2025 Harry and Cecile Starr Prize Winning Theses

Scholarly accounts of this period have often described klezmer, the traditional instrumental folk music of Yiddish-speaking Jews, as virtually absent until the 1970s. This study argues, however, that klezmer not only endured but provided the foundation for postwar American Jewish dance music: although its traditional repertoire receded, its style merged with Israeli and American popular genres, giving rise to a new hybrid form—the “klezmerized” Israeli folk song—that remained widely performed and deeply meaningful for postwar American Jews. This analysis reframes the relationship between Yiddish and Hebrew popular music, reading against their presumed opposition to reveal an ongoing dialectical exchange that persists to this day. The study further demonstrates the crucial role of music in sustaining diaspora identities and communities, showing that Jewish dance music remained central to postwar weddings across social, cultural, and demographic lines, even as other rituals faded. Drawing on archival materials, sound recordings, and more than eighty oral history interviews with postwar wedding musicians and couples, it challenges prevailing narratives about Jewish music in this era, exposing how political ideologies shape perceptions of music and how music, in turn, constructs collective memory.

It seeks to answer how interfaith marriage evolved from a personal decision made by some Jews into a matter of concern for Jewish institutions. By combining aspects of religious, institutional, and social history, this thesis seeks to provide a fuller understanding of the Resolution on Patrilineal Descent and what it meant for — and revealed about — American Jewry. The patrilineal decision was both a turning point for American Jews and emblematic of longstanding tensions within the community. By accepting patrilineal descent, the Reform movement broke ranks with American Jewish institutions’ practice of blanket opposition to intermarriage. In doing so, they inflamed existing tensions between the different denominations that had long disagreed on how Jews should balance the tension between pursuing their individual desires and remaining connected to the Jewish community.

I explore these elements through a mixed-methods analysis. First, I field a survey of employees of peacebuilding organizations, quantitatively evaluating the relationship between resilience and its potential predictors. Second, I conduct a series of interviews for comparative case studies, comparing pathways to resilience to probe the mechanisms leading to these outcomes. I find that two factors have significant positive relationships with resilience, which are underemphasized or overlooked in existing research. I propose that “inclusive governance,” or leadership that supports staff both emotionally and through material investment, and “open staff recruitment,” or recruitment with few ideological barriers for new staff, both lead to higher levels of resilience.
My findings guide peacebuilding leaders in specific practices to reinforce internal resilience among staff and encourage them to think creatively to strengthen their organizations in increasingly volatile times for their work.