Clara Landsberg, a Jewish-born teacher, social worker, and pacifist, lived at Hull House in the room directly adjacent to Jane Addams’s for roughly 20 years and made significant contributions to the Chicago settlement house. However, scholars have paid scant attention to her story until now, perhaps because she never sought prominence during her lifetime.[1] While researching her connection with Bryn Mawr College as part of a larger project on early Jewish women students at the Seven Sisters schools, I have discovered that shortly after graduating in 1897, Landsberg left Judaism to become Episcopalian. Afterward, she maintained ties with her influential Jewish parents but also became a member of the nation’s Protestant elite and of an international sisterhood of pacifists. Like many leading women intellectuals and social workers of her day, Landsberg lived with her lifelong partner—a woman—in a predominantly female world. This article will provide an overview of Landsberg’s biography, with a focus on her role at Hull House. read more

 “My Name is Sara,” which opens nationally on July 22, is based on the life of Sara Góralnik (1930-2018), a pre-teen Jewish girl who passed as a Christian during World War II. It was produced in association with the USC Shoah Foundation.

It is presented in the tradition of “Europa Europa,” as each film chronicles Jewish youngsters who must hide their true identities to outlive the Holocaust and the madness around them.

Director Steven Oritt has employed an approach that is universalistic while also being specific. read more