24 | NOVEMBER 19 • 2020

Engineering Possibilities continued

Born and raised in Israel, I have been teaching
Hebrew in American universities for over 15
years. For the Hebrew language program at
Michigan State University, I teach regular
courses at the elementary and second-year
levels.

In these classes, students begin Hebrew from
scratch, and engage in many communicative
activities in class and online. Beginning with
Hebrew 101, students read, write and
converse in Hebrew. Even in the online
modality forced by the pandemic, students
and I meet four hours per week, and the
program maintains many of its strengths.

As students advance through the Hebrew
program, they work with authentic materials
from Israel. In the second year, students
watch and respond to Israeli videos and read
newspaper articles. In Hebrew 202, students
research Israeli sources, read or watch them
and present projects in class.

The skills developed through these activities
prepare students to conduct independent
research at an advanced level. Currently, I am
working with three students who research
issues related to Aliyah. One of these
students, Pelli Mechnikov, reflected: “Taking
an independent study in Hebrew turned out
to be one of my best academic experiences
yet, expanding both my Hebrew and research
capabilities.”

The Serling Institute for Jewish Studies and
Modern Israel provides strong support of
Hebrew at MSU. All interested students can
receive up to $4,000 in support from the Ed
Levy Jr. and Linda Dresner Levy Endowed
Scholarship for combining Hebrew with
education abroad in Israel. Students who
minor in Jewish Studies also receive $1,000
per semester in support for taking Hebrew
from the Ada Weintraub Finifter Endowed
Scholarship in Jewish Studies. The Albert and
Sharie Gladner Study in Israel Endowed

CURRICULUM SPOTLIGHT:
Growing in the Hebrew program at MSU

by Yore Kedem, Assistant Professor of Hebrew

Scholarship provides additional support for
education abroad in Israel.

Developing strong mentoring relationships
with students is central to the MSU Hebrew
program.

As Sami Chaben wrote after four semesters:
“Professor Kedem has not only helped me in
studying the Hebrew language, but he
reminds me to always push myself and be the
best student I can be.”

LEARN MORE: about enrolling in Hebrew by
contacting Professor Kedem, who teaches in
the Department of Linguistics and Germanic,
Slavic, Asian & African Languages at MSU, at
ykedem@msu.edu.

LEARN MORE: about the Michael and Elaine
Serling Institute for Jewish Studies and
Modern Israel; visit jsp.msu.edu.

Above: Yore Kedem, who teaches Hebrew
at MSU.

Right: MSU students on an education abroad
trip to Israel in 2019.

Treatment revolutions

Gilad specializes in engineering genes
synthetically, and has big plans for this one.

“We will bioengineer synthetic circuits from
three bio-parts—a switch, an amplifier and a
reporter gene,” he says. “MSU will be the first
to build such circuits that function as a
synthetic biological device in mammalian cells

that will be remotely activated by a magnet
and imaged noninvasively in rodents.

“In synthetic biology, much like in electronics,
we can use biological components to build a
circuit that can perform a very specific
function.”

In this case, they hope the circuits can deliver
revolutionary new treatments for diseases in

humans—for example, to suppress or induce
genes that kill cancer, produce insulin for
diabetics or serve as neurotransmitters for
neurological disease.

LEARN MORE about the work that Pelled, Gilad
and their teams are doing at the Institute for
Quantitative Health Science and Engineering at
go.msu.edu/IQresearch