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