Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett
Professor Emerita of Performance Studies and University Professor Emerita
New York University

Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett is Professor Emerita of Performance Studies and University Professor Emerita at New York University, where she was also Affiliated Professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies. She is best known for her interdisciplinary contributions to Yiddish studies and to the theory and history of museums, tourism, and heritage. She is currently Ronald S. Lauder Chief Curator of the Core Exhibition at POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw. She received honorary doctorates from the Jewish Theological Seminary, University of Haifa, and Indiana University, the Mlotek Prize for Yiddish and Yiddish Culture, and the 2015 Marshall Sklare Award for her contribution to the social scientific study of Jewry. She was decorated with the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland and was recently elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She received the 1921 Lifetime Scholarly Achievement Award from the American Folklore Society. The Brayndl Yiddish Folksong Prize was established in her honor in 2022. She has served on Advisory Boards for the Council of American Jewish Museums, Jewish Museum Vienna, Jewish Museum Berlin, and the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center in Moscow. She also advises on museum and exhibition projects in Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Albania, New Zealand, United States, and Israel.

Selected Publications

Destination Culture: Tourism, Museums, and Heritage (1998)

The Israel Experience: Studies in Youth Travel and Jewish Identity (with Harvey Goldberg and Samuel Heilman) (2002)

They Called Me Mayer July: Painted Memories of a Jewish Childhood in Poland Before the Holocaust (with Mayer Kirshenblatt) (2007)

The Art of Being Jewish in Modern Times (with Jonathan Karp) (2007)

Anne Frank Unbound: Media, Imagination, Memory (with Jeffrey Shandler) (2012)