Please join Kerem Shalom of Concord for a special talk on how and why Transcendentalism arose during a period of rapid changes in American politics, economics, and society with Professor Robert (Bob) Gross, who will offer insight into its significance for Judaism.

Bob is a leading American historian and Professor Emeritus at the University of Connecticut. He specializes in the social and cultural history of America from the Colonial era through the nineteenth century. He has received the prestigious Bancroft Prize for his book The Minutemen and their World, and numerous national awards as well as fellowships from the Guggenheim, Rockefeller, and Howard Foundations, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the American Antiquarian Society.

His latest book (2021) is The Transcendentalists and their World. The religious and intellectual movement known as Transcendentalism sprang up in Massachusetts, with Concord as its epicenter, during the 1830s and 1840s, and it came to inspire both a new vision of individualism and idealistic efforts for social change, particularly abolitionism and women’s rights. In the 1850s and after, Transcendentalism expanded beyond that regional base and spread to national and international audiences.

Did the movement have any appeal to Jews in the mid-19th century United States? Does it have anything to say to Jews today? Bob’s talk will offer an account of Transcendentalism in Concord and New England but with a Jewish twist. Transcendentalism, one could say, argues that we are all, every one of us, chosen people. How would this square with the collective identity of Jews?

Contact ksadmin@keremshalom.org or 978-369-1223 ext. 0 with any questions.