Brandeis Stories

October 27, 2025 • General

Brandeis University has announced the appointment of Flora Cassen, educator, author and scholar of Jewish, Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, as the inaugural Lavine Family Director of the Brandeis Center for Jewish Studies, a position established through an endowment from Jeannie and Jonathan Lavine through the Lavine Family Foundation. She also will serve as the director of the Sarnat Center for the Study of Anti-Jewishness.

Cassen, who joins Brandeis Jan. 1, 2026, will hold a faculty appointment in the Near Eastern and Judaic Studies Department and an affiliation with the History Department, and will join the provost’s leadership team.

“We are thrilled to welcome Dr. Cassen in this role as the university considers new ways to raise awareness and share Jewish scholarship and ideas with the broader community, making Brandeis the expert resource for ideas and insight into Judaism," said Provost Carol Fierke.

“I am honored to serve as the inaugural director of the Brandeis Center for Jewish Studies and director of the Sarnat Center, and am excited to lead the institution in amplifying Jewish scholarship and to collaborate with members of the Brandeis community,” said Cassen of her appointment.

In her new position, Cassen will provide leadership to enhance Brandeis’ public profile in Jewish Studies, through its research, teaching, and service to the Jewish community. She will bring together the extensive talent and resources of the Jewish Studies Consortium - a collective of five research centers and institutes (the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies/Steinhardt Social Research Institute; the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute for Jewish Women’s and Gender Studies; the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education; the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies; and the Tauber Institute for the Study of European Jewry), two academic programs (the Near Eastern and Judaic Studies Department and the Hornstein Program in Jewish Professional Leadership), and the Consortium for the Teaching of Hebrew Language and Culture.

Cassen comes to Brandeis from the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America, where she currently serves as senior faculty and will remain affiliated as a senior fellow in the Kogod Research Center. In this capacity, she plays a key role in bringing Jewish scholarship and ideas into public life, working with Jewish leaders and communities across the United States in synagogues, Jewish community centers, and other communal settings. Her public voice also extends through essays and op-eds in Haaretz, The Forward, Slate, Aeon, Sources, and Smithsonian Magazine, where she writes on topics ranging from antisemitic imagery in European culture to memory, identity, and her own family’s story.

She also currently serves as associate professor of history and associate professor of Jewish, Islamic, and Middle Eastern Studies at Washington University in St. Louis where she has published scholarly work on early modern Jewish history, including her book Marking the Jews in Renaissance Italy (Cambridge University Press, 2017). A forthcoming book, Stained Glass: A Reflective History of Antisemitism will be published by the New Jewish Press in March 2026. During her time at Washington University, she served as chair of the Department of Jewish, Islamic, and Middle Eastern Studies. Previously she taught at the University of North Carolina and the University of Vermont.

A native of Antwerp, Belgium, Cassen earned her bachelor’s degree in History and Law from the Université Libre de Bruxelles, her master’s degree in Comparative History from Brandeis, and her doctorate in Hebrew and Judaic studies from New York University.