Migration has been integral to the Jewish experience since antiquity but remains an under-researched area of Jewish studies.
The Parkes Institute has a group of scholars with expertise and an international focus on migration. Their work covers different periods and places and often places Jewish migration in a comparative perspective. Members of the Parkes Institute approach Jewish migration from a range of perspectives - from the mechanics of Jewish journeys themselves through to the cultural and artistic legacy of movements of Jews. They have particular interest in the ‘archive' created migration whether in the more obvious form of letters, diaries and the written archive or through music, paintings, film and television.
The academic expertise of the Parkes Institute in Jewish migration is supplemented by the Jewish archive collection itself which is rich in the study of Jewish migration. Undergraduate, postgraduate and adult education within the Parkes Institute has a strong focus on Jewish migration as does our conference and seminar programme.
Shirli Gilbert
My research centres broadly on the Holocaust. I have published widely on music in the Nazi ghettos and camps as well as on issues relating to Holocaust memory, and my current research explores the ways in which the Holocaust shaped understandings of and responses to apartheid in South Africa (1948-1994).
James Jordan
My work takes me across a number of different fields that intersect with an interest and research expertise in Holocaust studies and education, Post-war Britain, museums and public history, film and television studies, history, race and racism.
Tony Kushner
My main research area is British Jewish history in the late 19th and 20th centuries covering the social history of British Jewry, immigration issues and responses to the Jews. I also have strong interests in the Holocaust (especially liberal democratic responses and post-war representation), refugee movements, immigration and ethnicity in modern British history and general issues of history, representation and the heritage industry.
Joachim Schlör
My interests are wide ranging from urban studies (the history and perception of cities such as Berlin, Tel-Aviv, or Odessa), topography (the role and meaning of space in history and culture, the history of Jewish forms of settlement), migration (the history of German Jews in Palestine/Israel, but also in Britain and the United States), and archives (the study of connections between historical events and the archival collections in a European context).
