The Program in Jewish Studies and the University Libraries Special Collections, Archives, & Preservation offers a number of fellowship and student work opportunities in the Post-Holocaust American Judaism Collections. The PHAJ Collections focus on Judaism and the Jewish-American experience from roughly the late 1940s to the present. The material collected aims to shed light on the religious, cultural, and social movements of American Judaism. Both graduate and undergraduate students currently work on a variety of projects in the PHAJ Collections. Check out our awesome students below!
Learn More about the Post-Holocaust American Judaism Collections
Jacob Flaws
Jacob Flaws is a third-year PhD student in the History Department studying under Professor David Shneer. His research focuses on the death camp at Treblinka in Poland and the spatiality of the camp during its existence. Jacob is utilizing source materials from three witness groups – German perpetrators, Jewish survivors, and Polish witnesses – to triangulate and re-conceptualize the spatial reality of Treblinka.
Jacob been a graduate student employee in the PHAJ Collections throughout the 2017-2018 academic year. His favorite part of working in the archives is the daily opportunity to expand his knowledge on two levels – first, learning about how archives work and the processes by which collections are organized, categorized, and digitized; and second, learning from the collections' subject material itself, which often is beyond his own field and consistently opens up new research avenues and ideas.
Ellen Gostling
Ellen Gostling is currently an undergraduate pursuing a degree in International Affairs with a focus on Africa and the Middle East. She hopes to pursue a graduate degree in Comparative Religion and is passionate about ideological conflict, which drives her research in the PHAJ archives. Ellen says, "What I love about the archives is that beyond all of the fascinating materials we get to use, all of the people working in the archives are intelligent and passionate about what they are doing, and they have inspired me to think about things differently." Outside of academics, she is an officer for CU Powerlifting.
Ellen was the inaugural recipient of the Post-Holocaust American Judaism Collections Undergraduate Scholarship this Spring 2018. She is currently conducting research in the collections and working on creating a digital resource and research guide related to conversion practices during and after the Holocaust framed by Harry W. Mazal’s own experience.
Jordan Klevdal
Jordan Klevdal is a second-year master's student in the English Department with a concentration in critical theory and gender studies. Her current research interests include textual materiality, manifestations of nostalgia in the 20th century, and the gendering of memory.
Jordan been a graduate student employee in the PHAJ Collections throughout the 2017-2018 academic year. Her favorite thing about working in the archives is that whenever you start looking through a collection, you stumble across tiny, unexpected details. These could be anything from a scribbled note to an editor, to a funny post-it note, to an uncatalogued snapshot. "These personal traces really can't be cataloged and so they always surface as a surprise and bring with them a certain joy of discovery," Jordan says, "They are part of what makes the archives so vibrant and, in a way, alive."
Adrian Auchterlorie
Adrian Auchterlorie is an undergraduate student currently working towards a BA in Political Science and a minor in English Literature.
Adrian currently holds an undergraduate student position in the PHAJ Collections conducting copyright research for the digitized audiocassetes in the Zalman M. Schachter-Shalomi Papers. She determines potential copyright holders on digitized materials held in the collections, finds contact information for potential holders, and reaches out for confirmation and appropriate credit information. Adrian enjoys working in archives because there are so many treasures to be found and she always learns new things.