Jewish Studies
Academic Program Introduction
Jewish studies is the interdisciplinary study of Jewish people, ideas, culture, and institutions. Any student’s intellectual journey can include Jewish studies. We are a small, flexible program. Students explore religion, history, philosophy, art, literature, cultural patterns, and institutions. We offer robust financial and logistical support to students who want to learn a language, study abroad, or complete an internship in the U.S. or overseas.
Learning goals
- Understand the breadth and diversity of Jewish civilization through interdisciplinary learning.
- Build specialized knowledge in one area, e.g., biblical studies, Sephardi history, Yiddish language and literature, or U.S. Jewish culture.
- Establish proficiency in Hebrew, either biblical or modern, or another relevant language.
Programs of study
Jewish studies major and minor
Students gain an understanding of foundational texts, central ideas, and institutions that have influenced Jewish history and culture.
Course highlights
JWST 118 Can Writing Change the World? The Examples of Emma Goldman and Gertrude Stein
WRIT118
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Concepts in Biblical Studies: Reward & Punishment
REL202
Why do bad things happen to good people? This course examines how the Bible confronts some of the most complex and confounding questions humans can ask regarding the relationship between actions and their inevitable outcomes. Through close readings of biblical texts and contemporaneous examples from the ancient Middle East and North Africa, students will be introduced to key theories and methods in biblical studies as tools for examining how the dynamic relationship between behaviors and their results shape the biblical understanding of justice, divine retribution, rewards, and moral order.We will compare (1) punishment and reward in biblical narrative and law and their reverberations in both prophetic literature and more esoteric texts like the books of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes/Qohelet, and Job, to both (2) relevant contemporaneous examples from the ancient Middle East and North Africa, and (3) contemporary examples from popular culture (e.g., Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Wicked, KPop Demon Hunters, The Good Place, Hamilton, and Spirited Away) in order to ask how thinking about reward and punishment has changed over time and, especially, how modern thinking both adheres to and diverges from biblical and other ancient models.This class has no prerequisites; no previous knowledge of the Bible or ancient history is presumed. (JWST 202 and REL 202 are cross-listed courses.) -
Jews and Jewishness in American Literature
JWST270
The roles played by Jews in the development of modern American literature are complex and contradictory. Influential American authors expressed anti-Semitic views in their correspondence and work, and prejudice excluded Jews from many literary and cultural opportunities well into the 20th century. Nonetheless Jewish publishers, editors, critics, and writers were extraordinarily influential in the development of the field, founding leading publishing houses, supporting freedom of expression and movements like modernism and postmodernism, and writing some of the most influential and lasting works in the tradition. In this course, we will explore the ways Jews have been represented in American literature and their roles in modernizing and expanding the field. Fulfills the English Department’s Diversity of Literatures in English requirement. (ENG 270 and JWST 270 are cross-listed courses.)
Research highlights
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Josh Lambert, Sophia Moses Robison Professor of Jewish Studies and English, published “The Last of Us, Part 2 and the Christian Limits of ‘Jewish Representation’ in Corporate Art” in the 2025 spring/summer volume of the journal Jewish Social Studies. In it, he surveys contemporary discourse about “Jewish representation” and Jewishness in video games.
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Nora Cornell ’25 wrote about her senior thesis for CBAA the Association for Book Art Education. In “Text and Materiality in Jewish Women’s Prayers (Part 2: The Creative Response),” she details how her work reflects upon and celebrates “one woman’s plea for a spiritual connection that fully acknowledged and celebrated the role of her gender in her religious life.”
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Sergio Parussa, Jewish studies affiliated faculty member and professor of Italian studies, published the essay “The Cemetery, the Tomb and the Archive: The Jewish Cemetery of Ferrara in Giorgio Bassani Archives” in The House Under the Grass: Giorgio Bassani and the Jewish Cemetery of Ferrara (La nave di Teseo, 2025). He focuses on the representation of the Jewish cemetery in Ferrara, Italy, in the work of the Italian writer Giorgio Bassani, in relation to new documents found in his archives.
Opportunities
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Financial support
We offer financial support for on- and off-campus opportunities related to Jewish studies. Successful applications have included production costs for a student performance and travel costs for a visit to a cultural landmark. Financial support is also available for students to study Jewish languages or intern with Jewish nonprofit organizations.
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Diarna internships
We award up to three paid internships per year with Diarna: The Geo-Museum of North African and Middle Eastern Jewish Life. Diarna works to preserve endangered ancient sites through digital mapping technology, traditional scholarship, and field research. Diarna creates virtual entry points to once vibrant, now largely vanished, communities.
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The Jacqueline Krieger Klein ’53 Fellowship
The fellowship enables graduating seniors and recent alums in any field to pursue further education in the field of Jewish studies.
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Our newsletter
Published annually, our newsletter features recent or upcoming classes, students’ first-hand accounts of summer internship or language study experiences, interviews with faculty, recent publications of alums and faculty, and more.
106 Central Street
Wellesley, MA 02481