We often say that America is a “nation of immigrants,” but its historical experience is more complicated. How did America begin to think of itself in this way? This lecture will ponder this question as it examines the life and writings of Emma Lazarus to offer new perspectives on the role Jews, and in particular one Jewish woman played in crafting this image. Emma Lazarus has much to teach us about the intersection of American history, Jewish history, and women's history, as she shows the ways in which the powerful words crafted by a member of a small minority group could reshape a national debate and how this vast nation saw its mission in the world.

Rebecca Kobrin works in the field of American Jewish History, specializing in modern Jewish migration. Her research, teaching and publications engage in the fields of international history, urban history, Jewish history, and diaspora studies. She received her B.A. (1994) from Yale University and her Ph.D. (2002) from the University of Pennsylvania. Professor Kobrin served as the Blaustein Post-Doctoral Fellow at Yale University (2002-2004) and the American Academy of Jewish Research Post-Doctoral Fellow at New York University (2004-6). Her book Jewish Bialystok and Its Diaspora (Indiana University Press, 2010) was awarded the Jordan Schnitzer prize for best book in modern Jewish history concerning the Americas (2012), was a National Jewish Book finalist (2010). She is the editor of Chosen Capital: The Jewish Encounter with American Capitalism (Rutgers University Press, 2012), and is co-editor with Adam Teller of Purchasing Power: The Economics of Jewish History (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015). In 2015, she was awarded Columbia University’s Lenfest Distinguished Faculty Award for her outstanding teaching. Her forthcoming book, A Credit to the Nation: Jewish Immigrant Bankers and American Finance, 1870-1930(Harvard University Press, 2018), brings together scholarship in Jewish history, American immigration studies and American economic history as it explores the legal, cultural and communal impact of Jewish immigrant banking on American finance.