Hillel J. Kieval
Gloria M. Goldstein Professor of Jewish History and Thought
Washington University in St. Louis

Hillel J. Kieval is the Gloria M. Goldstein Professor of Jewish History and Thought at Washington University in St. Louis. He has previously held faculty positions at the University of Washington, Seattle and at Brandeis University, as well as visiting appointments at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris, the University of Vilnius, the Universidad Hebraica in Mexico City, and Charles University in Prague. In 2002 he was the Primo Levi Fellow at the Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania.

Hillel Kieval’s research interests focus on Jewish culture and society in Central and East-Central Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. They range from pathways of Jewish acculturation and integration to the impact of nationalism and ethnic conflict on modern Jewish identities, and from cross-cultural conflicts and misunderstandings to the discursive practices of modern antisemitism. His books include Blood Inscriptions: Science, Modernity, and Ritual Murder at Europe’s Fin de Siècle (2022); Prague and Beyond: Jews in the Bohemian Lands (Co-editor, 2022); Languages of Community: The Jewish Experience in the Czech Lands (2000); and The Making of Czech Jewry: National Conflict and Jewish Society in Bohemia, 1870-1918 (1988). In May 2022, he was awarded the Silver Medal of the Faculty of Arts, from Charles University of Prague.  

Selected Publications

Blood Inscriptions: Science, Modernity, and Ritual Murder at Europe’s Fin de Siècle. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2022. 

Prague and Beyond: Jews in the Bohemian Lands, co-edited with Kateřina Čapková. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021.

Languages of Community: The Jewish Experience in the Czech Lands. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2000.

The Making of Czech Jewry: National Conflict and Jewish Society in Bohemia, 1870-1918. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.

“The Blood Libel,” in: Key Concepts in the Study of Antisemitism, edited by Sol Goldberg, Scott Ury, and Kalman Weiser. Palgrave Critical Studies of Antisemitism and Racism. London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021, 53-64. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-51658-1.

“The Rules of the Game: Forensic Medicine and the Language of Science in the Structuring of Modern Ritual Murder Trials,” Jewish History 26 (2012): 287-307. DOI: 10.1007/s10835-012-9165-3.