Mission
The Center for Jewish Studies is an exciting interdepartmental program that offers courses including Religion, Political Science, History, Cultural Anthropology, Comparative Literature, Hebrew Language and Literature, Women's Studies, Germanic languages, and more. The Center offers students the flexibility to design a curriculum that meets their individual interests.
The Center for Jewish Studies sponsors a wide variety of cultural events. The main energies of the Center are dedicated to offering a rich range of interdisciplinary courses covering the ancient period to the modern era. These courses include language, literature, history, and culture. Undergraduates may choose from among our many courses, most of which are seminars which provide students an opportunity to work closely with our internationally-renown faculty, or to earn a certificate in Jewish Studies. Students wishing to major in Jewish Studies are able to do so either through the Religion department or through Program II. Graduate degrees in Jewish Studies, both the MA and Ph.D., are offered through the Graduate Program in Religion. Graduate students in other departments, including German and History, also constitute an important element within the Center.
The Center for Jewish Studies is committed to interdisciplinary engagement in a global academic community. In addition to our internationally respected faculty, Duke is home to one of the finest collections of Jewish haggadot, theological and liturgical printed works, manuscripts, papers, diaries and art. Duke University and The Center for Jewish Studies are proud to be an international resource and destination for research and study in Judaica.
History
The Center for Jewish Studies is committed to Duke’s standards of academic excellence and knowledge in the service of society, as well as dynamic civic and global engagement.
The Jewish Studies Program at Duke University originated in the 1940s and was formally established in 1972. Always a leader in the study of Hebrew Bible and ancient Judaism, with an emphasis on archaeology, in more recent years the Center has branched into more contemporary fields such as Israel Studies, Holocaust Studies, modern Hebrew language and literature, modern Jewish history and thought, and Middle East politics.
Over the past several decades, the Center for Jewish Studies has confirmed its commitment to fostering global academic engagement through the acquisition of resource materials in conjunction with Duke Library, as well as the continued presence of a wide variety of specialists in the field of Jewish studies through a series of endowed lectures, conferences, reading groups, seminars, and talks. We advocate a cross-cultural and interdisciplinary approach to Jewish Studies, a dynamic field of research that explores over 3000 years of history.