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Jewish Studies @ PENN Fall 2014 2014 ANNUAL NEWSLETTER FALL JEWISH STUDIES at the University of Pennsylvania THROUGH ITS JEWISH STUDIES PROGRAM AND THE HERBERT D. KATZ CENTER FOR ADVANCED JUDAIC STUDIES, THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA OFFERS AN UNPARALLELED ARRAY OF INTELLECTUAL AND EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES. ALONG WITH TEACHER- SCHOLARS, THE UNIVERSITY IS HOME TO SOME OF AMERICA’S GREATEST RESEARCH LIBRARIES IN JUDAICA AND HEBRAICA. CONTENTS pp. 2-3 Directors’ Letters pp. 17-19 Katz Center pp. 4-9 Jewish Studies Program pp. 20-22 Libraries pp. 10-11 Graduate Studies pp. 23 Museum pp. 12-16 Faculty pp. 24 Gifts Above left: "Photograph of a Jewish scribe, ca. 1917." From the Moldovan Family Collection of Judaica, The Jewish Studies Program University of Pennsylvania Libraries. Undergraduates: The conscious undergraduate students per year. topic that cuts across disciplinary lines. creation of a Jewish Studies Program, Students may declare a major or a “Outside of Russia,” the JSP-supported rather than a Department, expresses minor in Jewish Studies. Graduate Conference taking place on the conviction that the riches of Jewish Graduate students enrolled in many March 19–20, 2015, will examine the culture and the history of Jewish different departments within Penn’s complex transnational narratives of communities of different times and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 20th century russophone emigrants, places ought not be isolated or and other Penn Graduate Schools, Jews prominent among them, who took marginalized, but fully integrated into come together in reading groups of up cultural production in other lands. many fields of the Humanities and, their own design that are sponsored by The Community: Many JSP-sponsored where relevant, the Social Sciences. the Jewish Studies Program (JSP). presentations listed in the Newsletter Faculty members associated with the Graduate students also run a Jewish are open to the public. Program teach an average of 400 Studies-funded annual conference on a The Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies This post-doctoral research institute in North America, Israel, Europe, and Latin colloquia and lecture series of various the heart of historic Philadelphia America. The weekly seminars in which Penn Departments and Programs, Katz enables eighteen to thirty selected Katz Center Fellows present their Center Fellows broaden awareness of scholars, at different stages in their research are also attended by Penn Jewish culture’s integral place in the careers and working in many faculty members and graduate students. Liberal Arts curriculum. The 2015–16 disciplines, to join in intellectual Penn graduate students have the theme is: “Jews Beyond Reason: community, united by an annual theme. opportunity to study with Katz Fellows Exploring Emotion, the Unconscious, The highly competitive selection in an annual modular course. By and Other Dimensions of Jews' Inner process attracts gifted applicants from presenting their research within the Lives.” GREETINGS FROM THE DIRECTOR, JEWISH STUDIES PROGRAM Several initiatives of Penn’s Jewish place this Fall: a Klezmer concert Studies Program (JSP) in the 2013–14 featuring world-class performers, to academic year were firsts: We partnered celebrate the 15th anniversary of the with Penn departments, programs and Penn Libraries’ acquisition of the schools that had never before been Robert and Molly Freedman Jewish venues for showcasing and exploring Sound Archive (Sept., 2014); a video- the range of Jewish intellectual and piece by Israeli artist, Yael Bartana, as cultural riches, along with the many part of PennDesign Series called dimensions of Jewish experience. “Itinerant Belongings,” (Nov., 2014); Highlights included a conference on and a one-man theater performance, “In “Thinking Legally vs. Thinking Between,” by Penn’s own Ibrahim Miari, Historically,” co-sponsored with the based on autobiographical material Penn Law School (Oct., 2013); an about growing up the son of an Israeli academic lecture co-sponsored with Jewish mother and a Palestinian Muslim Penn’s Annenberg School of father (Dec., 2014). These events and Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Communication, on the African Hebrew others will be widely publicized, and Judaic Studies as it explores new Israelites who reside in Dimona—in the friends of Penn’s Jewish Studies program intellectual new frontiers and presence of that community’s local are warmly invited to attend. A fuller synergistically contributes to the vigor Philadelphia affiliates and an Israeli list of Fall cultural events appears in the of Jewish Studies on the Penn campus. representative (Feb., 2014); and a Yom Newsletter; (this list is still a work in May the coming year be one of good HaShoah event co-sponsored with progress). health and growth, in a peaceful world. Penn’s Medical School and the V.A. The JSP, like the humanities at large, is Hospital: a conversation between actively seeking new ways to attract mental health specialists who discussed undergraduates to its wide range of the ways that the study of Holocaust courses. Toward this end, we have survivor families sheds light on the established a Jewish Studies challenges faced by families of today’s Undergraduate Advisory Board, whose Talya Fishman American military personnel who have members represent a spectrum of Director, Jewish Studies Program suffered PTSD in Iraq and Afghanistan Jewish and non-Jewish students who (April, 2014). These were among the 23 Associate Professor, Department of take JSP courses. In conversation with Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations extracurricular programs sponsored by their peers—some involved in Hillel- the JSP last year. A full list appears in the sponsored courses, and some not— Newsletter. these student leaders are helping Penn I single out one other extraordinary faculty members assess the changing program that took place last year, the priorities of undergraduates. Alexander Colloquium concert of Early A final note: Members of the JSP faculty Modern Jewish Music, “Una Festa are thrilled to welcome our new Ebraica,” by the Europe-based colleague in the Religious Studies Lucidarium Ensemble (Nov., 2013), Department, Professor Steven because the performance was Weitzman, as the new Director of the emblematic of JSP’s renewed Katz Center for Advanced Judaic commitment toward showcasing the Studies. Building on the remarkable arts, as they relate to Jewish Studies. institutional legacy of Professor David Three events of this nature will take Ruderman, Steve will shepherd the The University of Pennsylvania Jewish Studies Program produces the Jewish Studies newsletter annually. We are grateful to Michelle and Peter, C’81, WG’85, Roth for their ongoing sponsorship of this newsletter. Editors: Christine Walsh and Talya Fishman 2 GREETINGS FROM THE DIRECTOR, HERBERT D. KATZ CENTER FOR ADVANCED JUDAIC STUDIES In 1626, about 50 years before director Talya Fishman, and to Philadelphia was established, the scholar participate in its educational mission. Francis Bacon imagined an institution Thanks to our partnership with the that reminds me in many ways of the Jewish Studies Program, we will be able Katz Center. The place in question was to bring some of the Center’s fellows located on a remote island where life into the classroom and to share them was so good and the natives so wise with students in other ways, and to that those who chanced upon the foster public lectures by renowned island, including a small group of Jews scholars Natalie Zemon Davis and who had somehow arrived there, rarely Susannah Heschel. wanted to leave. At the center of this The focus of this year’s fellowship wondrous society was an institute program at the Katz Center is the founded many centuries before, the novel entitled the New Atlantis, was a beginnings of academic Jewish studies— utopian fantasy, existing in an imaginary “House of Salomon,” a kind of research how Jewish scholars came to engage center established to uncover the realm somewhere between Peru and academic scholarship, how such study Japan. The Katz Center, by contrast, secrets of life and help bring light to the spread from Germany to the rest of world. exists in three dimensions, in real time Europe, Russia, the US and Israel, the and in a real place, 420 Walnut Street. The Katz Center has come to be resistance it encountered, and the ways How does a utopia become an known informally as the House of this engagement shaped religious, actuality? Through the effort of many David, tribute to David Ruderman cultural, and political life. The word people—the extraordinary leadership whose directorship has made it such a “academic” today often connotes of David Ruderman, the commitment of vital center for Judaic studies. But it also irrelevant or impractical. That was not many other faculty members, the vision has the qualities of Salomon’s House. As how academia was perceived in the and generosity of the center’s Board of in Bacon’s vision, it draws scholars from nineteenth-century context from which Overseers and donors, the guidance all four corners of the globe, giving Jewish studies emerged, and Jews and support of the university itself, the them the time and support they need engaged in academia precisely to have remarkable efforts of the center’s to advance their research free of many an effect on the larger world. The wonderful staff, and the creativity and of the cares of ordinary life. It is home coming year will offer opportunities to engagement brought by the center’s to the Jewish Quarterly Review, the oldest consider the impact and relevance of fellows, among others. I am coming to English language journal of Jewish such scholarship—as, for example recognize what it must have taken to studies, and it has facilitated the during a symposium marking the turn this particular vision into a reality, publication of untold numbers of centennial of the death of Solomon and it is an honor to help sustain the books, many in partnership with Penn Schechter.
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