The University of Florida’s Bud Shorstein Center will host a free public lecture, “The Wandering Jew in Israel, 1952-1955,” on Wednesday, Sept. 30, at the Pugh Hall Ocora in Gainesville.
The free lecture will run from 5:30 to 7 p.m. at 296 Buckman Drive and will feature Yair Mintzker, a professor of European history at Princeton University. The event will be held in person and streamed live online. Light refreshments will be served beginning at 5:30 p.m.
The event is free and open to the public. Parking is available in the Murphree Lot. Guests may be dropped off directly in front of Pugh Hall before parking. Attendees should follow all posted campus parking regulations. Registration is available through Eventbrite. A parking map is available online.
The lecture will examine one of the most recent reported appearances of the Wandering Jew, a legendary figure whose story originated in an anonymous German pamphlet published in 1602. The pamphlet describes Ahasverus, a Jewish man who was cursed by Jesus to wander eternally after refusing to help him on the way to Calvary.
For more than four centuries, witnesses have claimed to encounter the Wandering Jew in different times and places. Despite the varying accounts, the figure is consistently described in similar terms. Mintzker’s lecture will focus on a reported apparition in Israel during the early 1950s.
Mintzker specializes in the history of early modern and modern Germany and is the author or editor of five books and numerous articles. His latest book, “I, Wandering Jew” (Princeton University Press, 2026), combines history and memoir to retell the legend across five centuries.
His previous book, “The Many Deaths of Jew Süss” (2017), won the National Jewish Book Award in History and was selected by the Financial Times as one of the best books of 2017.
For more information, email events@jst.ufl.edu.