Emory establishes
Institute for Jewish Studies
Dorot Professor Deborah E. Lipstadt named director

Deborah E. Lipstadt

THE UNIVERSITY has established an Institute for Jewish Studies to coordinate the existing graduate program in Jewish studies with related curricula offered in more than a dozen departments and to create the opportunity for undergraduates to major or minor in the field. Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish and Holocaust Studies Deborah E. Lipstadt has been named director of the institute.

“Over the past thirty years Emory has developed a wide array of courses and programs in Jewish studies,” says Lipstadt.

But those courses are scattered among the University’s religion, Middle Eastern studies, history, anthropology, Russian studies, and language departments, making it difficult for students to pursue a comprehensive undergraduate track. Existing courses will continue to be offered in their home departments but will be cross-referenced by the institute for students majoring in Jewish studies beginning this fall.

Lipstadt says significant focuses of the institute will include diaspora studies, language and literature, American Jewish studies, and the study of modern Israel.

“The program will raise questions that relate not just to Jews and Judaism but to many of the issues facing society at large,” she says. For example, the institute plans to partner with Emory’s African-American Studies program to create new areas of study.—G.F.