The world’s leading center of Hebrew and Jewish studies outside Israel is planning a major expansion of its facilities and academic manpower. Dr. David Patterson, principal of the Oxford Center for Post-Graduate Hebrew Studies, says that he is trying to raise $3 million to give the Center as firm a financial base as the older colleges of Oxford University.
Housed in a handsome 17th Century building, the Center has been used by 75 leading Hebrew and Jewish scholars since it was opened 4 1/2 years ago. According to Patterson, they have been attracted by its atmosphere of academic fellowship, its proximity to Oxford’s ancient libraries, and by the Center’s own modern Jewish history archive acquired from a private collector in Israel.
Although the Oxford Center has been an initial success, it has done without full-time academic staff of its own. Dr. Patterson himself combines the office of principal with his fulltime post as the university’s lecturer in post-Biblical Hebrew.
WILL APPOINT 5 FULL-TIME FELLOWS
The Center now plans to appoint five full-time fellows in various aspects of higher Judaic studies. It also hopes to increase its annual junior fellowships from three to 10. Patterson, who is planning to visit the United States next month, claims that the Oxford Center will be able to do with $3 million what the new Harvard Center of Judaic Studies is proposing to do with $15 million.
Among the eminent scholars using the Oxford Center this year are four Israel professors–Abraham Malamat and Menachem Stern of Jerusalem, and Benjamin Hrushovski and Daniel Capri of Tel Aviv. Prof. M.N. Mansoor, of Wisconsin University, is preparing a computerized index of research material in the Center’s Kressel Library. Other scholars from as far away as Helsinki and Los Angeles will come here during the summer, when a five-day International Conference on Jewish Art will be held.
Established under the aegis of Oxford University, the Center has a distinguished panel of patrons headed by Sir Isaiah Berlin, Master of Wolfson College. Other members include the Bishop of Bristol, the Chief Rabbi of Britain, and Lord Goodman, Master of University College, Oxford.
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