Vera Schwarcz

Vera Schwarcz is a distinguished scholar, writer, and poet best known for her work on modern Chinese intellectual history, cultural memory, and the relationship between Chinese and Jewish historical experience.

She was born in Romania in 1947 and emigrated to the United States as a teenager after surviving the aftermath of World War II in Eastern Europe. Much of her later work reflected the influence of being the daughter of Holocaust survivors.

For decades Vera taught at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, where she became the Freeman Professor of East Asian Studies and directed the Freeman Center for East Asian Studies. Her specialty is modern Chinese history — especially with regard to Chinese intellectuals, memory, trauma, and truth-telling after political catastrophes. She was among the very first American scholars allowed to study in China after U.S.-China diplomatic relations reopened in 1979, spending time at Peking University. She compares how societies remember trauma and preserve identity across centuries. Vera is also a multilingual poet who has written extensively about such topics as exile, remembrance, aging and moral responsibility.

A note from Cora:
Vera and I have a close friendship that began when she came to work on her poetry at the writer’s retreat I owned in the Catskill Mountains. Our friendship continued through the years even after she moved to Jerusalem. Vera has been my inspiration. She never fails to stress the meaning of hope to all of us through her messages and photography. She has the strength and faith to continually send breath-taking, beautiful photos of her surroundings even while living where she does. Vera never lets us forget to see the beauty around us regardless of where we live. If you want to see more of her work, or receive a list of her award-winning books, email us at coraschwartz@gmail.com.