123 Applications for Scholarly Grants Being Considered by Nf Jc’s Academic Council

One hundred and twenty-three applications for grants from the National Foundation for Jewish Culture are now being considered by the Foundation’s Academic Advisory Council of fifteen distinguished scholars. Totalling over $500,000, the requests range from $500 to $44,000, it was announced by Dr. Daniel Jeremy Silver, NFJC president. Sixty-two applications are from graduate students seeking aid toward the completion of their pre-doctoral studies. The other sixty-one are from scholars, university faculty members and individual writers requesting assistance for research and publication projects. The applicants are affiliated with almost fifty universities in the United States, Canada and Israel. This year’s applications represent one of the largest in the decade of the Foundation’s Grants Program. They span a wide spectrum of specialized areas in Jewish scholarship in such fields as Biblical study, rabbinics, anthropology, sociology, history, political science, art, music, social welfare, literature, linguistics and philosophy.

“The Foundation undertook the program of scholarships, fellowships and grants-in-aid,” Rabbi Silver explained, “to encourage the development of a cardre of first-rate young American scholars in the field of Jewish Studies, and to stimulate needed research and publication in Judaica among established scholars.” Over two hundred grants have been awarded since the inception of the program. Former recipients of Foundation grants are now teaching in almost fifty major colleges and universities, or are engaged in creative Jewish cultural endeavors as writers, lecturers, archivists and researchers. The applications for grants are now being evaluated by the Foundation’s Academic Advisory Council of which Dr. Salo W. Baron and Dr. Harry Wolfson are honorary chairmen.