Grants Awarded for Dissertations on Jewish Studies Topics, 2007-08

The 2007-08 academic year marks the second time that Targum Shlishi has awarded grants for dissertations in Jewish Studies topics. Grants of $2,500 each were awarded to six doctoral students from the U.S. and Israel, to support their dissertation research. The wide range of topics represented by the grant recipients reveal the great diversity of Jewish experience and the range of vital themes that Jewish Studies, as an academic field, has the potential to address.

“We have always been deeply committed to Jewish education, and to supporting projects that help promote effective learning and teaching,” says Aryeh Rubin, director of Targum Shlishi. “It is also vitally important that our body of knowledge continues to expand, to be challenged, and to evolve. Our self-generated initiative to award grants for dissertation research grew from our conviction that original scholarship has a central role in the health of Jewish education, and should be nurtured.”

Grant recipients and dissertation topics are listed here. For more information on the dissertation topics, click on the links:

Rachel Gordan, Harvard University
The Emergence of a Postwar American-Jewish Religious Identity

Katelyn Mesler, Northwestern University
Magical Beliefs and Practices Among Medieval Christians and Jews

David Moses Presler, Yeshiva University
Exploring the Benefits of Nusach in the Jewish Educational Curriculum

Yair Saguey, Florida International University
Bnei Anusim in Brazil

Adva Seltser, Bar-Ilan University
Jewish Youth in Interwar Poland

Michal Shaul, Bar-Ilan University
Ultra-Orthodox Holocaust Survivors in Israel