Holy Cross is committed to deepening understanding of Judaism, Jewish life around the world, and Jewish-Christian relations. Funded by the College and by the Kraft-Hiatt family, the Kraft-Hiatt Program for Jewish-Christian Understanding sponsors a number of opportunities that continue to have profound impact on individual student and faculty participants and the campus community at large. The initiative includes lecture series, visiting scholars, and support for faculty and students to study abroad.
Lecture Series
Each semester, the McFarland Center presents Kraft-Hiatt lectures, performances and other events on the Holocaust, Jewish history and contemporary Jewish faith and life. Recent guest speakers have included David Kertzer, Yaakov Katz, Rabbi Abie Ingber, Ervin Staub, Marion Kaplan, Alan Rosen, Yehuda Bauer, Nir Eisikovits and Aaron Levine. In collaboration with the Worcester JCC, the Center has hosted talks by Paula Fredriksen and James Carroll. Audio and/or video recordings of many past lectures are available.
Watch Online
March 20, 2023
Torah and Mitzvahs in Hell: What Might We Learn from the Astonishing Jewish Religious Activity in Auschwitz?—Alan Rosen, Kraft-Hiatt Scholar in Residence, shares stories from Holocaust survivors who found ways to pray, do mitzvahs, keep calendars and observe Judaism while prisoners in Auschwitz.
November 15, 2022
Home in a Distant Land: Archaeology and the Study of Uprooted Communities in Israel—Ido Koch, senior lecturer in archaeology at Tel Aviv University and co-director of the Tel Hadid Expedition, describes a community of deportees from Babylonia (southern Iraq), focusing on their experience of being deported, how they rebuilt their life in a new place, and how archaeologists can find them.
