The Transnational Key: Response to Judit Bokser Liwerant’s 2017 Sklare Lecture

Abstract

Judit Liwerant’s exploration of the “binomial” of the national and the transnational takes up one of the most significant shifts in history and the social sciences of the last few decades. Her focus on Latin American Jewry and how it is transformed by a transnational approach is consistent with a parallel focus in the study of North American Jewry. Liwerant’s analysis of the constantly shifting processes experienced by the Jews of the Americas underlines the constant negotiations involved in historical memories, networks, migration flows and cultural bonds that were and are never contained by national boundaries. Her work is a timely and important contribution to transnational studies of Jews.