In April 2020, Avital Raff ’20 became the second-ever recipient of the Ingeborg, Tamara, and Yonina Rennert Prize in Jewish Women’s Studies. The $5,000 prize is presented to a senior with an outstanding thesis that displays the highest standards of scholarship in Jewish studies. The award is funded by the Ingeborg, Tamara, and Yonina Rennert Forum Fund at Barnard, which was originally established by Ira and Ingeborg Rennert.
Raff is pursuing a double major in women’s studies and education at Barnard. For her senior thesis — titled “‘You Are All Victories’: A Queer and Feminist Critique of Reproductive Futurity in Early Childhood Holocaust Education” — Raff explored the tropes of Jewish strength, survival, and continuity central to American Jewish life in the wake of the Holocaust. With a focus on the power of narratives that show American Jews to be defeating Hitler when they bear children, Raff analyzed the children’s books through which kids are first exposed to the Holocaust to reveal the complex relationship between Holocaust pedagogy and discourses of family and reproduction.
“Writing this thesis has been a process of investigating my own heritage, education, and community through drawing on the resources and theoretical frameworks of queer theory that I have learned at Barnard,” Raff said. “Being able to work on an interdisciplinary project has proven generative for conversations with friends, family, and educators about their own memories of their family stories or their experiences with Holocaust education.”
Raff added, “I never intended for my scholarship to remain within the realm of peers who also read and love queer theory — I want my teachers and family members and fellow Jewish educators to be able to read it and find it meaningful.”
Outside of her thesis work, Raff is interested in political education and campaign leadership.
The award committee included professors Beth Berkowitz, Clémence Boulouque, Elisheva Carlebach, Elizabeth Castelli, Achsah Guibbory, Janet Jakobsen, Rebecca Kobrin, and Agi Legutko.
— VERONICA SUCHODOLSKI ’19