Jewish Studies Announces 2025 Plotnick Prize Winners

The Jewish Studies Program is delighted to announce the recipients of this year's Plotnick Prize for Outstanding Student Writing. These annual awards recognize exceptional scholarship in Jewish Studies across disciplines and departments.

We extend our sincere thanks to this year's judges, Professors Sergei Kan and Rachel Feldman, for their thoughtful review of the many outstanding submissions.

Congratulations to the 2025 Plotnick Prize winners:

• Noah Prescott for "Schoenberg's Wüste: Exile, Identity Reconstruction, and Liberation in Moses und Aron", written for Michael McGillen's course, German-Jewish Exile Literature (German 42).
• Armita Mikrami for "Leaving Iran, Leaving Russia: Comparing Two Jewish Diasporas in America and Israel", written for Sergei Kan's course, Homelands and Diasporas: Russian-speaking Jews on Three Continents (COCO 33 / Jewish Studies 5.01).
• Ruby Benjamin for "Halachic Healing: Hasidism and Alternative Medicine in the Post-COVID Era", completed as part of an independent study with Rachel Feldman.

Please join us in celebrating the insightful and original work of these students, whose research reflects the depth and diversity of Jewish Studies at our institution.