Focus on Israel

MSU moves forward on professorship and contemplates study abroad.

DIANA LIEBERMAN
Special to the Jewish News

East Lansing
of many universities would
agree to fund two new faculty
positions while waiting for an
outside community to endow two other
positions. .
Michigan State University did this
and more for its Jewish studies program,
says Michael Serling of Orchard Lake,
chair of the MSU Jewish Studies
Advisory Board. "When they saw we
were really serious, that we were really
raising the money, they funded their
two positions first," Serling said.
With the university's support, MSU's
Jewish Studies Program now has two
dozen professors from other MSU col-
leges and departments, each devoting
time to Jewish studies. Students can
choose any variety of courses as electives,
or add a specialization in Jewish studies
while completing an undergraduate
major in any field.
The first university-funded position is
in Hebrew language; the second posi-
tion is in American Jewish history and
culture.
Thanks to a gift from Serling, his wife
and friends, the first of the two commu-
nity-funded professorships will be filled

N

in fall 2006, said Dr. Kenneth Waltzer,
director of the MSU Jewish Studies
Program.
The Michael and Elaine Serling and
Friends Endowed Chair in Israel Studies
will be the first endowed chair in MSU's
School of Arts and Letters. It will be
only the fifth endowed chair in Israel
studies in the United States. Waltzer said
that it "makes Israel a large and very real
commitment within the university."
Serling has been a longtime supporter
of his alma mater, where his two daugh-
ters also graduated. His wife is a
"Spartan by conversion," he said.
"I'm reaching 60 on Friday and we
decided that we wanted to act now,
while there was an opportunity to do
something sooner than later, so Jewish
and non-Jewish students would have the
chance to learn about Israel," Serling
said.
"The university has been so coopera-
tive and encouraging about building a
Jewish Studies Program and partnered
with us by putting up funds for the first
two positions, we thought it was the
community's turn to finish the third
position in Israel studies so we could
have the professor teaching in two
years."
Recently, MSU received a gift of
$500,000 from Ed Levy Jr. of

Bloomfield Hills to pro-
vide scholarships for stu-
dents to study in Israel.
Unfortunately, the uni-
versity has suspended its
option of study in Israel
since September 2000,
when the second
Palestinian intifada began.
On Oct. 7, MSU Jewish
Studies Director Kenneth
Waltzer presented a pro-
posal to MSU's security
and risk assessment com-
mittee that would lift this Elaine and Michael Serling
ban as of the 2005-06
school year. Whether or
"The [United States] State
not the university agrees to sponsor
Department warning does not prevent
study in Israel, the proposal asks that
travel to Israel," Waltzer pointed out.
financial aid and scholarship support be
"Over the past couple of years, universi-
reinstituted immediately for any MSU
ty policies have become more varied.
students who want to study in Israel and
Some universities, especially those on
who will sign a waiver absolving the
the East Coast, have adopted waiver
university of responsibility.
forms."
MSU sponsors the largest study-
"MSU continues to sponsor study-
abroad programs in the United States,
abroad programs in Spain, despite the
Waltzer said. The Israel study option
recent bombing, as well as in Kenya,
takes place at Hebrew University's
despite
instability there."
Rothberg International School in
A Jewish studies faculty member is in
Jerusalem. Last summer was the first
Israel now, - Waltzer says, assessing the
MSU/Jewish Studies-sponsored summer
situation and preparing a report for the
program at Jagiellonian University in
university.
Krakow, Poland.

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MSU Works To Attract Jewish Students

D

r. Kenneth Waltzer, director of
Michigan State University's
Jewish Studies Program, is cer-
tain that more Jewish high school stu-
dents would consider attending MSU if
they knew everything the school had to
offer.
So, on Wednesday, Oct. 20, he's
bringing a taste of MSU to the Jewish
Community Center of Metropolitan
Detroit in West Bloomfield.
The event, which runs from 7:30-9
p.m. at the JCC's Handleman Hall, is
part of the Kirschner Memorial MSU
Youth Outreach Initiative, funded by
the family and friends of the late Gerald
Kirschner of Bloomfield Hills, an MSU
graduate who was an active member of
the university's Jewish Studies Advisory
Board.
After the presentations, high-schoolers
and their families will be able to speak
individually with Waltzer and others
about campus life, course offerings, the

10/15

2004

18

admissions process, scholarship opportu-
nities and activities at MSU Hillel: The
Foundation for Jewish Campus Life,
which opened its new 10,000-square-
foot building in East Lansing in
October 2002.
"Our goal is to get the word out that
Michigan State is a good place in gener-
al and a good place for Jewish students
in particular," Waltzer said.
No one has to tell Rabbi Jason Miller
about the benefits of MSU and its
Jewish Studies Program. Originally from
West Bloomfield, Rabbi Miller, 28,
graduated from MSU's James Madison
College in 1998.
"I cannot imagine that I would be a
rabbi today without my experience in
the Jewish Studies Program at MSU,"
he said.
Now assistant director of the
University of Michigan Hillel in Ann
Arbor, Rabbi Miller was "yearning for
more than just 'Philip Roth and Woody
Allen Judaism' and 'Holocaust Studies"'

when he took his first course
through MSU's Jewish Studies
Program.
"My relationships with the
Jewish studies professors I stud-
ied with in college continue to
this day," he said. "I am
extremely pleased to witness the Waltzer
growth and success of this pro-
gram in recent years."
In fall 2002, MSU undergraduate
Julie Bashkin received a grant from the
Frank and Adelaide Kussy Scholarship
Foundation to help with research on her
honors thesis, "The Holocaust in
Byelorussia: Minsk Ghetto Partisans and
Evacuation." Born in Minsk, Bashkin
came to Chicago with her parents as a
child.
After graduating from MSU's James
Madison College, she spent the 2003-04
school year in Minsk on a Fulbright
scholarship and now is studying for a
Ph.D. in Russian and Jewish history at
the University of Chicago.

"Professor Waltzer was an
excellent mentor while I was at
MSU," she said. "He was espe-
cially helpful in finding other
academics around the country
and in Israel."
MSU's student population is
44,000-45,000, and "probably
1,500-2,000" are Jewish, Waltzer
said. Both MSU President M. Peter
McPherson and Provost Lou Anna
Simon, who will become MSU presi-
dent Jan. 1, want to increase this num-
ber, Waltzer said.
McPherson frequently speaks of his
own undergraduate days at MSU, when
a large Jewish population made for great
intellectual and social diversity, Waltzer
said.
Those planning to attend the Oct. 20
event at the JCC should fill out a reser-
vation form at:
http://admissions.msu.edu/jewishstud-
ies.asp

❑

— Diana Lieberman, special writer