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Jewish Women’s Voices Seminar: Susan Kahn, Canine Pioneer: The Extraordinary Life of Rudolphina Menzel
Date: 11 November 2025
Time: 14:00-15:30
Location: The Buttery, Wolfson College
In this seminar, Susan Kahn draws upon her acclaimed biography, Canine Pioneer: The Extraordinary Life of Rudolphina Menzel, to discuss the long and complex life and legacy of Rudolphina Menzel (née Waltuch, 1891-1973).
Kahn’s is the first biography of Rudolphina Menzel, a Viennese-born Jewish scientist. Menzel’s pioneering research on canine psychology, development, and behaviour fundamentally shaped the ways dogs came to be trained, cared for, and understood. Her research had far‑reaching impacts not only on German police and military dog‑training tactics, but also on the Zionist project.
About Rudolphina Menzel:
Between the world wars, Menzel was known all over Europe as one of the foremost researchers on canine cognition as well as among the most famous breeders and trainers of police dogs. Throughout the 1920s and until the Nazis seized power in 1933, she was a sought-after consultant at Kummersdorf, the German military dog training institute near Berlin.
Menzel was also a devout Zionist who worked tirelessly to convince the leaders of the Yishuv that dogs could help build and protect the nascent Jewish state. In fact, teaching Jews to like dogs and training dogs to serve Jews became Menzel's unique kind of Zionist mission.
In 1938, Menzel escaped Nazi-occupied Austria and moved to Palestine, where she launched a series of ambitious canine initiatives: she published the first dog-training manual in Hebrew, founded the Palestine Kennel Club, established the Palestine Research Institute for Canine Psychology and Training, and organised dog handling courses for the Haganah; hundreds of her trained dogs served alongside Jewish forces in the 1948 war, detecting mines, carrying messages, and pursuing enemies. In the 1950s, she created the first guide-dog institute in the Middle East and invented Israel’s national dog breed, the Canaan dog. In 1962 at the age of 71, she was appointed associate professor of animal psychology at Tel Aviv University.
Speaker Details:
Susan Kahn is Associate Director of the Julis-Rabinowitz Program on Jewish and Israeli Law at Harvard Law School. She received a PhD in Anthropology and a master’s degree in Middle Eastern Studies from Harvard University. From 2003-2015, she served as Associate Director of the Centre for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard, Director of the Master’s Program in Middle Eastern Studies, and Lecturer in Near Eastern Languages and Civilisations; she received 14 Certificates of Excellence and Distinction in Teaching and was nominated for the Everett Mendelsohn Excellence in Mentoring Award. Her latest book, Canine Pioneer: The Extraordinary Life of Rudolphina Menzel, was published by Brandeis University Press in 2022. Her previous book Reproducing Jews: A Cultural Account of Assisted Conception in Israel (Duke 2000) won a National Jewish Book Award, the Eileen Basker Prize for Outstanding Research in Gender and Health from the American Anthropological Association, and the Musher Publication Prize, awarded biennially by the National Foundation for Jewish Culture for the outstanding dissertation on Jewish life in Israel or America. She teaches a course on “The History of the Jewish People” at Harvard Extension School.
About the Programme:
Jewish Women's Voices is a collaborative initiative by Dr Kate Kennedy, Director of the ‘Oxford Centre for Life-Writing’, and Dr Vera Fine-Grodzinski, a scholar of Jewish social and cultural history.
The Programme is the first of its kind at any UK academic institution. Launched in October 2023, the Programme celebrates the life-writing of Jewish women often underrepresented in mainstream history accounts. The Programme is a three-term seminar series dedicated to exploring the diverse experiences of Jewish women across centuries, countries, and cultures. Further information about the Programme can be found here.
Further Details and Contacts:
This hybrid event is free and open to all. Registration is recommended for in-person attendance and required for hybrid attendance.
The seminar will be recorded and made available on the OCLW website soon after. Registration is not required to access the recording.
Registration will close at 10:30 on 11 November 2025.
Any queries regarding this event should be addressed to OCLW Events Manager, Dr Eleri Anona Watson.
Date: 11 November 2025
Time: 14:00-15:30
Location: The Buttery, Wolfson College
In this seminar, Susan Kahn draws upon her acclaimed biography, Canine Pioneer: The Extraordinary Life of Rudolphina Menzel, to discuss the long and complex life and legacy of Rudolphina Menzel (née Waltuch, 1891-1973).
Kahn’s is the first biography of Rudolphina Menzel, a Viennese-born Jewish scientist. Menzel’s pioneering research on canine psychology, development, and behaviour fundamentally shaped the ways dogs came to be trained, cared for, and understood. Her research had far‑reaching impacts not only on German police and military dog‑training tactics, but also on the Zionist project.
About Rudolphina Menzel:
Between the world wars, Menzel was known all over Europe as one of the foremost researchers on canine cognition as well as among the most famous breeders and trainers of police dogs. Throughout the 1920s and until the Nazis seized power in 1933, she was a sought-after consultant at Kummersdorf, the German military dog training institute near Berlin.
Menzel was also a devout Zionist who worked tirelessly to convince the leaders of the Yishuv that dogs could help build and protect the nascent Jewish state. In fact, teaching Jews to like dogs and training dogs to serve Jews became Menzel's unique kind of Zionist mission.
In 1938, Menzel escaped Nazi-occupied Austria and moved to Palestine, where she launched a series of ambitious canine initiatives: she published the first dog-training manual in Hebrew, founded the Palestine Kennel Club, established the Palestine Research Institute for Canine Psychology and Training, and organised dog handling courses for the Haganah; hundreds of her trained dogs served alongside Jewish forces in the 1948 war, detecting mines, carrying messages, and pursuing enemies. In the 1950s, she created the first guide-dog institute in the Middle East and invented Israel’s national dog breed, the Canaan dog. In 1962 at the age of 71, she was appointed associate professor of animal psychology at Tel Aviv University.
Speaker Details:
Susan Kahn is Associate Director of the Julis-Rabinowitz Program on Jewish and Israeli Law at Harvard Law School. She received a PhD in Anthropology and a master’s degree in Middle Eastern Studies from Harvard University. From 2003-2015, she served as Associate Director of the Centre for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard, Director of the Master’s Program in Middle Eastern Studies, and Lecturer in Near Eastern Languages and Civilisations; she received 14 Certificates of Excellence and Distinction in Teaching and was nominated for the Everett Mendelsohn Excellence in Mentoring Award. Her latest book, Canine Pioneer: The Extraordinary Life of Rudolphina Menzel, was published by Brandeis University Press in 2022. Her previous book Reproducing Jews: A Cultural Account of Assisted Conception in Israel (Duke 2000) won a National Jewish Book Award, the Eileen Basker Prize for Outstanding Research in Gender and Health from the American Anthropological Association, and the Musher Publication Prize, awarded biennially by the National Foundation for Jewish Culture for the outstanding dissertation on Jewish life in Israel or America. She teaches a course on “The History of the Jewish People” at Harvard Extension School.
About the Programme:
Jewish Women's Voices is a collaborative initiative by Dr Kate Kennedy, Director of the ‘Oxford Centre for Life-Writing’, and Dr Vera Fine-Grodzinski, a scholar of Jewish social and cultural history.
The Programme is the first of its kind at any UK academic institution. Launched in October 2023, the Programme celebrates the life-writing of Jewish women often underrepresented in mainstream history accounts. The Programme is a three-term seminar series dedicated to exploring the diverse experiences of Jewish women across centuries, countries, and cultures. Further information about the Programme can be found here.
Further Details and Contacts:
This hybrid event is free and open to all. Registration is recommended for in-person attendance and required for hybrid attendance.
The seminar will be recorded and made available on the OCLW website soon after. Registration is not required to access the recording.
Registration will close at 10:30 on 11 November 2025.
Any queries regarding this event should be addressed to OCLW Events Manager, Dr Eleri Anona Watson.