About Us

Founded in 1959, Jewish Historical Society of Michigan is committed to preserving and sharing Michigan's remarkable Jewish history, to inspire history enthusiasts of all ages.  Our customizable, award-winning bus tours bring the past to tantalizing life.  Our Jewish History Curriculum engages tweens and teens in the study of their forebears, drawing out both the uniqueness of the past and its important continuities with the present.  Our Speakers' Bureau presentations, given by our extraordinary league of volunteers, bring "armchair tours" of historic Jewish Detroit, Michigan's cemeteries and synagogues, and Michigan Women Who Made a Difference to groups throughout the state.  Our publications, including Michigan Jewish History and the MJH Bulletin, document our history for this generation and those to come.  Our innovative programming and exciting collaborations, like "The Henry Ford... THROUGH A JEWISH LENS," bring the past and present into fascinating dialogue.  In all that we do, we affirm that Michigan's Jewish history is for everyone. 

About our Executive Director

Catherine Cangany, PhD is a scholar of colonial and early federal Michigan.  Prior to joining JHSM, she was a tenured associate professor of history at the University of Notre Dame.  She has received fellowships through the American Council of Learned Societies, the John Carter Brown Library, the Massachusetts Historical Society, the Center for French Colonial Studies, the Institut Français d’Amérique, and the Library Company of Philadelphia.  She received her doctorate in colonial North American / Atlantic world history from the University of Michigan.  She holds BA's in English, history, and classical civilization from Indiana University.  She is the author of Frontier Seaport: Detroit's Transformation into an Atlantic Entrepôt (University of Chicago Press, 2014).