from out of state got a tentative nod
Hebrew as having to speak it with
from Emily Rubin, a senior who was
friends in Israel, he said.
born in Michigan but \vhose family
"Certainly, the fact that there is a
now lives in Las Vegas.
program in Jewish studies is some-
"Hopefully, it will give more people
thing that would aid the school and
a reason to come here," she said. It
attract Jewish students," he said.
can give Jews a certain closeness with
Currently, the program offers eight
each other and students who aren't
to 10 courses, depending on what pro-
Jewish a chance to learn about the cul-
fessors are available to teach them.
ture.
The faculty and courses are drawn
Rubin has taken one Jewish studies
from departments in the College of
class and was surprised at the number
Arts and Letters, MSU's liberal arts
of non-Jews who were in it. In the
school. Program classes include
class discussions, she said, "they had
English, history and language courses
good insight and I was surprised how
that have strong Judaic content, and
about half of
the students
are Jewish,
according to
Steven
Weiland, an
Education
College pro-
fessor who
directs the
Jewish stud-
ies program
and adminis-
ters its
$10,000-a-
year budget.
In some
way, we are
Archeologist Danny Herman tells MSU students about this hidden
at the mercy
Byzantine monastery in the Judean desert.
of the
depart-
)3
ments, he acknowledged.
The university would like
to build a program that
emulates Indiana
University's Borns Jewish
Studies Program, perhaps
the largest program in the
Big 10. "IU's is the most
diverse and the best model
for us," Weiland said.
Funding the proposal
frilly would require $7 mil-
lion to S8 million, Serling
MSU President M. Peter McPherson.
said. Each of four faculty
positions would require a
much they understood where we were
$1.6 million endowment; the balance
coming from."
of the money would underwrite visit-
Said West Bloomfield-native Ian
ing professors, lectures series and other
Sweet, "Despite what people think,
activities. The university has pledged
there are a lot of Jews here. The classes
to match dollar-for-dollar whatever
can be good for social reasons because
the advisory board generates.
they are discussion-based and get peo-
MSU has started a search for the
ple
talking."
first position, which is to be in
Sweet, a junior at MSU, hasn't
American Jewish History. The second
taken a Jewish studies class yet but is
position will be in Hebrew, which has
considering it next year.
been funded in recent years by a
It would be good if the program
$95,000 grant from the Max M.
took off and became more renowned,"
Fisher Jewish Community
he said, "but I don't know if recruiting
Foundation.
more Jewish students should be the
McPherson's premise that a strong
kep in going." Li
sole
reason roe
program would attract Jewish students

.

1/29
1999

12 Detroit Jewish News

A Range Of Approaches

The content and focus of fewish Studies varies by campus.

LONNY GOLDSMITH
Staff Writer

T

he director of one of the
nation's most highly
regarded Jewish studies
programs says Michigan
State University is taking the right
approach in building its program.
"What excited me about MSU is
that they have done a great deal of
thinking of how to approach their
program differently than others,"
said Jonathan Sarna, chairman of
the department of Near Eastern
and Judaic Studies at Brandeis
University in Waltham, Mass.
MSU's program, which will
focus on Israel and America as the
two centers of 20th century
Judaism, is a newer approach.
"I don't know of a program that
focuses on the two centers that have
developed," Sarna continued. "In
many places, Jewish studies begins
at the Holocaust and goes from
there. It's nice to see a university
build not on destruction, but on
the building of Judaism."
Scores of colleges and universi-
ties offer Jewish studies, each with
somewhat different emphases.
Indiana University has what
Steven Weiland, the director of the
MSU Jewish studies program, calls
the most diverse in the country.
IU's program is 26 years old, and
the University of Michigan's is 23.
The programs at Columbia
University and Brandeis are consid-
ered the pre-eminent ones on the
East Coast, where most Jewish stu-
dents come from.
Although Columbia's program
began in 1950, and Brandeis had
several professors teaching in the
early 1960s, the field hardly existed
well into that decade, Sarna said.

Holocaust Workshop

Michigan State University will offer a
day-long workshop for teachers on
Holocaust education Friday, April 16.
The workshop in Erickson Hall,
co-sponsored by the MSU Jewish
Studies Program, will lbok at the

"Many places had individual pro-
fessors that were departments unto
themselves," he said.
"The field of Judaic studies looks
at everything from the bible to
modern texts," said Sarna. "Hebrew
is also important to learn."
Brandeis has 15 full-time profes-
sors that cover several areas of the
Jewish experience because "Jews
have lived in so many countries."
At U-M's Jean and Samuel
Frankel Center for Judaic Studies,
one professor's method for teaching
differs from the plan at MSU.
We don't want to distort the
past by teaching through the pre-
sent," said Anita Norich, a Yiddish
professor and the interim director
of the Frankel Center. "We try to
teach how people living in that
time might have experienced it."
U-M has more than 1,000 stu-
dents who take Jewish studies
courses, but only around a dozen
who major in it; an additional 18-
20 are taking graduate degrees.
IU has more than 35 courses
each year and offers both a bache-
lor's degree in Jewish studies or a
certificate program, which requires
eight courses in the three major
areas of Jewish studies — language
and literature, history and society,
and religion and thought. More
than 50 students are enrolled in the
degree program and more than 60
in the certificate program.
"Today, even Catholic schools
like Boston College, Notre Dame
and Creighton have Jewish studies
programs because they understand
that Jewish civilization is integral in
helping them understand their
role," said Sarna. "In a way, a uni-
versity without a Jewish studies
program feels deficient."

essential subject matter of teaching
the Holocaust, how its role in a
curriculum be justified, in what
forms it should be taught, who
should teach the Holocaust, and
what role there is for research.
For more information, call Steven
Weiland, director of the Jewish
Studies Program, at (517) 432-3493.