Lila Corwin Berman speaks about her new book The American Jewish Philanthropic Complex: The History of a Multi-Billion Dollar Institution, and about the history of philanthropy in the American Jewish life and what it tells us about American Jewry, America, and capitalism and its culture. As Lila articulates, philanthropy is something which touches all aspects of our lives and we should think critically about how it operates, and what that means in historical and cultural terms.

Purchase The American Jewish Philanthropic ComplexRead an excerpt from the book

Lila Corwin Berman is Professor of History at Temple University, where she holds the Murray Friedman Chair of American Jewish History and directs the Feinstein Center for American Jewish History. She is the author of numerous books, including The American Jewish Philanthropic Complex, which we’re talking about today, as well as ‌Metropolitan Jews: Politics, Race, and Religion in Postwar Detroit, which appeared in 2015, and ‌Speaking of Jews: Rabbis, Intellectuals, and the Creation of an American Public Identity (which she published in 2009).