Rachel Kranson, director of Jewish studies and associate professor of religious studies at the University of Pittsburgh, will discuss the relationships between Jewish and Catholic communities for California State University, Northridge’s 13th Annual Maurice Amado Foundation Lecture in Jewish Ethics.

The lecture, titled “Holocaust Rhetoric, Catholic-Jewish Dialogue, and Abortion: Thinking Through the Ethics of an Analogy,” will take place on Monday, March 9 at 10 a.m. in the Whitsett Room in Sierra Hall, located on the fourth floor, at 18111 Nordhoff St., Northridge, CA.

Kranson, a scholar of post-WWII American Jewish history, gender, and sexuality, will show how, between the 1970s and 1990s, the rhetoric of Catholic anti-abortion activists often compared legal abortion to the slaughter of Jews during the Holocaust, framing it as a human rights issue. In 1965, Vatican II had condemned antisemitism and denied that Jews were guilty of deicide, paving the way for positive dialogue between Jewish and Catholic leaders about theology, Middle-East politics, and Holocaust memory. They struggled, however, to find common ground about abortion, as liberal American Jewish leaders supported reproductive rights.

“This story is at its heart about how to stay in relationship with someone you deeply disagree with,” said Jennifer Thompson, CSUN’s Maurice Amado Professor of Applied Jewish Ethics and Civic Engagement and director of the Jewish Studies Program and Ethics Minor. “It couldn’t be more timely – everywhere we look, there are examples of divisiveness. This lecture, I hope, will help us imagine new possibilities for holding fast to our own ethical commitments while finding common ground with those who think differently.”

To RSVP for the event, email jewish.studies@csun.edu

Kranson is the author of “Ambivalent Embrace: Jewish Upward Mobility in Postwar America” (2017, Immigrant and Ethnic History Society First Book Award finalist) and co-editor of “A Jewish Feminine Mystique: Jewish Women in Postwar America” (2010, National Jewish Book Award finalist). Her current book manuscript, tentatively titled Religious Misconceptions, focuses on American Jewish engagement in abortion politics during the era of Roe V. Wade.

The Maurice Amado Foundation Lecture in Jewish Ethics is part of the mission of the CSUN Jewish Studies Program’s endowed professorship, created to promote teaching and scholarship drawing on Sephardic, Ashkenazi and other Jewish traditions. CSUN’s Jewish Studies Program draws on a variety of academic disciplines to explore and understand the experience of Jews across the world. Students are able to engage with Jewish thought, history and values through classroom discussion and community engagement.

The event is co-sponsored by the Women’s Research and Resource Center, and a CSUN Diversity and Equality Innovation Grant.