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IN THIS ISSUE:

• VISITING PROFESSORSpage 1

• COVER STORYpage 2

• STUDENT PROFILESpages 3-4

• COURSE LISTINGSpages 5-6

• FALL 2007 LECTURESback cover

Ruth WisseReceives NationalHumanities Medalfor 2007

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CENTER FOR JEWISH STUDIESDIRECTOR: Shaye J.D. Cohen

ADMINISTRATOR: Rachel Rockenmacher

STAFF ASSISTANT: Brenna Wells

CHAIR, FRIENDS OF THE CENTER FORJEWISH STUDIES: Peter J. Solomon

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE:Jay M. Harris, Miri Kubovy, RachelGreenblatt, Jon Levenson, Peter Machinist,Avi Matalon, Jonathan Schofer, BernardSeptimus and Ruth Wisse

CENTER FOR JEWISH STUDIESHarvard University6 Divinity AvenueCambridge, MA 02138PHONE: 617-495-4326E-MAIL: cjs@fas.harvard.eduFAX: 617-496-8904

http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~cjs

DESIGN: Erin P. Dowling

CENTER FOR JEWISH STUDIES SPRING 20081

CJS’s own Brenna Wells was selected asone of 30 singers to participate in the

Ton Koopman Workshop [ON DATE]:Handel Choral Works for Singers as part ofthe Weill Music Institute Professional TrainingWorkshops at Carnegie Hall. They per-formed Handel's Dettinger Te Deum andOde on St. Cecilia's Day in the Zankel Hallwith the Orchestra of St. Luke's.

Brenna was also recently chosen as oneof two singers to perform in the Egida Sartoriand Laura Alvini Early Music Seminars underthe Fondazione Giorgio Cini in Venice, Italythis May. Bravo, Brenna! �

BRENNA WELLSAT CARNEGIE HALL

VISITINGPROFESSORS

STEVEN ZIPPER-STEIN, The Daniel E.Koshland Professor inJewish Culture andHistory at StanfordUniversity, was spon-sored by the Leon I.Mirell Lecture Fund.Professor Zippersteintaught “Jews in theModern World” and

“Jews and Communism in Russia: 1880 tothe Fall of the Soviet Union.”

The Center for Jewish Studies hosted twoVisiting Professors during the fall 2007

semester. With the support of visiting profes-sorships and certain other endowment funds,the Center is able to host leading scholars inJewish studies to supplement the coursesoffered by our full-time faculty at Harvard.

JEFFREY GUROCK,Libby M. KlapermanProfessor of JewishHistory at YeshivaUniversity, was spon-sored by the JosephEngel Fund. ProfessorGurock offered twocourses on AmericanJewish history:“American Jewish

History” and “The Social History of AmericanJudaism: Research Seminar.”

SPRING 2008 CENTER FOR JEWISH STUDIES 2

President George W. Bush awarded theprestigious National Humanities Medals

for 2007 to Professor Ruth R. Wisse during aNovember 15 ceremony at the WhiteHouse. In total, nine distinguished Americansand one cultural foundation were honored fortheir exemplary contributions to the humani-ties and were recognized for their scholar-ship, preservation efforts, philanthropy, andliterary works. Immediately following the cere-mony, the medalists, their families, andfriends joined the president and first ladyLaura Bush for a reception held in their honor.

The National Humanities Medal, first award-ed in 1989 as the Charles Frankel Prize,honors individuals or groups whose work hasdeepened the nation’s understanding of thehumanities, broadened U.S. citizens’ engage-ment with the humanities, or helped preserveand expand Americans’ access to importantresources in the humanities. The HumanitiesMedal is the signal award for the humanities.Over the past decade, including this year’srecipients, the National Humanities Medalhas been awarded to 98 individuals andseven organizations. Among those recog-nized during this period are Bernard Lewis,Judith “Miss Manners” Martin, MadeleineL’Engle, Harvey Mansfield, and John Updike.Medal recipients do not compete for thisaward but are specially selected by the presi-dent for their lifelong achievements in theirdiverse areas of expertise.

Wisse, the Martin Peretz Professor ofYiddish Literature and Professor of

Comparative Literature, was recognized for“scholarship and teaching that have illuminat-ed Jewish literary traditions. Her insightfulwritings have enriched our understanding ofYiddish literature and Jewish culture in themodern world.” Wisse has written severalbooks on literature, including The Schlemielas Modern Hero, A Little Love in BigManhattan: Two Yiddish Poets, and TheModern Jewish Canon: A Journey throughLiterature and Culture. Her edited worksinclude The I. L. Peretz Reader and (withIrving Howe) The Best of Sholem Aleichem.A frequent contributor to Commentary maga-zine and commentator on cultural and politi-cal affairs, she has published two politicalstudies: If I Am Not for Myself: The LiberalBetrayal of the Jews and Jews and Power.Professor Wisse served as Director of theCenter for Jewish Studies from 1993-1996and is a current member of its ExecutiveCommittee. �

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH AWARDEDTHE PRESTIGIOUS NATIONAL HUMANI-TIES AWARD FOR 2007 TO PROFESSORRUTH R. WISSE DURING A NOVEMBERCEREMONY AT THE WHITE HOUSE.

CENTERNEWS

ADAPTED AND PRINTED WITH PERMISSIONHARVARD NEWS OFFICE

RUTH WISSE RECEIVESNATIONAL HUMANITIES MEDAL

54 CENTER FOR JEWISH STUDIES SPRING 20083

Acollege class on Sholem Aleichem withDavid Roskies sparked Eitan’s interest in

Yiddish. Leaving Jewish day schools in eighthgrade to attend a secular, private high school“made me more interested in studying Jewishstudies,” he explains. Making friends with peo-ple of different backgrounds increased hisawareness of his own Jewish heritage.

Until recently, Eitan had little interest in thework of his grandfather, Berel Frymer, a promi-nent Yiddish writer who worked for the LaborZionist Association of America, wrote a col-umn in a Yiddish newspaper, and publishedtwo volumes of essays in Yiddish, and one inEnglish. Now Eitan is reading his grandfather’swritten work, examining his prose style, andimagining “what would have been the continu-ation” of his work” if he had lived longer. As achild, Eitan took no more interest in the Yiddishtheater in which his grandmother worked.Though Jewish tradition was important toEitan’s family growing up, their discussionsemphasized the importance of traditionalHebrew texts rather than Yiddish . Eitan’s latemother was a professor of Bible at theUniversity of Chicago, and his father is arabbi.

Now in his second year of Harvard’s doc-toral program in Jewish studies, Eitan is partic-ularly interested in post-war Yiddish literature in

the broader context of American literature andculture. He explains, the United States “wasthe center of Yiddish literature after World War2,” but the rise of English Jewish literature (bywriters like Philip Roth, Saul Bellow, BernardMalamud) seemed to overshadow it. This sum-mer, Eitan hopes to study Yiddish in Vilnius,with the support of the Center for JewishStudies, and to examine archives of AmericanJewish writers such as Bellow, I.B.Singer andRoth in Chicago, Texas and Washington,respectively.

Eitan feels fortunate to be at Harvard,where “there are amazing resources, ...espe-cially the professors who always make them-selves available.” He describes his advisor,Ruth Wisse, as “one of the most open people;she listens to your ideas, no matter how crazythey are.” He lists some particularly helpfulopportunities provided by the Center for JewishStudies, including as Avi Matalon’s class ondeconstruction and Jewish identity, VisitingProfessor Ray Scheindlin, last year’s conferenceon Jewish education, and a lecture by PatriciaGrieve which provided background for apaper. “The various research opportunities pro-vided by the Center for Jewish Studies havehad a significant influence on my scholarlydevelopment.” Eitan hopes to pursue an aca-demic career, and perhaps also to follow inhis grandfather’s footsteps by writing Yiddishnewspaper articles or short fiction.

A music major at Columbia University,Jessica Fechtor took her first Jewish stud-

ies class after graduating from college. In apost-graduate program at Oxford University,Jessica was “captivated” by classes onHebrew and Yiddish literature. “I was interest-ed in how the Hebrew language wasrenewed and reinvented in the modern period,how new questions of Jewish identity were cre-ated through both Hebrew and Yiddish litera-ture. The authors and their editors saw litera-ture as a means for redefining what it meant to

PROFILE EITANKENSKY

STUDENTPROFILES

PROFILE JESSICAFECHTOR

Mishy Harman grew up and went toschool in Jerusalem through high

school. After three years of service in theIsraeli army, coming to Harvard was a“happy adjustment” for him. “I was excited todevote all my time to school,” he says, unlikecollege students in Israel, who must work andmaintain an apartment.

Mishy has fond early memories of hisfather taking him to archeological digs inIsrael as a child. After his military service,Mishy’s attention was piqued by a book,Unearthing the Bible by Israel Finkenstein, thatclaimed “very little evidence exists for mostmomentous Biblical stories that are maincultural references. What if Kind David wasn’ta king as described? What if Moses didn’tlead the Jews from Egypt?” Mishy returned toa question raised by this book while shootinga short film for a class at Harvard twosummers ago, based on the debate about thehistoricity of King David and exploring hissignificance in contemporary life, which wasshown in the Jerusalem Film Festival. “David isthe fourth most popular name in Israel. It issuch a symbol.” Next year, Mishy plans tostudy archaeology at Cambridge Universitynext year, and received the Harvard-Cambridge Scholarship.

While conducting interviews with mennamed David for his film, Mishy encountered

65SPRING 2008 CENTER FOR JEWISH STUDIES 4

be Jewish.” During a year of study in Israel atthe Pardes Institute, she called Professor RuthWisse to discuss her interest in studyingYiddish and Hebrew language and literatureat the doctoral level.

Currently a third-year doctoral student,Jessica is focusing on bilingual writers of thelate 19th and early 20th centuries. Her inter-ests include the “language politics” betweenHebrew and Yiddish, the “stylistic develop-ments” of both languages, and “how these lit-eratures reflect the intellectual climates of thetime and place in which they were written.”

Jessica applauds Professor Ruth Wisse as“everything a graduate student could hope forin an advisor.” Jessica is grateful that she can“have a foot in the Literature Department”while housed in the Near Eastern Languagesdepartment, and for the “phenomenal collec-tion” of Judaica at Widener Library. Workingas a teaching fellow at Harvard “has beenone of the absolute highlights” of her Harvardexperience. Teaching Harvard undergradu-ates who engage both intellectually and per-sonally with the texts “is a wonderful andinspiring reminder that ideas matter,” and con-firms her desire to pursue “academia as acareer path.”

Currently, Jessica is co-organizing an inter-university conference planned for this spring atHarvard, New Approaches: Home, Nationand Landedness in Modern Jewish Identity.The interdisciplinary conference, which hasattracted participants from the United States,Europe, and Israel, is sponsored in part byHarvard’s Center for Jewish Studies. Jessicawas thrilled by the response to the conferenceannouncement and the opportunity to gatheraround this theme as a community of scholars.

PROFILE MISHYHARMAN’08

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CJSCOURSE LISTINGS

the question which is the basis of his seniorthesis. An Ethiopian man (named David)explained his ethnic group’s belief that theywere descended from King Solomon andQueen Sheba. Mishy thus began to explorethe question of the origins of the Falash Mura,a group of Ethiopian Falasha Jews whoconverted to Christianity beginning in the mid19th century. Despite being religiouslyChristian, many Falash Mura still claim Jewishethnicity and ancestry, and demand to betaken to Israel like their Jewish relatives. Thoughprompted to convert by missionaries, manyFalash Mura maintained close social, culturaland work ties with their relatives who practicedJudaism, and “were never really accepted intothe Christian majority.” Mishy’s senior thesisdeals with the hotly contested debate aboutaccepting the Falash Mura under Israel’s law ofreturn.

Of his experience at Harvard, Mishy sayswith a smile, “I love being here.” He is gratefulfor the many academic resources andopportunities for travel for research and adds,“and above all, I met my girlfriend here.” �

MISHY HARMAN, CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS PAGE

FACULTY OF ARTS AND SCIENCESCORE CURRICULUMLiterature and Arts A-48. Modern Jewish LiteratureLiterature and Arts A-70. The Book of Job and the JobanTraditionLiterature and Arts C-70. From the Hebrew Bible toJudaism, From the Old Testament to ChristianityMoral Reasoning 54. “If There is No God, All isPermitted”: Theism and Moral Reasoning

FRESHMAN SEMINARS*Freshman Seminar 42s. Jews on the Tube: Images andIntegration in American Jewry (New)*Freshman Seminar 49g. The Holocaust, History andReaction

LITERATURE AND COMPARATIVE LITERATURELiterature 153 (formerly Comparative Literature 153). SaulBellow and the New York Intellectuals

HISTORYHistory 1091 (formerly Jewish Studies 125). Jewish Historyin the Second and Post-Temple PeriodHistory 1150. The Jews in Muslim and Christian Spain*History 1426. On Display: Commemoration,Collection and Public Spaces (c. 1600-2000)History 1427. Women’s Voices in Medieval and EarlyModern Europe (New)*History 1498. Citizenship, Migration, and EuropeanCultures Since 1945: Reading Seminar (New)

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History 1606. American Jewish History (New)*History 1609. The Social History of American Judaism:Research Seminar (New)

ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN AND BIBLICALSTUDIESAncient Near East 90. History, Kingship, and the Godsin the Ancient Near East (New)Ancient Near East 107. History and Historiography inthe Ancient Near EastAncient Near East 117. Biblical ArchaeologyAncient Near East 120. Introduction to the HebrewScripturesAncient Near East 128. Jewish ApocalypticismAncient Near East 222. History of the Study of theHebrew Bible: From the Renaissance to the missingtype hereAncient Near East 236. Biblical Theology: Seminar

POSTBIBLICAL JEWISH STUDIESJewish Studies 55. Jews, Judaism, and Jewishness (New)Jewish Studies 104. Introduction to Yiddish CultureJewish Studies 111. Modern Jewish ThoughtJewish Studies 112. The Poet as Translator (New)Jewish Studies 114. History versus Literature in ModernJewish TextsJewish Studies 135. Jewish-Arab Encounters: the ClassicalAge (New)Jewish Studies 140. Deconstruction and Questions ofJewish Identity: SeminarJewish Studies 143. Jews in the Modern World (New)Catalog Number: 8216Jewish Studies 144. History and Memory: Modes ofJewish Discourse (New)Jewish Studies 153. Jews and Communism in Russia:1880 to the Fall of the Soviet Union: Seminar (New)Jewish Studies 206. The Law at Qumran and the Law of theMishnah*Jewish Studies 300. Reading and Research inPostbiblical Jewish Studies

HEBREW LANGUAGE COURSESClassical Hebrew A. Elementary Classical HebrewClassical Hebrew 120a. Intermediate Classical Hebrew IClassical Hebrew 120b. Intermediate Classical Hebrew IIClassical Hebrew 130ar. Rapid Reading Classical Hebrew IClassical Hebrew 130br. Rapid Reading Classical Hebrew IIClassical Hebrew 135. Introduction to Mishnaic HebrewModern Hebrew B. Elementary Modern HebrewModern Hebrew 120a. Intermediate Modern Hebrew IModern Hebrew 120b. Intermediate Modern Hebrew IIModern Hebrew 125a. Advanced Modern Hebrew IModern Hebrew 125b. Advanced Modern Hebrew IIModern Hebrew 130r. Contemporary Israeli CultureModern Hebrew 134r. The Layers of Hebrew in Textsabout JerusalemModern Hebrew 136r. Hebrew for Academic Reading

HEBREW LITERATURE AND HISTORY COURSESFor Undergraduates and GraduatesHebrew 176. Aristotle’s Ethics in Medieval JewishThought (New)Hebrew 177. Introduction to Critical Talmud Scholarship(New)Hebrew 191. From Jewish Literature to Israeli Literature:Seminar*Hebrew 200r. Problems in the Literature, History, andReligion of Israel: SeminarHebrew 230. Midrash: The Figure of Abraham: Seminar(New)*Hebrew 300. Classical Hebrew Language and Literature*Hebrew 350. Postbiblical Hebrew Language & Literature

YIDDISHYiddish A. Elementary YiddishYiddish Ba. Intermediate Yiddish IYiddish Bb. Intermediate Yiddish IIYiddish Ca. Advanced Yiddish IYiddish Cb. Advanced Yiddish IIYiddish 200r. Modern Yiddish Literature: BashevisSinger and Grade: Seminar*Yiddish 300. Yiddish Language and Literature

STUDY OF RELIGIONReligion 11. World Religions Today: Diaspora, Diversityand DialogueReligion 28. The Hebrew Bible and Its Worlds (New)Religion 1004. Competing Fundamentalisms in the “HolyLand” (New)Religion 1007. Religion in Multicultural America: CaseStudies inReligious PluralismReligion 1076. Religion and Politics in Current“Fundamentalist” MovementsReligion 1260. Midrash: Jewish Biblical Interpretation intheRabbinic PeriodReligion 1528. The German Church Struggle and theHolocaust (New)

HARVARD DIVINITY SCHOOLCOURSES1469 Reading Midrash1881 Ritual, Gender, and Space in Ancient Judaism andEarlyChristianity3660 Gender, Justice, and Jewish Law

HARVARD LAW SCHOOL COURSESJewish Law: The Legal Thought of Maimonides

EXTENSION SCHOOL COURSESFORE E-169 Modernity and Tradition in Jewish Literature(22770)RELI E-1076 Religion and Politics in Current FundamentalistMovements (22767)

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WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2007NOAM ZOHARAssociate Professor in Jewish Philosophy,Director of the Graduate Program in Bioethics,Chair of the Department of Philosophy at BarIlan University“Form, Content and Values in TheRedaction of Rabbinic Texts”4:30pm. The Humanities Center, Room 133,Barker Center, Harvard UniversityYanoff-Taylor Lecture and Publication Fund

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2007DAVID BIALEEmanuel Ringelblum Professor of JewishHistory, Director, Program in Jewish Studies,University of California, Davis“From Blood Libel to Blood Community:Discourses of Blood in Modern JewishCulture”4:15pm.Harvard Center for European Studies,Cabot Room, 27 Kirkland StreetMartin and Helen B. Schwartz Lecture Fund

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2007MARTIN GOODMANProfessor of Jewish Studies, the OrientalInstitute, and Fellow of Wolfson College,University of Oxford“Rome and Jerusalem: The Origins of Anti-Semitism”5:00pm.Semitic Museum, Room 201, 6Divinity Avenue, Harvard UniversityFriends of the Center for Jewish Studies

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 2007STEVEN ZIPPERSTEIN (WITHRUTH WISSE, RESPONDENT)Daniel E. Koshland Professor in Jewish Cultureand History, Stanford Universityand the Gerard Weinstock Visiting Professor ofJewish History, Harvard University“I Have Not Told Half of What I Saw”:On Reading Isaac Rosenfeld4:15pm.The Humanities Center, Room 133,Barker Center, Harvard UniversityJoseph Engel Fund

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 5,2007JEFF GUROCKLibby M. Klaperman Professor of JewishHistory, Yeshiva University and the JosephEngel Visiting Professor in American JewishHistory, Harvard University“The Diaries of Mordecai M. Kaplan andEarly 20th Century American JewishReligious Life”4:15pm.The Humanities Center, Room 133,Barker Center, Harvard UniversityJoseph Engel Fund

CJS LECTURESFALL 2007All co-sponsored by the The Harvard Center for the Humanities,Jewish Societies and Cultures Seminar