Jacob Morrow-Spitzer

Jacob Morrow-Spitzer is a scholar of modern Jewish history and American political history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He is currently a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of History at Yale University, where he is finishing a dissertation called “Worthy Citizens: Jewish Politics in the Age of American State Transformation, 1850-1935.” His research interests include the histories of Jewish citizenship and emancipation; the construction of race; the intersection between immigration, carcerality, and state control; labor and political economy; and the history of Jews in the American South.

For the 2024-25 academic year, Jacob is the Sid and Ruth Lapidus Graduate Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Research at the Center for Jewish History in New York. In 2025-26, he will hold the Association for Jewish Studies’ Dissertation Completion Fellowship. Jacob is also an affiliate of Yale’s Jewish Studies Program and a Fellow at the Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning.

Jacob earned his M.Phil. and M.A. from Yale and his B.A. in History and Jewish Studies (magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa) from Tulane University.

Outside of academia, Jacob is an avid distance runner. He has completed several major marathons, including Boston, New York, and Chicago. In the winter months he both Nordic and downhill skis and waits impatiently for the baseball season to return. He is also a passionate, yet fairly unskilled, cook.

Jacob originally hails from Portland, Maine. He now lives in Brooklyn, New York with his partner Lily and their cat Louise.

Email: jacob.morrow-spitzer@yale.edu