Jewish Studies: Are They Ethnic?

The history of Jewish studies has not yet been written. Scholars engaged in this field, however, are beginning to subject it to searching analysis. Pertinent articles have appeared that offer two extreme positions on the development of Jewish studies: one sees the increase in Jewish studies as the result of heightened Jewish self-awareness during the late 1960s because of the Six Day War, growing interest in the Holocaust, and the influence of rising black and ethnic consciousnesses that resulted in the establishment of academic programs. The other, usually a reaction to the first view, argues that the study of Hebraica and Judaica has held an ancient and honorable place in the traditional university curriculum

Living with the Holocaust: The Journey of a Child of Holocaust Survivors

This essay was given as the Second Annual Holocaust Remembrance Lecture at the Center for American and Jewish Studies and the George W. Truett Seminary, Baylor University, on 8 April 2002

Forum: Feminism in German Studies

From Professor Wallach\u27s contribution entitled Jews and Gender : To consider Jews and gender within German Studies is to explore the evolution of German‐Jewish Studies with respect to feminist and gender studies. At times this involves looking beyond German Studies to other scholarship in Jewish gender studies, an interdisciplinary subfield in its own right. Over the past few decades, the focus on gender within German‐Jewish Studies has experienced several shifts in line with broader trends: an initial focus on the history of Jewish women and feminist movements gradually expanded to encompass the study of gender identity, masculinity, and sexuality. Historical and literary scholarly approaches now operate alongside and in dialogue with interdisciplinary scholarship in cultural studies, film and visual studies, performance studies, and other fields. [excerpt

Minor in Jewish Studies

Provides a survey of the market, congruence with institutional mission, rationale, curriculum structure and course descriptions for a proposed interdisciplinary minor in Jewish Studies

Jewish Studies and Jewish Folklore

Occasionally in the annals of scholarship there are events that turn upon themselves, so that, instead of being forums for exchange of ideas about a defined topic, they themselves become a subject for analysis and self-rejection. Our present panel is such an occasion. This is the first time in the history of the World Congresses for Jewish Studies that the program committee has allocated the discipline of folklore a plenary session, treating it as the equal of history, literature, Jewish languages and other fields that make up the entire gamut of Jewish studies. And thereby hangs a question. Why the long delay in such recognition, and what has changed now, at the Tenth World Congress, that a new recognition of folklore is warranted? Any attempt to answer this question requires a careful examination of the complex relations between the discipline of folklore and the field of Jewish studies

Jewish studies in postwar Poland

The tradition of Jewish studies in Poland has been drastically interrupted by the Second World War and the Holocaust. In the immediate postwar period the process of re-establishing research on Jewish history and heritage was undertaken by the Jewish Historical Commissions and later Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw. More examples of the individual and group initiatives can be traced only in the 1970s and 1980s. The real happened in the late 1980s with Kraków as one of the first and main centers of revitalized Jewish studies in Poland. The first postwar academic institution in Krakow specializing in Jewish studies - Research Center for Jewish History and Culture in Poland - was established already in 1986 in the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. More than a decade later, in 2000, it was transformed into the first Poland’s Department of Jewish Studies (Katedra Judaistyki) - now the Institute of Jewish Studies. Nowadays there are more similar programs and institutions - at the universities in Warsaw, Wrocław and Lublin (UMCS). Also other academic centers tend to have at least individual scholars, programs, classes or projects focusing on widely understood “Jewish topics.” Jewish studies in Poland, along with the revival of Jewish culture, reflect the contemporary Polish attitude to the Jewish heritage, and their scale and intensity remains unique in the European context. The growing interest in Jewish studies in Poland can be seen as a sign of respect for the role of Jewish Poles in the country’s history, and as an attempt to recreate the missing Jewish part of Poland through research, education and commemoration, accompanied by slow but promising revival of Jewish life in Poland

The Eschatology of the Dead Sea Scrolls

The Dead Sea sect represents a unique view of Second Temple Judaism at an important juncture with the beginning of Jewish Christianity. A study of the eschatological views of the sect provides an historical and theological background for comparison with the views of Jesus and of early Jewish Christianity recorded in the New Testament. It further illustrates why Jewish eschatology should be a course of study within Jewish Studies and New Testament studies