Sperling CJS Undergraduates have participated in a number of projects, study abroad, internship and research opportunities. Below are are a few undergraduate experiences through the Sperling Center for Jewish Studies thanks to the generosity of the Seymour H. Shore and Ostad Fellowship endowments.
Elliott Davis (Trinity '20) visited the Arava Institute during the Fall 2018 term with help from the Shore Scholars program in Jewish Studies. Here he describes his project, and continues his bi-weekly blog of his insights:
"During Fall 2018, I am studying at the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies in Israel. The Arava Institute is an environmental peacemaking program which brings together Israelis, Palestinians, Jordanians, and people across the globe to learn about environmental issues, develop an understanding of varying perspectives on the conflict, and explore pathways to peace. The Institute is located on Kibbutz Ketura, a collective community in the Arava Desert driven by the principles of socialism, Zionism, and pluralism.
I am taking five environmental classes, along with a Peace-building Leadership Seminar, Environmental Leadership Seminar, and Hebrew course. In addition to the academics, the program consists of events for participants, Kibbutz activities, and excursions across Israel. I will have the opportunity for deep conversations, personal exploration, and travel. I want to thank the Duke Center for Jewish Studies, Friends of the Arava Institute, the Masa Scholarship, and my family for funding this incredible experience.
Throughout the semester, I will be posting bi-weekly reflections about my experiences in the classroom, on the Kibbutz, and during my travels. I hope you enjoy hearing about my journey in Israel!"
Read more about Elliott's reflections on his time at the Arava here: https://sites.duke.edu/ieelliottdavis/arava-institute/
Tyler Goldberger (Trinity '19) shares some of his experiences interning at Yad Vashem through the Shore Undergraduate Research Scholars Program:
"This summer, I was working at Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Museum, in Jerusalem, Israel. More specifically, I was working in the New Education Building for an organization called Echoes and Reflections (echoesandreflections.org). Their work mostly focuses on giving middle and high school teachers the knowledge and information to educate their students about the Holocaust. This work culminates to a ten-day seminar hosted at Yad Vashem, where teachers from the States come for free to learn from the top experts in the field. I served as the head resource for this ten-day seminar which renewed my hope of public education and the passion teachers have. Coming from a public school in Raleigh, I had never experienced a teacher's true love for a subject until engaging with these teachers at Yad Vashem. I was also able to attend any and all sessions from this conference and learning amongst the brightest minds in Holocaust education.
My work did not just deal with these organizational efforts, and in fact, it only took up a little of my time. My main project dealt with the publication of Echoes and Reflections sixth educational video toolbox for teachers. These videos highlight the more important aspects of a particular Holocaust subject in 15 minutes so that they can then relay this information to their students in the way they deem best. This one focuses on the first moments after liberation, and I was able to add my input and write parts of the script that will eventually be published into a video. More than that, I was in charge of using the visual archives to supplement the script. This means that I sorted through thousands of photos and videos in Yad Vashem's private archives to choose which images best represented the words being said. It was a very meaningful job and I was able to learn so much through this process. The video is projected to come out in late-November, and I truly could not be more excited!
I had full access to the museum, its archives, its galleries and its staff, so I made a note to always ask questions and eavesdrop whenever I could. This internship really peaked my interest into a career based on genocide education/awareness/prevention.
Jerusalem is a special city, and I was so fortunate to spend a summer there. I traveled to Tel Aviv often for the beaches, but a majority of my summer was spent strolling the streets of Jerusalem, buying groceries at the shuk (literally "market" in Hebrew but imagine a huge outdoor farmer's market), and making memories with newfound friends. I truly count my blessings every day that I was able to engage with such an experience, which is why I am so thrilled to explain to anyone and everyone who is willing to listen what I did this summer!"
Morghan Cyr (Trinity '20) visited the Rothberg International School at Hebrew University during the Fall 2018 term, with help from the Shore Scholars program in Jewish Studies. Here she describes her experience, and continues his bi-weekly blog of his insights:
With the start of classes and thus the start of the semester, my time abroad has ceased to be a whirlwind. However, it is a whirlwind of blessings and unique opportunities that I will forever be grateful for. As the semester is starting to settle down, I have begun to process and enjoy the content of the classes I am taking and am thoroughly enjoying the opportunity to engage with other students on subjects I am intellectually interested in, rather than just language studies:
Classes: I am taking five classes while I am studying in Israel, one more class than the usual workload due to a policy of the Duke Arabic department. I do not mind taking an extra class while I am abroad though because at Hebrew University, there are so many cool classes that I wish that I could take them all. In order to ensure that not all blog posts are the length of a thesis paper, I will do my best to highlight only a couple of classes in each blog post.
To start off my week, I have four hours of Arabic FusHa instruction. To say that is a long class would be an understatement; that being said, I can truly feel my understanding of the Arabic language getting much stronger and I am excited to continue studying the language. I, honestly, never thought I would hear myself say that, but my professor here in Jerusalem is one of the best professors I have had period, let alone in Arabic, and has saved my hope for learning the language.
After Arabic, I have After Nazism. Now, the name itself is slightly misleading as to what you may think. When you hear the name, at least when I first heard it, I imagined a class that talked about the physical movement of people and the actions taken by people in response to the Holocaust. I was thoroughly surprised and excited to find out I was wrong! After Nazism is a class that is delving into the philosophy surrounding Nazism and the Jewish post-Nazi thought. The philosophy and thought that we are looking at is addressing the concept of Jewish identity and how it relates to the Western world. After the first two weeks of classes, we have been primarily focused on the works of George Steiner, who is known best for his commentary on Hitler and Jewish identity. In one of Steiner’s works, he wrote a fake speech for Hitler in a scenario where Hitler is actually brought to trial rather than meet his fate in a bunker. His argument in court can be summarized in two main ideas: one, his war on the Jews was actually a war against God, based on the idea that the Jews were the ones who “created God” and “conscience” and two, that the Holocaust is the reason that Israel now exists and for that, he should be thanked and not brought to trial. While both ideas are utterly ridiculous, as Steiner is pointing out in his writing, Steiner does bring to light a remarkable question: how does one define the Jewish identity and Israel in the Western world both in relation to and other than the Holocaust? Is it the correct thinking in attempting to define a 5000+ year old people in relationship to events within the last century? What are other ways to interpret Jewish thought besides the Western liberal context? These questions are actually not as obvious that you would initially think because the Holocaust is so prominent in our historical memory and I leave every class with more questions than I entered with. Unsurprisingly, I look forward into delving much deeper into this class and attempting to find a somewhat satisfactory answer.
The next class I am taking is called the Challenges of Regional Cooperation. This class is a political science class focused on international relations. Right now, we are primarily going over introductory IR terms and frameworks, in order to look deeper into the case studies that we will be covering later in the class. For the semester final, we are required to write a 20 page seminar paper on a topic of our choice. In relationship to the broader Middle East, I thinking about the relationship of Turkey and the EU. Stay tuned to see how well that goes!
The next class I am in is Israeli Politics, and, as you can guess, it is a wild ride. On the first day of class, my professor came in screaming and I do not think the class has calmed down since. As the students in the class come with a variety of backgrounds in politics, we have been doing some readings about concepts that we will later discuss in relationship to Israel. We just went over the concept of national self-determination and I am excited to see how that future discussion goes over in class.
My final class on the docket is called Battle Over the Bible. Ominous, right? It has proved to be just as intriguing as the title. To start off with, I did not know that the Jews and the Christians use different versions of the Hebrew Bible: the Masoretic text (Jewish) and the Septuagint (Christian). For the most part, the translations are not huge discrepancies; however, there are actually passages in either texts that lead to philosophical differences and these have proved to be a place of conflict for the two groups in the past. An example of this is in Isaiah chapter 7, a common Messianic prophesy referred to by Christians. In the Septuagint, the Hebrew word for “virgin” is used in describing the birth of Emmanuel. In the Masoretic text, the Hebrew word for “young girl” is used in describing this birth. While likely similar in meaning, this difference in verbiage has caused quite the divide between the two religions throughout the years. (Like a new religion kind of divide, you know?) On top of this, further conflict followed due to incorrect translations of the text made in early distribution, like the Vulgate translation (a cross between the Masoretic text and the Septuagint translated by St. Jerome) of the Hebrew Bible. In Exodus 34, the Vulgate translates Moses’ face as being horned after God spoke to him on Mt. Sinai. In the Masoretic text, the same Hebrew word appears, without short vowels, and is translated to mean radiating or shining. The difference of short vowels in the Hebrew language is big enough to be the foundation for future anti-Semitic myths, like the idea that Jews have horns. This has just been the first two weeks of class and we have not even introduced the Muslim narrative and perspective into our discussion, but, considering how interesting these first two weeks have been, I am sure things will get even more intriguing.
Read more about Morghan's experience here: https://morghaninthemiddle.wordpress.com
Samantha Holmes (T'18) shares her academic writing after research facilitated by the Shore Undergraduate Research Scholars Program:
Hardship. Diaspora. Violence. Triumph. Progress. Exhaustion. Uncertainty. These words represent a small sample of the lexicon used to describe marginalized groups. In particular, such phrases connect the narrative of Jewish-Europeans and African-Americans. Both have found themselves in the depths of discrimination. Prejudice places both groups in precarious positions as society struggles to address of its own problematic perspectives. The United States and United Kingdom, two countries who applaud their own stances on human rights, oscillate between recognition and regression in terms societal issues. Narratives for Jewish-Europeans and African- Americans shift as people seek to forget a painful past. The Jewish Museum in London and the National Museum of African-American History and Culture testify against denial. Together, they amplify the voices that the public has often ignored. Housing both the dazzling and dismal parts of history, these museums have a unique role in understanding different experiences. This paper explores how these specific spaces engage with the complex histories of Jewish-Europeans and African-Americans, in the United States and United Kingdom respectively. First, I will briefly describe the relationships between the identity group and the city where the museum resides. Then, I will review society’s response to past atrocities. Next, I will describe the museums. Finally, I will analyze the different approaches/perspectives of the museums to explain how they convey identity.
In order to appreciate this project’s scope and purpose, it is essential to understand the museum’s role in modern society. The different types of museums serve a variety of purposes for academics, experts and casual visitors alike. Dr. Fromm, an acclaimed museum specialist writes, "Many would say that the most important contribution museums make to peace is to promote human understanding through showing the greatness of the cultural achievements of humans everywhere and at all times" (Fromm 2014). This quote exemplifies the ethos of both the Jewish Museum in London and the National Museum of African-American History and Culture. These spaces fulfill an obligation of detailing the dark chapters of Jewish-European and African- American experiences. Visitors to the Jewish Museum must reckon with the horrors of anti- Semitism while learning about the accomplishments of Jewish Brits. Similarly, the National Museum of African-American History and Culture acknowledges struggles while showcasing the strides that African-Americans have made throughout the centuries. This balance of beautiful accomplishments and ugly truths is a major feat. It underscores the importance of museums. It also begs the question of 'how'. How can institutions house so many different dimensions of reality? How do the narratives mirror an ever-changing society? How can we begin to understand these complexities? Examining museum theory is a good place to begin.