Dartmouth Events

Jessie Sampter, Unlikely Zionist

Sarah Imhoff, Indiana University

Tuesday, April 19, 2022
12:00pm – 2:00pm
Virtual Zoom
Intended Audience(s): Public
Categories: Clubs & Organizations, Conferences, Lectures & Seminars

Jessie Sampter, Unlikely Zionist
Sarah Imhoff, Indiana University

April 19, 2022
12:00 pm

Virtual Zoom Lecture
https://dartmouth.zoom.us/j/8123225505
No preregistration required

The young, unmarried Jessie Sampter embraced a Judaism her parents had rejected, bought a trousseau, drolly declared herself "married to Palestine," and moved there in 1919. Jessie Sampter's own life and body hardly matched typical Zionist ideals: while Zionism celebrated the strong and healthy body, Sampter spoke of herself as "crippled" from polio and plagued by sickness her whole life; while Zionism applauded reproductive (women's) bodies, Sampter never married or bore children—in fact, she wrote of homoerotic longings and had same-sex relationships we would consider queer. How did a queer, "crippled" woman become a voice of Zionism, and why has history largely overlooked her?

Sarah Imhoff is Jay and Jeanie Schottenstein Chair in Jewish Studies and Associate Professor in the Department of Religious Studies and the Borns Jewish Studies Program at Indiana University. She writes about religion and the body with a particular interest in gender, sexuality, disability, and American religion, as well as maintaining a research specialty in religion and law. She is author of Masculinity and the Making of American Judaism (Indiana University Press, 2017) and the forthcoming The Lives of Jessie Sampter: Queer, Disabled, Zionist (Duke University Press, May 2022). She is also working on a co-authored book with Susannah Heschel about women and gender in Jewish Studies.

Please contact Shaul Magid with any questions.

Sponsor: Jewish Studies Program
 

For more information, contact:
Shaul Magid

Events are free and open to the public unless otherwise noted.