Katherine E. Fleming, President and Chief Executive Officer of the J. Paul Getty Trust and Alexander S. Onassis Professor of Hellenic Culture and Civilization in the Department of History at New York University, delivered the opening lecture of the 2026 Thalia Potamianos Lecture Series.
An internationally recognized scholar of the religious cultures of the Mediterranean, she is the author of Greece, a Jewish History, winner of both the National Jewish Book Award and the Runciman Prize.
On a beautiful, clear evening in Pacific Palisades, more than 200 guests gathered at the Getty Villa Museum to attend the opening lecture of the 2026 Thalia Potamianos Lecture Series, presented by the Gennadius Library of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Eminent scholar Katherine E. Fleming addressed an engaged in person audience, joined by hundreds more who participated via livestream.
Her lecture, Bakeries and Synagogues: The Shared Greek and Jewish Space of the Late Imperial Mediterranean, offered a compelling exploration of the intertwined histories of Greek and Jewish communities across the Mediterranean world. Drawing on her award-winning scholarship, Fleming illuminated how everyday spaces, both religious and social, served as sites of encounter, coexistence, and at times tension, revealing a deeply interconnected cultural landscape shaped by centuries of shared experience.
The lecture also reached a wide international audience through livestream and recorded viewing, with continued engagement well beyond the evening itself. Since the event, the lecture recording has been viewed more than 2,000 times online, reflecting sustained interest in the series’ theme, These Two Points of Influence: Judaism, Hellenism, and Modern Greece.
Together, the three lectures in the 2026 Thalia Potamianos Lecture Series examine the long and complex relationship between Greek and Jewish traditions and their lasting influence on the modern world.
