art, Culture, and History. 

As a scholar in residence at HBI, Katz will complete her current book project, “Delivering Knowledge: Jewish Midwives and Hidden Healing in Early Modern Europe”.

Jewish Community Farming, the Climate Crisis, and the Future of Judaism

Dr. Adrienne Krone is Associate Professor of Environmental Science & Sustainability and Religious Studies at Allegheny College. She has a Ph.D. in American religion from Duke University, and her research focuses on religious food justice movements in North America. She has published a number of articles and book chapters on this topic and her first book, “Free Range Religion: Religious Food Justice Movements in North America”, is under contract with UNC Press. Her current research project is an ethnographic and historical study of the Jewish community farming movement. 

At HBI, Krone will be working on her forthcoming book, tentatively titled “Jewish Community Farming, the Climate Crisis, and the Future of Judaism”, drafting chapters highlighting women and gender dynamics within the Jewish Community Farming movement and the innovative and collaborative nature of the Jewish community farming movement. In her research on this relatively new and still marginal movement, she has found that distance from mainstream Jewish institutions and the inclination towards innovation have provided generative space for women, trans, and non-binary Jews to find each other, develop Jewish identities that blend ancient wisdom with contemporary feminism, and thrive.