2023 Judaic Studies Newsletter
Message from the Program Director
Program Spotlights
Program Kudos
Message from the Program Director
Greetings to our alumni from the George Washington University’s Judaic Studies Program! I took over as permanent director of the program in July, and I’m excited about my new position.
In recent weeks, I and others in the Judaic Studies Program have been preoccupied with the tensions surrounding the Israel-Hamas war. However, it is my hope that the events in the Middle East will spur more students, Jewish and non-Jewish, to study in our program and discover how rich the field of Judaic Studies is.
In that spirit, we are offering new courses in Judaism and Social Justice and in Women and Judaism. If these courses are successful, I hope to add more courses in the coming semesters in such areas as Kabbalah and modern American Judaism.
In this newsletter, you’ll read about other exciting things happening in the program. Please note there are some fabulous alumni events on the docket. I hope you have the opportunity to attend one of them and engage with fellow graduates.
Best,
Robert Eisen
Program Director, Judaic Studies Program
Program Spotlights
Fleischman Lecture Explores Judaism in the Diaspora
Shaul Magid, a Distinguished Fellow in Jewish Studies at Dartmouth College, delivered the annual Fleischman Lecture on “Rethinking Diaspora Judaism after Zionism.” The lecture dealt with the question of what meaning Judaism in the diaspora has after the creation of the state of Israel. More than 100 people registered for this event, and it provoked a very lively discussion afterward.
Max Ticktin Lecture Considers American Jews and Israel
David Makovsky explored the relationship between American Jews and Israel in the annual Max Ticktin Lecture titled “Isn’t Shared Interests Enough? Why Shared Values is Key to the US-Israel Relationship at a Time of Deep Division.”
Makovsky, the Ziegler Distinguished Fellow at The Washington Institute and director of the Koret Project on Arab-Israel Relations, is one of the authoritative pundits in the United States on Israeli affairs. The talk dealt with the troubled relationship between the Jewish community in the U.S. and the Israeli government in light of last year’s Israeli election.
Program Kudos
- Professor of Religion Robert Eisen published the book Jews, Judaism, and Success: How Religion Paved the Way to Modern Jewish Achievement (University of Toronto Press, 2023).
- Walter Reich, Yitzhak Rabin Professor of International Affairs, Ethics, and Human Behavior, received the George Washington University President’s Medal at the spring commencement. Reich has been a champion of global human rights for 50 years and has written and lectured on numerous topics including the Holocaust, genocide, antisemitism, terrorism, national memory, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union, medical ethics and national and international affairs.
- Orian Zakai published the book Fictions of Gender: Women, Femininity, and the Zionist Imagination (McGill University Press, 2023).