Jewish Studies now an academic minor at Wayne State University

By Alan Abrams, La Prensa Senior Correspondent

DETROIT: Are you curious about the origins of the Marranos, the secret Jews of Spain and Portugal, who helped colonize Latin America? Or perhaps you’ve always wanted to learn more about the roots of Biblical theology or the concepts of Kabballah and Hasidic mysticism.

Now you can satisfy your craving for knowledge about Jewish history and culture from the Biblical era trough contemporary times and earn an academic minor in the process.

Marc Kruman,  chair of the Department of History in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, speaks to the audience at the Jewish Studies Minor launch reception.

And to paraphrase the classic advertising billboards for Levy’s Bread, “You don’t have to be Jewish to enjoy it.”

Detroit’s Wayne State University, one of the nation’s leading urban institutions of higher learning, has launched an academic minor in Jewish Studies. WSU now joins 150 research universities in North America that already offer such a program.
 

In addition, 100 universities offer a Bachelor of Arts in Jewish Studies, a program that may eventually extend to WSU, said Robert Thomas, dean of Wayne State’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Thomas spoke during a Sept. 23, 2008 reception at WSU’s McGregor Memorial Conference Center to launch the program.
 

The interdisciplinary program will look at all aspects of Jewish civilization from the Talmud to Woody Allen. The program will appeal equally to Christians and evangelicals studying the Old Testament (the Hebrew Bible) and to the Detroit area’s large Muslim population looking at the genesis of today’s Middle Eastern conflicts and seeking a clearer understanding of the Jewish perspective.

And it will offer students of all religions an opportunity to learn more about Jewish traditions and develop a greater understanding and appreciation for Jewish contributions to art, music and theater.

The program does not involve advocacy. Indeed, many of the universities already offering Jewish Studies as a major or minor can be found on campuses where there are no Jewish students enrolled.

(Left) Sara Horowitz, director of the Centre for Jewish Studies at York University in Toronto, ON and president of the Association for Jewish Studies, chats with Marc Kruman, chair of the Department of History in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and Wayne State University Provost Nancy Barrett – (Right).

Although the program is new, “Wayne State has had a commitment to Jewish Studies for many years,” said Marc Kruman, chair of the Department of History in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

 “We hope that this will lay the foundation for significant programs in the future. This has been in the planning stage for a year-and-a-half. What we’ve brought together is a program that builds upon existing strengths at the university,” Kruman told La Prensa before the event.  As an example, he cited the Cohn-Haddow Center for Judaic Studies, which has linked WSU to the metropolitan Detroit Jewish community since 1988.

Jewish Studies is actually one of the oldest of the academic disciplines, explained Sara R. Horowitz, director of the Centre for Jewish Studies at Toronto’s York University and president of the Association for Jewish Studies.

Speaking to the assembled guests at the reception, Horowitz said that study of the Old Testament as a precursor to the New Testament and a forerunner of Christianity, was widely pursued at European and American universities from the 17^th through 19^th centuries. Indeed, it is still taught as a basic at many Christian universities.

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Robert Thomas, dean of Wayne State’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, addresses a crowd at the Jewish Studies Minor launch reception.

“However, in these courses, Judaism was seen as something superseded by Christianity, and usually not as something that was still vibrant,” said Horowitz.

The official seal of Yale University, founded in 1701, today still includes Hebrew letters. Indeed, early American universities existed solely to teach Christianity and its precepts.

The study of Jewish civilization by Jews was restricted to the rabbinical seminaries which thrived in pre-Holocaust Europe.  However, with the establishment of Hebrew University in Jerusalem in 1925 and the beginning of a fledgling Jewish national identity in what was then Palestine following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after World War One, Jewish studies entered the academic world. By 1930, the first American university center for Jewish Studies had taken root and Jewish Studies began its movement from a marginal discipline to a secular study.  

The Holocaust, the establishment of Israel and even such factors as the widespread use of words of Yiddish origin in everyday conversation, have all contributed to increasing the demand for universities to offer courses in Jewish Studies.

Dr. Jay Noren, the new president of Wayne State University and Professor David Weinberg, director of the Cohn-Haddow Center, also addressed the gathering.
 

Wayne State University, whose campus is located in Detroit’s University Cultural Center, offers more than 350 academic programs through 12 schools and colleges to more than 33,000 students.

Sara Horowitz, director of the Centre for Jewish Studies at York University in Toronto, ON and president of the Association for Jewish Studies, addresses a crowd at the launch reception for Wayne State University’s Jewish Studies minor.