“Dueling Loyalties" Lecture by David Meola, PhD, Feb. 26 at Fairfield U

Fairfield, CT - On Wednesday, February 26 at 7:30 p.m., David Meola, PhD, the Bert and Fanny Meisler chair of history and Jewish studies and director of Jewish and holocaust studies at the University of South Alabama, will deliver the Joan and Henry Katz Lecture in Judaic Studies. His lecture, titled “Dueling Loyalties: Honor, Citizenship, and Antisemitism in 19^th Century Germany”, will be held at Fairfield University’s Aloysius P. Kelley Center Presentation Room.

Reservations are requested for this lecture. Please contact the Bennett Center for Judaic Studies at bennettcenter@fairfield.edu or call 203-254-4000, ext. 2066. For more information about other Bennett Center events, visit fairfield.edu/bennett.

In 1843, Moritz von Haber, an ennobled Jewish apostate, was party to two duels and a series of public events, including an anti-Jewish riot, that captivated the German press for the better part of a year. At stake was Haber’s Germaneness, masculinity, and honor. In his lecture, Dr. Meola will juxtapose the Haber Affair with the German-Jewish struggle for social integration, citizenship, and political equality. Dr. Meola’s research focuses on German-Jewish history during the nineteenth century, specifically looking at discussions about Jewish emancipation and Jewish religious reform in the German-language, non-Jewish press.

Dr. Meola is the editor of the forthcoming A History of Genocide, Vol. 4: The Long Nineteenth Century (2020), and is currently working on a manuscript entitled German Jews and the Press: Interactions and Influence during the Nineteenth Century. He serves on the Alabama Holocaust Commission and is treasurer of the Southern Jewish Historical Society.