Michael Rom

Year of entry: 2011

Home department: History Department

Dissertation info: Early Modern Jewish History

I am a PhD candidate in the Department of History at Yale University, where I work with Gil Joseph, Stuart Schwartz, David Sorkin, and James Green of Brown University. My dissertation, Brazilian Belonging: Jewish Politics in Cold War Brazil, 1945-1985, examines the relationship between political activism and belonging in the postwar Brazilian Jewish community. Drawing on Brazilian Yiddish and Portuguese newspapers, police and diplomatic records, truth commission testimonies, memoirs, and oral history interviews, my dissertation argues that Brazilian Jews used political activism to assert belonging in their nation-state, ethnic community, and generation.

During my graduate studies, I have held fellowships at the American Jewish Archives, the Center for Jewish History, and the University of São Paulo, and have received research and travel funding from the Association for Jewish Studies, the Brazilian Studies Association, and the Macmillan Center for International Studies.

Feel free to contact me with questions about studying Jewish History at Yale.