Over the last two decades, Jewish studies have become an integral part of the curriculum at major American universities, paralleling the integration of Jews in American society.
The pioneers and still the flagship programs in Jewish studies are at Columbia and Harvard, followed, in no particular order, by Yale, New York University, Brown, University of Michigan, Stanford, and the University of California campuses at Berkeley and Los Angeles, according to David Myers.
Myers, a 35-year old associate professor specializing in modern Jewish intellectual and cultural history, is the newly appointed director of the Center for Jewish Studies at UCLA.
Myers has designated as one of his top priorities outreach to the Los Angeles Jewish community.
“Teaching and scholarship are not luxuries but central to Jewish continuity and to the spiritual, intellectual and social health of the Jewish community,” Myers said. “We academicians must recognize our connection to the Jewish community and do a better job of reaching out.”
A good beginning was made during the past academic year when the center presented more than 25 free public lectures, seminars and conferences, ranging from the search for religious meaning and the relationship between Ashkenazi and Sephardi mystical traditions to artistic representations of the Holocaust.
A highlight was the first in a series on the great Jewish urban centers of pre- war Europe, starting with Vienna.
“After the first 300, we had to turn people away,” Myers said. “The program started at 1 p.m. and people were still there at 6 p.m., debating and asking questions.”
While UCLA pays the salaries of the faculty, the center is looking for private support to establish new programs and endowed professorships.
The center is gearing up for a $5 million campaign, to start next year.
Turning to his own campus constituency, Myers said some 800 to 1,000 students, of whom about 25 percent are not Jewish, are currently enrolled in 33 Judaica, Yiddish and Hebrew courses.
For many of the Jewish students, taking such courses “may be the last hurrah, the last horizon before they disappear into the vast sea of American society,” said Myers, adding, “We take this mission very seriously.”
For the non-Jewish students, “the classes expand their tolerance for cultures other than their own, which redounds to the benefit of the general society,” he said.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
