Hello, and thanks for visiting this page. I do appreciate hearing from people, but sometimes the emails can get overwhelming. If you are enjoying the Jewish history lectures and are keen to send me a message, please consider that I only have so much time and energy. In particular:
- please don’t ask me a question that you can answer yourself with Google
- please don’t ask me a question about your family history (try http://www.jewishgen.org instead)
- please avoid asking me highly arcane questions, especially on lectures I may have delivered years ago (see the “answer yourself with Google” above). My brain has only so much capacity to work with the current research, I have to dump stuff I learned a long time ago. Also, I make lots of mistakes, sometimes in fact and sometimes in interpretation (I try to correct them when I get back to that period of history in another lecture). Please review the comments in the videos, usually others have pointed out the errors, which I am happy to concede.
- please don’t ask me for religious guidance: better to find a spiritual guide. I’m not a Rabbi, just a regular guy.
- please don’t ask me for requests: “do a lecture on this topic” or “talk about this person.” My research and teaching agenda is planned almost two years in advance, and besides, it makes me feel like some kind of lounge singer to respond to requests for scholarship.
I hope this list doesn’t sound whiny–it’s nice to hear from viewers, really. But you wouldn’t believe what comes to my inbox! I have a habit of never checking my mail first thing in the morning, just to avoid the meshuggener stuff that came in overnight.
Otherwise, I may be reached at henry@henryabramson.com. Please understand that my research schedule does not allow me to reply to every message, and certainly not right away. I am really grateful that you took the time to write me, but if I responded as much as I liked, I wouldn’t be able to do as much research, writing and teaching, and that’s the whole point of this, right?
I often serve as a Scholar-in-Residence and deliver occasional lectures for groups interested in Jewish History and Thought.
I am especially happy to speak to students in middle and high school free of charge.