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On March 8, the JNE Department hosted a spirited symposium in honor of former JNE Chair and Distinguished Professor Emeritus Jay Berkovitz at the Mt. Ida Campus of UMass-Amherst in Newton, MA. The event brought together nearly a hundred of Jay’s former colleagues, students and friends. Prof. David Mednicoff, the current JNE Department Chair, and Prof. Julie Hayes, Dean of the College of Humanities at Fine Arts, opened the event. The symposium included a range of ideas about how Jay’s work as a historian of law and society in early modern Europe contributed to Jewish history, European studies, legal history, Judaic studies and other fields.

Clockwise starting with top left:

1. Distinguished Professor Emeritus Jay R. Berkovitz

2. Dean Julie Hayes and Professor David Mednicoff, Chair of the Department of Judaic & Near Eastern Studies, stand with Professor Emeritus Jay R. Berkovitz

3. The first of two panels featuring Professor Ephraim Kanarfogel (Yeshiva University), Professor Renee Levine Melammed (The Schechter Institutes), and Professor Ethan Katz (University of California, Berkeley).

Not pictured: panelist, Professor Lewis Glinert (Dartmouth College).