Jewish Studies
Academic Program Introduction
Jewish studies is the interdisciplinary study of Jewish people, ideas, culture, and institutions. Any student’s intellectual journey can include Jewish studies. We are a small, flexible program. Students explore religion, history, philosophy, art, literature, cultural patterns, and institutions. We offer robust financial and logistical support to students who want to learn a language, study abroad, or complete an internship in the U.S. or overseas.
Learning goals
- Understand the breadth and diversity of Jewish civilization through interdisciplinary learning.
- Build specialized knowledge in one area, e.g., biblical studies, Sephardi history, Yiddish language and literature, or U.S. Jewish culture.
- Establish proficiency in Hebrew, either biblical or modern, or another relevant language.
Programs of study
Jewish studies major and minor
Students gain an understanding of foundational texts, central ideas, and institutions that have influenced Jewish history and culture.
Course highlights
An examination of the origins, character, course, and consequences of Nazi antisemitism during the Third Reich. Special attention to Nazi racialist ideology, and how it shaped policies that affected such groups as the Jews, the disabled, the Roma, Poles and Russians, Afro-Germans, and gay men. Consideration of the impact of Nazism on women and on the German medical and teaching professions.
(JWST 245 and REL 245 are cross-listed courses.)-
How might diverse religious traditions inform critical reflections on our “age of distraction?” Engaging works in psychology, sociology, and philosophy, we will examine sacred texts, rituals, and teachings from a variety of religious traditions and consider different techniques for cultivating attention, including meditation, sacrifice, and the use of “wearables” like prayer beads and amulets. We will ask how individuals and groups applied these tools and techniques to sustain attention in both sacred and everyday life. We will also interrogate how attention functions as a political practice, as a performative device for mediating power relations and indexing corporate identities. The course is open to all students and invites diverse perspectives on how we navigate the tension between distraction and depth in our fast-paced, push-notifications-saturated, multitasking-valorizing society. (JWST 103 and REL 103 are cross-listed courses.)
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Introduction to Jewish Studies
JWST102
This course exposes students to major approaches to the interdisciplinary field of Jewish Studies. We will focus our attention, in sequence, on different objects of analysis: Jews, Jewish languages, Jewish texts, Jewish politics, and Jewish cultural expression. In each case, we will ask what it means to call that kind of object (a person, word, political idea, work of culture, etc.) Jewish, and we will examine some of the most influential answers that have been presented, from antiquity to modernity. By the end of the semester, students will have a solid grounding in the field as a whole and a roadmap for pursuing the study of Jews, Judaism, and Jewish culture at Wellesley (and beyond). (JWST 102 and REL 102 are cross-listed courses.)
Research highlights
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“Now You’re in the Sunken Place,” by Eric X. Jarrard, visiting lecturer in religion, appeared in the April 2022 issue of the journal Biblical Interpretation. Jarrard compares Daniel 7 and the film Get Out to show how early Jewish communities living in the Hellenistic empire and contemporary Black Americans render the political status quo of their times in monstrous form and use the horror narrative to dramatize their struggles.
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In summer 2022, Jacq Roderick ’23, worked as a research assistant for Josh Lambert, examining the papers of the poet Adrienne Rich at Harvard to explore Rich’s thinking about Jewish identity and politics.
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Ayelet Kaminer ’25 presented a paper, “Perverting the Past: A Comparative Analysis of Ka-Tzetnik’s House of Dolls and the Stalag Novella I Was Colonel Schultz’s Private B****,” at the 2023 Undergraduate Judaic Studies Conference at the University of Chicago.
Opportunities
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Financial support
We offer financial support for on- and off-campus opportunities related to Jewish studies. Successful applications have included production costs for a student performance and travel costs for a visit to a cultural landmark. Financial support is also available for students to study Jewish languages or intern with Jewish nonprofit organizations.
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Diarna internships
We award up to three paid internships per year with Diarna: The Geo-Museum of North African and Middle Eastern Jewish Life. Diarna works to preserve endangered ancient sites through digital mapping technology, traditional scholarship, and field research. Diarna creates virtual entry points to once vibrant, now largely vanished, communities.
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The Jacqueline Krieger Klein ’53 Fellowship
The fellowship enables graduating seniors and recent alums in any field to pursue further education in the field of Jewish studies.
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Our newsletter
Published annually, our newsletter features recent or upcoming classes, students’ first-hand accounts of summer internship or language study experiences, interviews with faculty, recent publications of alums and faculty, and more.
Jewish Studies Program
106 Central Street
Wellesley, MA 02481