Jacob Morrow-Spitzer is a PhD candidate in studying modern Jewish history. His research interests are at the intersections of American Jewish life, politics, citizenship, immigration, and race/racism. His dissertation, “Worthy Citizens: Jewish Politics in the Age of American State Transformation, 1850-1935” explores how American Jewish leaders negotiated their community’s citizenship between the end of slavery and the rise of the New Deal. His published work has appeared in American Jewish History, Southern Jewish History, and In Geveb. His projects have been supported by fellowships from the American Academy of Jewish Research, the American Jewish Historical Society, the Tauber Center (Brandeis), the Feinstein Center (Temple), the Pearlstein/Lipov Center (Charleston), and the American Jewish Archives. For the 2024-25 academic year, Jacob was the Sid and Ruth Lapidus Graduate Fellow at the Center for Jewish History’s Institute for Advanced Research in New York. For the 2025-2026 academic year, Jacob will be an Association for Jewish Studies Dissertation Completion Fellow.
At Yale, Jacob facilitates the Modern Jewish History Colloquium and works as a Graduate Writing Fellow at the Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning. He is a Graduate Affiliate of Grace Hopper College.