Jewish Community Relations
EMU Jewish Studies is deeply committed to creating relationships between the university and the Southeast Michigan Jewish community. As part of its Jewish Studies Lecture Series, Eastern has sponsored presentations by Ilan Troen, Director of Brandeis University ‘s Schusterman Center for Israel Studies; Aaron Lansky, Founder and President of the National Yiddish Book Center; Israeli scholar and statesman, Elie Rekhess; Sharon Pomerantz, winner of the Foundation for Jewish Culture ‘s Goldberg Prize for Outstanding Debut Fiction; New York Times bestselling author Jonathan Tropper; and Ira Berkow, Pulitzer Prizewinning New York Times sportswriter and author of the film, Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story. The Jewish Studies program is home to Nineteenth-Century Jewish Life, an online resource that explores a period of Jewish efflorescence, during which many Western European Jews became enfranchised and many Eastern European Jews, seeking religious freedom, immigrated to the United States. EMU Jewish Studies partners with the Holocaust Memorial Center Zekelman Family Center of Farmington Hills to offer summer seminars for teachers and with local synagogues to bring college-level classes to their institutions.
The Future EMU students are white, black, Latino/a, Native American, Middle Eastern, Asian. They include—but are no means limited to—Christians, Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, Mormons, and Jews. Across all of these groups there is interest in Judaism, in Jewish life and culture. EMU will continue to provide leadership offering Jewish programming for our students, as well as for our many communities, celebrating the significance of Judaism, about how this faith and those who practice it have changed the world.
College of Arts and Sciences
Jewish Studies
To Make a Gift Interested in making a gift to the Jewish Studies program at Eastern Michigan University? Please visit www.emufoundation.org
For More Information Prof. Martin Shichtman 612 Pray Harrold Ypsilanti, MI 48197 734-487-4220 mshichtma1@emich.edu
EMU at Terezin Memorial, Terezin, Czech Republic
Our Mission
Jewish Studies at Eastern Michigan University offers courses concerned with the history of the Jewish people, a story of survival under extraordinary circumstances. It considers the cultural and intellectual gifts Jews have given the world. It focuses on the Jewish faith, its richness, its intricacy, its demands, as well as its complex and fascinating relationships with other religions. Interdisciplinary in its design, EMU Jewish Studies draws on faculty expertise from throughout the university. It also engages students in a wide realm of co-curricular activities including lectures, study abroad, and internships. It provides a home for the online resource, NineteenthCentury Jewish Life. EMU’s program in Jewish Studies provides a gathering place for EMU’s numerous ethnic communities to learn more about Jews and Judaism, a space to build bridges, to open and engage in discourse, to create new understandings between Jews and the many other groups that comprise the diverse culture of Southeast Michigan. EMU Jewish Studies students at the Spanish Synagogue, Prague, Czech Republic
An Innovative Interdisciplinary Program
Warsaw Ghetto Memorial, Poland (above) following a moving visit by President Barack Obama
Why Jewish Studies at Eastern Michigan?
Judaism is the first of the Abrahamic religions, the foundation on which both Christianity and Islam are built. Nevertheless, most EMU students know very little about Judaism, about Jewish culture, or even about Jewish contributions to the American experience. Many of our students—both from large cities and from small towns— may not even be aware of ever having met someone who is Jewish. Jewish Studies is important to Eastern’s identity as a diverse community, offering opportunities for students to learn about and appreciate the remarkable impact Jews have had on the arts, the humanities, the sciences, education, technology, entrepreneurship, and philanthropy.
Jewish Studies is an interdisciplinary program that draws faculty from throughout the university. It includes classes in Art, History, Literature, Philosophy, Political Science, Psychology, Theater, and World Languages. Among the classes offered by EMU Jewish Studies is Representing the Holocaust, a Study Abroad course that asks students: “what does it mean to visit Europe today, as an American, reading the past through literature, museums, and historical monuments that are meant to keep alive the unthinkable?” It is a class that teaches students about the horror of Nazi genocide as well showing them the extraordinary renaissance of Jewish life and culture that has energized Europe following World War II.
Aaron Lansky, Jewish Studies guest speaker