Flora Cassen
NEW BOOK — MARCH 2026
Stained
Glass
Historian of Jewish history and antisemitism whose work connects Medieval Europe to contemporary debates about identity, memory, and anti-Jewishness.
"Part history, part memoir, part farewell letter to her native land — told with restrained anger, but more so, deep sadness."
— Yossi Klein Halevi, Jewish Journal
AS SEEN IN
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Smithsonian Magazine
Jewish Journal
The Guardian
Haaretz
Slate
Psyche / Aeon
The Conversation
ABOUT
Flora Cassen, PhD
Lavine Family Director of the Brandeis Center for Jewish Studies
Director of the Sarnat Center for the Study of Anti-Jewishness at Brandeis University
Senior Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute
Her research explores the lives of Jews in Renaissance Italy, focusing on discriminatory practices and the construction of cultural identities — expanded more recently to contemporary analyses of antisemitism. She actively engages broader audiences through public-facing writing, teaching, and speaking.
CURRENT WORK
Current work includes the development of the Brandeis Center for Jewish Studies as an integrated consortium for research and public engagement, the launch of "America and its Jews at 250: A Brandeis public course" in the Fall of 2026, and ongoing public scholarship on antisemitism, memory, and Jewish identity.
ABOUT THE BOOK
Not just a book about antisemitism — a memoir and family history. How societies inherit ways of seeing Jews, through religious imagery, medieval myths, Holocaust memory, and contemporary fear.
Flora Cassen traces a Jewish life shaped by family and history, moving between medieval Europe and the present. Drawing on her upbringing in Antwerp's Jewish community and her grandparents' escape from Nazi-occupied Europe to the Belgian Congo, she explores what it means to build a life of dignity and belonging inside that inheritance.
"Moving between Europe and America, personal memory and historical scholarship… Written with remarkable economy and intellectual honesty, Stained Glass is a quiet masterpiece."
— Daniel Schwartz
"Stained Glass is my favorite kind of book: one I have a really hard time describing… I don't know, but it's worth reading, now."
— Mark Oppenheimer
"This is a powerful and compelling book… Deeply moving, I look forward to seeing it in the world."
— Laura Levitt
"Part history, part memoir, part farewell letter to her native land — tells its agonizing story with restrained anger, but more so, deep sadness."
— Yossi Klein Halevi, Jewish Journal
"Part history, part memoir, part farewell letter to her native land — tells its agonizing story with restrained anger, but more so, deep sadness."
— Yossi Klein Halevi, Jewish Journal
FROM THE PRESS
"Stained Glass is a beautiful book, part history, part memoir… It is immensely readable. It is a must-read."
— Karen Auerbach
"Cassen raises a provocative question: Might Jews today be feeling safer and more comfortable had Europeans not done such a good job of commemorating the Holocaust?"
— Haaretz
"In a world of facile debates about antisemitism, Flora Cassen offers something truly rare: an elegant, honest, and profound reflection on history's long shadows and shifting meanings. Essential reading for all who wrestle with antisemitism's European past and global present."
— James Loeffler, author of Exceptional Hatred: Antisemitism and the Fight over Free Speech in Modern America
"Belgian-born scholar Flora Cassen reaches back to the Middle Ages to understand the current climate of Jewish insecurity."
BOOKS
FEATURED · 2026
Stained Glass
A Reflective History of Antisemitism
NJP · Foreword by Yossi Klein Halevi
Part history, part memoir and family history — tracing how societies inherit ways of seeing Jews through religious imagery, medieval myths, Holocaust memory, and contemporary fear, and how Jews try to build lives of dignity and belonging inside that inheritance.
2017
Marking the Jews in Renaissance Italy
Politics, Religion, and Power of Symbols
Cambridge University Press, 2017
An examination of the discriminatory visual and symbolic practices used to mark Jewish difference in Renaissance Italy — exploring how religious imagery and political power shaped Jewish life and identity across the Italian peninsula.
CONTRIBUTED TO
2019
The Lombard Haggadah
Text by Milvia Bollati, Flora Cassen and Marc Michael Epstein, Christopher de Hamel
Les Enluminures
ESSAYS & MEDIA
Articles, Op-Eds & Public Scholarship
Essays, opinion, and public-facing writing
The Place of Jewish Studies in an Era of Protests Sources
March 27, 2025
Beyond Columbus: What DNA can—and can’t—tell us about Jewish History, JQR Blog
April 10, 2025
Should Academic Institutions Boycott Israel? The Guardian
June 1, 2024
Not Antisemites, nor Antizionists: A more Precise Term for Protesters Who want Israel Gone, Haaretz; republished in St. Louis Jewish Light
May 10, 2024
Hidden in Translation—Jewish Resistance to the Spanish Empire,” Psyche/Aeon
March 21, 2023
Nazi Orders for Jews to wear a star were hateful, but far from unique—a historian traces the long history of antisemitic,” The Conversation; Smithsonian Magazine; St. Louis Jewish Light; Times of Israel; Religion News Service; The Raw Story
March 14, 2023
My Great-Uncle, the Kapo. What Charles did during the War,” Slate
November 29, 2022
Killing a Dog is Worse than Murdering a Jew: The Antisemitic Injustice of France’s Sarah Halimi Trial,” Haaretz
April 26, 2021
Jews Control the Chinese Labs That Created Coronavirus: White Supremacists’ Dangerous New Conspiracy Theory,” Haaretz
May 3, 2020
Is Antwerp Ready to Reckon with Its Role in the Holocaust?” The Forward
September 29, 2019
De Mythe die de joden al eeuwen achtervolgt,” De Standaard
March 26, 2019
Stop Whining about Your Holocaust Already: What Happens when Europe’s Jews Call Out Antisemitism, Haaretz
March 15, 2019
Jews Don’t Get Our Humor: How a Belgian Town is Doubling Down on Its Antisemitism, Haaretz
October 28, 2019
Scholarly Publications
Peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, and academic contributions
The Origins of Ashkenazi Jews: Can Genetics Help Resolve an Enduring Historical Mystery? Jewish Quarterly Review, 115.2
Summer 2025 issue
​​​​Joseph Ha-Kohen's Sefer Ha-India Ha-hadasha: a Sixteenth-Century Hebrew Translation of Gómara’s Historia General and its Reinterpretation of Spanish Imperialism, Colonial Latin American Review
February 2025
Jewish Refugees in the Belgian Congo: An Ambivalent Privilege?” Patterns of Prejudice, 57:4-5
September 2024
Echoes of the Past: Understanding Today’s Antisemitism Through a Medieval Lens,” Responses to October 7: Antisemitic Discourse, David Hirsh and Rosa Freedman eds.
Routledge, May 2024
The Sausage in the Jews’ Pantry: Food and Jewish-Christian Relations in Renaissance Italy,” Global Jewish Foodways: A History, Hasia Diner and Simone Cinotto eds., University Press of Nebraska
June 2018
Philip II of Spain and His Italian Jewish Spy,” Journal of Early Modern History, 21:4
September 2017
The Last Spanish Expulsion in Europe: Milan 1565-1597,” Association for Jewish Studies Review, 38:1
May 2014