The integration of Jews into the university is one of the great success stories of modern American culture and Jewish life. Penn was at the forefront of this success story, with the first Jewish Students’ Association formed here in 1924. But recent events at Penn and at other campuses have led to accusations that the university has been too tolerant of antisemitism and become less welcoming to Jews.
Current fellow Sarah Zager is an award-winning teacher known for clarity and accessibility in taking up complex and thorny issues, a recent PhD from Yale, and at work on a book exploring how Jewish philosophy can contribute to today’s debates about virtue ethics.
As she is gearing up to teach an online course on gender and Jewish philosophy for us, we asked her a few questions about the subject and her approach to it.
In curating and presenting lectures in Jewish studies to audiences beyond academia, the Katz Center fulfills several aims. One crucial one is to showcase the vibrancy of current research and the inherent interest of the areas of culture and history in which Jewish studies scholars are expert. In an era of diminishing support for humanities scholarship, the warm reception our talks—accessible but not simplified—have received speaks to a real appetite outside of the university for knowledge and ideas at a high level.
On April 18–19, 2021, the Ancient Judaism Regional Seminar (AJRS) hosted its annual colloquium on Zoom. The seminar is dedicated to graduate training, and pairs graduate students in the Northeast together with senior scholars who respond to their papers as well as offering networking and professionalization session.
The Jewish Quarterly Review marked its 130th anniversary at the 2020 (virtual) annual meeting of the Association for Jewish Studies.
The Katz Center is proud to be hosting a professionalization workshop for early career scholars in Jewish studies on May 29–30, 2019, sponsored by the American Academy for Jewish Research, the oldest organization of Judaic studies scholars in North America. This year's workshop will be coorganized by Steve Weitzman, Katz Center director, and Lila Corwin Berman, director of the Feinstein Center for American Jewish History at Temple University.