Jessica Hammerman

I am an instructional technology fellow for Professor Friedlander’s Seminar II class, and in that capacity I am here to help to seamlessly integrate technology into our course.

I am a doctoral candidate in modern European history.  I am writing a dissertation about Jews in Algeria and Jews in France in the 1950s and 1960s.  The Algerian War for decolonization was an important time for Jews in both places to reflect on what it meant to be a minority inside France.  Trying to come together as a community for the first time, Jews were very diverse–many were atheists, others were religious; some Zionist, others did not know of Israel’s existence.  The challenge of my project is to capture the diverse views and to fairly represent the individuals who held those views.

I got married this summer, and my friend who is a fashion designer made me a dress to look like a modified version of a traditional-Jewish North African wedding dress.

a 19th-century dress at the Jewish museum in Paris

This was the variation of the dress that my friend conceived

This was a sketch of a Moroccan Jewish woman, year unknown.

I grew up in Phoenix, Arizona. I am Jewish and my great grandmother came to Ellis Island from Russia in 1917. My father’s side of the family is from Hungary.  I still have a lot to learn about my own heritage, but I am a third-generation American on both sides.

Come see me in Macaulay Honors College between 11 and 5 on Mondays.

Leave a Reply

You have to register to add a comment.