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.