Center for Jewish Studies

Mission Statement

The Center for Jewish Studies serves as a bridge between the public and the Judaic Studies Department at the University at Albany. The Center seeks to foster greater knowledge of Jewish history, thought, culture, and languages through community outreach. The Center extends the reach of the Judaic Studies Department by supporting scholarly endeavors, teaching, and extracurricular and public programs.

Message from the Director

Welcome to the home page of the Center for Jewish Studies, where the bridge described in our mission statement has recently gotten bigger and stronger. The Judaic Studies Department, in partnership with the Center, was recently awarded a prestigious Legacy Heritage Jewish Studies Project grant by the Association for Jewish Studies, the leading learned society in the field in North America. The grant will help support public programs for the academic years 2010-2011 and 2011-12, with the first year’s events revolving around the theme Jewish Renegades in the Arts. In the coming months, we will announce a series of events—lectures, films, a concert, etc.—that will run throughout the coming academic year.

The Center also kicks off 2010 with its first formal affiliation with an outside institution: the National Center for Jewish Policy Studies (NCJPS), a nonpartisan think-tank that has organized, and published the proceedings of, symposia on topics of pressing concern to the Jewish community, including the place of the synagogue in Jewish life, vouchers for religious schools, and interfaith marriage. The main office of the Director of the NCJPS, Dr. David Gordis (former President of Hebrew College in Boston), will be at the University at Albany. We look forward to working with Dr. Gordis, his board, and other affiliated institutions on the next NCJPS symposium, whose details will be announced here in the near future.

In the meantime, save the following dates of these spring 2010 events, and visit our “news and events” page for details:

• January 19: An Intimate Conversation with Benjamin Zander, Conductor of the Boston Symphony and author, with Rosamund Stone Zander, of The Art of Possibility.
• February 4: Acclaimed novelist and essayist Francine Prose reads from and discusses her latest book, Anne Frank: the Book, the Life, the Afterlife.  Event co-sponsored with the New York State Writers Institute.
• March 1: A lecture by Elissa Bemporad (Queens College, CUNY) on the Jews of Minsk between the World Wars. 
• March 28: Novelist Rebbeca Goldstein reads from and discusses her latest novel, 36 Arguments for the Existence of God. 

We look forward to seeing students, colleagues, staff, and community members at the above events and others. 

With best wishes for a happy, healthy, and fulfilling 2010,  

Joel Berkowitz