Brandeis U Receives Grant to Establish Program of Graduate Fellowships in Judaic Studies

The estate of Leo Wasserman of Boston has awarded Brandeis University a grant to establish a program of graduate fellowships in Judaic Studies. The grant was awarded through Boston attorney David R. Pokross, a trustee of the Leo Wasserman Charitable Foundation. Through the Leo Wasserman Fellowship, funds will be made available annually for selected students who will pursue their graduate studies at the University’s Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies. The fellowship recipients also will serve as research assistants at the American Jewish Historical Society, which has its headquarters on the Brandeis campus. The program, therefore, will fulfill three objectives. It will bring able students into the field of Judaica, provide necessary service in the archives of the American Jewish Historical Society, and strengthen the University’s commitment to the graduate curriculum of Judaica. Fellowship recipients will be chosen by a three-member committee consisting of the chairman of the Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies, the director of the University’s Philip W. Lown Graduate Center for Contemporary Jewish Studies, and the Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Mr. Wasserman, a Boston accountant, died ten years ago. A long-time friend of Brandeis, he was a member of the Board of Directors of the Greater Boston Brandeis Club, a “foster alumni” group which devotes itself to the support of the University.