Robert Braun received his PhD from Cornell University in 2017. Before joining Berkeley, he taught sociology and political science at Northwestern University.  His research focuses on Jewish-Christian relationships in times of social upheaval and has been published in the American Journal of Sociology and the American Political Science Review. His first book “Protectors of Pluralism” tries to explain why some local communities stepped up to protect Jewish neighbors during the Holocaust while others refrained from doing so and is forthcoming at Cambridge University Press. His second book project, “Blood Lines”, traces the roots of racial Anti-Semitism by studying the geographical spread of xenophobic themes in children’s stories throughout central Europe after World War One.