Dr. Eliyana Adler

Professional Background

Eliyana Adler is a former Visiting Assistant Professor and current Research Associate at the University of Maryland, College Park. She received a Ph.D in modern Jewish history at Brandeis University, where she also received her M.A. in Women’s studies and Near Eastern and Judaic studies. For her Sosland Foundation Fellowship, Dr. Adler conducted research for her project, “Jewish Education and Culture in Soviet Central Asia during the Holocaust.”

Dr. Adler is the author of the forthcoming book, In Her Hands: The Education of Jewish Girls in Tsarist Russia and co-editor with Sheila Jelen of, Jewish Literature and History: An Interdisciplinary Conversation (2008). In addition, Dr. Adler is the author of numerous articles and encyclopedia entries, including an article on “Women’s Education” for the forthcoming, Oxford Dictionary of Jewish Religion, second edition, “Reading Rayna Batya: The Rebellious Rebbetzin as Self-Reflection,” in Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women’s Studies and Gender Issues 16 (2008), and “No Raisins No Almonds: Singing as Spiritual Resistance to the Holocaust,” in Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies 24:4 (2006). She has presented her work at various conferences and workshops and is the recipient of several awards, including the Rebecca Meyerhoff Research Award at the University of Maryland (2007), the Abram and Fannie Gottlied Immerman and Abraham Nathan and Bertha Daskal Weinstein Memorial Fellowship in Eastern European Jewish Studies from the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research (2005-6), and the Ephraim E. Urbach Post-Doctoral Fellowship (2004-5). Dr. Adler has language skills in Russian, Yiddish and Hebrew.

Fellowship Research

During her tenure at the Center, Dr. Adler researched the cultural and educational institutions created in Jewish evacuee and refugee communities in Central Asia. In her research she sought to expand further the growing knowledge of the Jewish experience in the Soviet Union during the Second World War. To complete her research, Dr. Adler utilized the Museum’s numerous collections of published and unpublished sources, as well as other local institutions, including the Library of Congress.

Dr. Adler was in residence at the Mandel Center from September 1, 2010 to May 30, 2011