Going To Shul After The Zombie Apocalypse: Jewishness in The Last Of Us

The 2020 video game The Last of Us Part II introduced Jewish characters and settings into its post-apocalyptic vision of the U.S., including a hauntingly preserved synagogue and Dina, the Sephardic Jewish girlfriend of protagonist Ellie—hailed as “the most fleshed-out direct Jewish representation in a major video game.” The hit HBO adaptation has brought these characters to an even wider audience, while also fueling debate about whether the story functions as an allegory for larger issues affecting the Jewish people. Drawing on exclusive insights from the game’s creators and deep research, Josh Lambert will explore the place of Jews in The Last of Us universe, including never-before-seen details excavated from the game itself. He’ll also unpack how the franchise’s efforts at respectful representation are shaped—sometimes awkwardly—by Christian assumptions, and whether the TV series is doing any better.

Josh Lambert is the Sophia Moses Robison Associate Professor of Jewish Studies and English, and director of the Jewish Studies Program, at Wellesley College. A scholar working at the intersection of Jewish Studies and American Studies, he is the author of the books Unclean Lips (NYU, 2014) and The Literary Mafia (Yale, 2022), which explore two areas in which Jewishness profoundly shaped the direction of modern and contemporary life in the U.S.: in the former, around questions of obscenity and sexual representation, and in the latter, in the development of the book publishing industry. He served from 2012 to 2020 as the Academic Director of the Yiddish Book Center, and co-edited the anthology How Yiddish Changed America and How America Changed Yiddish (Restless Books, 2020). He judges fiction prizes regularly (including the $100,000 Sami Rohr Prize), and writes book reviews and essays for general audiences in publications like the New York Times Book Review, Jewish Currents, and Lilith.

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