- Berman Jewish Policy Archive

fe^ssbciation for Jewish Studies
IfiiVSLETTER
Fall 1995
Number 45
25-Year Report of the Executive Secretary
From the Seventh Annual Conference, 1975
Standing, 1. to r.: Charles and Judith Berlin, Frank Talmage, Ismar Schorsch
Seated, 1. to r.: Marvin and June Fox, Salo and Jeanette Baron, Arnold Band
I N T H I S ISSUE
Page 1
25-Year Report
of the Executive Secretary
Page 6
Gender and Women's Studies
Page 8
Pedagogy at the AJS
Page 10
Jewish Music in the Curriculum
Page 11
AJS in the ACLS
Page 14
ACLS Travel Grants
Page 14
Notes
From the Twenty-Sixth Annual Conference, 1994
Left to right: Bernard Cooperman, Jehuda Reinharz, Marvin Fox,
Charles and Judith Berlin, Herbert Paper, Arnold Band, Robert Seltzer
25-Year Report
of the Executive Secretary
Charles Berlin
Harvard University
AT THE ANNUAL BANQUET
of the AJS
on
December 18, 1994, Charles Berlin presented his report on the state of the Association after twenty-five years. His report is
followed here by the edited remarks of the
current and former officers of the organization who spoke on that occasion. After
twenty-two years as Executive Secretary,
Dr. Berlin retired December 31, 1994.
(Ed.)
F R O M ITS MODEST BEGINNINGS in 1 9 6 9 ,
when forty-seven of us gathered together at Brandeis University to establish the Association for Jewish Studies,
the Association has grown into an international learned society and professional organization with over 1500
members, the premier association in its
field.
It has been a quarter-century of
enormous achievement. This, our 26th
annual conference has 74 sessions and
some 300 individuals on the program; in
1973, at our Fifth conference there were
8 sessions and 24 names on the program.
As of this evening, we have some 600
conference registrations. At our Tenth
annual conference, in 1978, we had 210
members registered at the conference.
The annual conference of the AJS has
become the primary meeting for the
field of Jewish Studies. The AJS annual
conference now houses the largest display of academic Judaica publications in
the country and has become an important meeting place for publishers and
authors.
The Association itself has made significant contributions as a publisher of
Judaica scholarship. Its journal, the AJS
Review, now in its nineteenth year of
1
25-Year Report (continued from p. 1)
publication, is the leading general journal of Jewish Studies in the United
States. The four volumes of AJS conference proceedings are major contributions in their disciplines. In addition to
academic conferences and scholarly publications which reflect the role of the
AJS as a learned society, the Association
has compiled an impressive twenty-fiveyear record in its function as a professional organization. Its catalog of
courses in Jewish Studies at American
and Canadian universities is now a standard reference source. Its Information
bulletin: positions in Jewish Studies, of
which twenty-eight issues have appeared, plays an important role in dissemination of information and recruitment. The Association's mailing list
rental service has become a major source
of information about positions, conferences, and publications in Jewish Studies. Issues of significance to the profession have been addressed in Association
publications such as The Teaching of Judaica in American Universities which
appeared in 1970; forty-four issues of
the AJS Newsletter, and the recently published Report of the Task Force on Acquisitions: Israel, a joint project of the AJS
and the Association of Research Libraries. All this activity is reflected in the
growth of the Association's budget
from some $23,000 in 1973 to one currently of some $104,000. Recognition of
the Association's achievements and of
its proper place in the academy was accorded it in 1985 when the Association
was admitted as a constituent member
of the American Council of Learned
Societies.
However, it is not my intention, in
the few minutes allotted me by the Program Chairman, to attempt a descriptive
or chronological account of those
twenty-five years of achievement; a different, perhaps printed, forum would be
more appropriate for that. At this time
of transition, as the AJS emerges from
the generation of its founders and enters
its second quarter century, I would like
to point to certain operating principles
that have served the AJS administration
as guidelines in the Association's development until now in the belief that they
2
may still be of value in the future. First,
and of paramount importance has been
assuring the independence of the Association, independence of any ideology
or institution, of any community or
partisan group, whether external or internal. Equally important has been an
inclusive approach rather than an exclusive one—assuring that all concerned
with Jewish Studies, regardless of field
or rank, feel welcome in AJS. This democratization also manifests itself in the
internal affairs of the Association, where
volunteerism has become the Association's greatest strength—witness the
work of the AJS Review Editorial Board,
the Conference Program Committee,
other Association committees, and finally the AJS Board of Directors, most
of whose membership in recent years
had not yet completed their graduate
studies when the AJS was founded. To
these should be added two other elements: the first is a sense of realism.
That is, an awareness of the real
strengths of the Association—and they
are many—that always took into account the equally real limitations and
constraints. The second is a sense of
humor that always served to provide a
sense of proportion and proper perspective in Association affairs and kept our
founding fathers and their heirs from
taking themselves as seriously as sometimes the many achievements of AJS
might allow. Independence, openness,
democratization, volunteerism, realism,
humor—they have served the Association well in its first quarter-century;
they can serve the Association well in
the future.
Finally, the AJS is moving from
what in many respects was—to use a
popular term—a virtual reality, certainly
in terms of office location and its accoutrements, to what is very much a real
office, thanks to the generous hospitality of our colleague Jehuda Reinharz.
The Association will be well-positioned
to avail itself of new technologies to
assist its future growth both in size and
in services offered. Electronic newsletters with current book reviews and a
calendar of conferences and events; electronic conference programs and advance
listings of conference abstracts—we will
not be surprised to find such items on a
technological "wish list" implemented in
the not too distant future—to supplement the instant communication network of e-mail, fax and voice mail already instituted for AJS members since
the start of this transition period by our
very talented incoming Executive Secretary, Aaron Katchen, as part of a wideranging technological enhancement program.
Our founders have done their work
well and have passed on to a new generation a strong, disciplined, thriving,
and respected organization, a solid
foundation on which to build even
more impressively. It has been a privilege to have participated in this process
over the last quarter-century, as Treasurer for the first three years, and as Executive Secretary for the past twentytwo years. I am grateful to the Association for this opportunity to have participated in this effort to enhance Jewish
Studies in the academy. And I shall always cherish the warm friendships of
the many AJS colleagues with whom I
had the pleasure of working closely during those twenty-five years, and who
offered their unstinting support and
encouragement, individuals like Arnie
Band, Berny Cooperman, Marvin Fox,
Jane Gerber, Ben Ravid, Jehuda Reinharz, Nahum Sarna, Bob Seltzer, and
Ruth Wisse, and our colleagues now of
blessed memory Frank Talmage and
Marshall Sklare, and many others whom
I cannot mention for lack of time.
However, I would like to express my
gratitude to Elizabeth Vernon who has
for the past five years assisted me in the
administrative tasks of the Association
and has served so ably as Conference
registrar. And a very special and immeasurable "thank you* to one whose
support, encouragement, and counsel
have lovingly sustained me throughout
my AJS endeavors, as in all that I do, to
my dear wife Judy.
I am very pleased to welcome my
successor, Aaron Katchen; it gives me
great pleasure to know that the AJS is
being entrusted to a person of such talent, dedication, and integrity. I look
forward to being of assistance to the
Association in the coming years and I
wish it well as it enters its second quarter-century.
For Charles Berlin: Remarks by Colleagues and Friends (continued)
Arnold.J. Band
UCLA
Past President
"Von Berlin Nach Boston"
THE END OF THE BERLIN PERIOD in the
history of the AJS should occasion the
beginning of the writing of the history
of our Association. Twenty-five years
in the life of a significant learned society, particularly one that deals with the
sweep of Jewish history, certainly suggests that we owe our heirs the materials
for a coherent history. It is therefore
only proper that we celebrate Charlie
Berlin's years of service with a modest
contribution to the history of the Association.
Let me tell you how Charlie became the Executive Secretary of our
Association. Sometime in the fall of
1972, after Baruch Levine, our second
President, had persuaded me to assume
the Presidency of the Association at the
coming Conference to be held in Maryland in December, I asked for copies of
the minutes and the budget. I had some
sense of our administrative difficulties,
that we had serious cash-flow problems,
and that we really didn't have a working
office. I realized that administering a
primarily East Coast organization while
living in Los Angeles was a daunting
task. Baruch naturally assured me that
the budget was balanced, that I could
choose my own Executive Secretary,
and that he would send me the requested record. Well, what I got would
make the pinkasim of Eastern European
kehillot look like models of Protestent
administrative decorum. It was clear
that my buddy Baruch was a fine Biblical scholar and had secured a handsome
NEH grant for us, but was no manager.
Our situation, in fact, was so stressed,
that the proper selection of an Executive
Secretary was critical. I considered the
desired qualifications: I needed someone
who had a scholarly training in Jewish
Studies, but did not have to publish for
survival. He had to be well organized,
tenacious, and, most important, someone who knew how to count. My reasoning led me to chose Charlie Berlin, a
person who understands that "the good
God is found in the details." The choice
led to a partnership which, I believe,
was special. We discussed business frequently, and often rung up impressive
telephone bills. We agreed on most
issues, but, when we didn't, I noticed
that Charlie had an uncanny understanding of Max Weber's theories on
bureaucracy which say, in essence, that
administration is really shaped by the
person nearest to the xerox machine.
After the Maryland conference, our
Fourth, which had fewer participants
than the previous conference held at
Brandeis, Charlie and I sat down to assess our situation. On paper, we were
clearly bankrupt, for while we could
count on an infusion of cash in some six
months from the Regional Conference
Program that Baruch had so cleverly
worked out with the NEH, we had no
money and bills from the Maryland
Conference kept tumbling in. We also
discovered that dues had not been collected from our members in over a year.
So while we had something short of 200
members on the books, they were
mostly 200 non-dues-paying members.
To cope with this dire situation, we
had to do what all good statesmen do:
we moved quickly to raise taxes, and we
bluffed. In all humility, I must admit
that we did both very well. The smoke
and mirrors game we played that year
outdid the finest efforts of Potemkin.
The chicanery was really fun. The only
thing that bothered me was that Charlie, living on the East Coast, always
called right before dinner time on the
West Coast.
Time will not allow a detailed account of Charlie's critical contribution
to the structuring of the Association—
which resembled a shtibel before he took
over. We initiated a series of rapid
changes, each of which required an
enormous investment in energy and
good sense. To establish our identity,
we had to move off the Brandeis campus. Since Charlie had an office at Harvard, at the Widener library, that would
do. Similarly, we moved the next conference, our Fifth, to the Harvard Faculty Club, and, after we outgrew that
facility two years later, to this hotel
which we selected for two reasons:
first—Charlie's reason—the price was
right; and second—my reason—when I
was a boy growing up in Boston, this
hotel did not welcome Jewish guests.
The irony was irresistible. Again and
again, we complemented each other
remarkably. He liked lists of figures
and bibliographies, while I liked figures
of speech; I seasoned the language,
while he cooked the books.
Charlie also had to cope with a
surge in Association activity generated
by the Regional Conferences that we
were mounting, each involving complicated logistics and a publication. We
also expanded the AJS Newsletter, which
we published together several times a
year through the early 1980s. These
publications prepared us for the next
step, the AJS Review, which was
launched in 1976, after several years of
arduous preparatory work by our gifted
editor, the late Frank Talmage, and the
Managing Editor, Charlie Berlin. We
offered our services as a clearing house
for job placement. As one who was
there in the beginning, I can tell you
that most of the features of the Association which we all take for granted today, were the work of Charlie Berlin.
Let me conclude by describing our
lunch together here in the hotel after
our Seventh Conference in 1975, my
last as President. We had just finished
our business meeting and bade good-bye
to our colleagues who were leaving the
building. As we ate, we reviewed the
conference and the past three years of
working together.
Both were enormously gratifying. We had by then 900
dues-paying members, a surplus in the
budget, a thriving placement service,
which had radically democratized the
marketplace in our field, a vastly enhanced national visibility and credibility
as a result of our vitality, and our publications: the regional conferences, the
AJS Newsletter, and the beginnings of the
AJS Review.
As we tallied up our achievements,
I said to Charlie: "I guess we don't have
to bluff any more." He smiled at me
slyly and answered: "But it was more
fun when we did."
3
For Charles Berlin: Remarks by Colleagues and Friends (continued)
Marvin Fox
Boston
University
Past
President
BY ARNIE'S STANDARD, since I'm older,
I get even more time, but I won't take
it. When Berny Cooperman called to
ask me to participate in this session, he
said to me, "it's going to be very
brief"—at that time he said "five minutes," by the way, not "three"—and he
said to me, "it's very simple: all you
have to do is tell a funny story, say
something nice about Charlie, and the
time will all be gone." So I explained to
him: "I don't know any funny stories,
and I can't think of a nice thing to say
about Charlie, so what is there ... ?"
He was stunned but he didn't say anything, and then I accepted.
Let's not say nice things about
Charlie, let's tell the truth. The truth
is: if he were so nice, we wouldn't be
here today. It's only because he is not
Jehuda Reinharz
Brandeis University
Past Secretary-Treasurer
I DON'T KNOW what the average tenure
of an executive secretary in an organization in America is, but I'm willing to
bet that twenty-two or twenty-five
years, if we add the Treasurer's years, is
some sort of a record. I can tell you
what a President's average tenure in this
country is and it's not anywhere near
twenty-five; in fact, it hovers around
five years or so, as we have seen time
and time again. I'm also willing to bet
that there is no professional organization that is twenty-five years old which
has had only one Executive Secretary.
Actually Charlie was not only the Executive Secretary, but as you have heard
from Marvin Fox, and all of the past
presidents who are here will readily testify, for the many years he served as the
Executive Secretary, he was also the
President, the Vice-President, the Editor
of the journal, of the newsletter, he was
of course the treasurer and, as Marvin
mentioned, none of us would have been
able to do our work without Charlie
4
only efficient and skillful, but because
he's tough, and unyielding, that we survived; that we got through those years
that Arnie described; that we then came
to the glorious years of my own presidency. All of us can tell you: if we were
presidents or other officers, we worked
for Charlie, he didn't work for us. He's
a tough, demanding taskmaster; he
taught us a good deal about how to do
our jobs; and he also told us when we
were all wrong. And generally he was
right. It's due to his remarkable skills
and tenacity—and toughness—that the
AJS was transformed from its small beginnings to what it is today. It's due to
his natural frugality—penuriousness—
the fact is that he's a tightwad—that
we've managed to be solvent all these
years. And it's due, probably, no less,
to his incredible devotion to the AJS
and to the profession. Essentially, if it
had not been for all of these qualities
and characteristics that Charlie brought
to the work of the Executive Secretary,
I do not believe that any of us would
genuinely have succeeded in office, and I
do not believe that we would have succeeded in building what is, as you've
heard repeatedly this evening, certainly
the major body of academic Jewish studies in this hemisphere, that has no peer.
I want to add only one final note, which
perhaps nobody appreciates as much as I
(although someone said it, but I don't
remember who), and that is, whether
you know it or not, Charlie is deeply
committed to the democratic process
and has never permitted the officers to
get out of line in overlooking or ignoring the wishes of the membership as a
whole—and for that we're all deeply
indebted to him. Charlie, for myself—
and I hope I speak for everybody—we
thank you for all you've done and we
wish you well in whatever you do in
the future.
really jumping in the breach every time
he was needed. If you require any demonstration, you saw it this afternoon at
the business meeting when Rela was
somewhat late and there was no report
and Charlie just jumped in there and
gave the report on her behalf until she
arrived. Now, take myself as an example: in my six years as Secretary- Treasurer of the AJS, I had few tasks, except
to sign, for the most part, blank checks
(in fact the last blank check that I signed
was this afternoon), give the annual
report, which was co-written by Charlie, and generally just hand him the keys
to the vault. Charlie dealt with the
banks, with the creditors, with investments, and with deposits, seeing to it
that the books were scrupulously kept,
all presumably my tasks. At the first
meeting at which the Association was
founded at Brandeis in 1969 and during
which I was a graduate student—by the
way, for reasons that are still unknown
to me I kept minutes and a diary of that
meeting—Charlie was elected treasurer
by the forty-seven scholars who attended. In the early years of the Asso-
ciation, Charlie had a major role as the
managing editor—as we have heard—of
the AJS Review from 1976 to 1980. But
even when he had no title, Charlie was
involved in the journal, he was involved
in the newsletter, he saw to it that the
regional symposia took place all over
the country, and, of course, in 1992 he
published the catalog of Judaica courses
that is so useful. He was the driving
force behind the task force on Israeli
acquisitions for research libraries, a
model of how an assessment of library
resources ought to be done anywhere.
In short, for many years the administrative structure of the entire organization
was on his shoulders. I do not recall
once that Charlie ever complained
about the amount of work he had;
maybe he complained to Judy, but not
to the rest of us. So for the last 25 years
Charlie's name has really been synonymous with that of the AJS and, given
the enormous contributions of the AJS
to the entire field of Judaica in this
country and abroad, much of the credit
for the expansion of the field really
belongs to him. We were lucky that
For Charles Berlin: Remarks by Colleagues and Friends (continued)
Jehuda Reinharz (continued from p. 4)
Charles Berlin's scholarly expertise and
many personal skills were so perfectly
matched with the needs of this fledgling
organization. He did the work for an
entire office staff, his memory and attention to every detail, organizational as
well as scholarly is nothing short of
phenomenal. He can just as easily recite
the first edition of a medieval text as he
can the amount of money owed by a
particular member of the AJS. Given
his many intellectual and organizational
contributions to the Association for
Robert M. Seltzer
Hunter College
President, AJS
AN ENGINEER WHO WORKS closely with
architects of distinction once explained
his role thus: Creative architects dream
dreams, see visions, and design a building according to their aesthetic imagination and understanding of the human
activities to be undertaken there. My
friend then informs them if, given the
necessary physical materials, deadlines,
and budget, their structure will stand
up.
In the course of his years as Executive Secretary, Charles has acted as our
structural engineer, telling us whether
our imaginative constructions would
stand up to the stresses and strains of
everyday life, what side-effects were not
being anticipated, how to accomplish
even more effectively what we wanted
to do, and, above all, whether eminently
worthy ideas furthered the essential
purpose of the AJS—to strengthen Jewish studies in American institutions of
higher learning and the scholarly grasp
of the Jewish tradition's place in civilization.
Since we are all bona fide scholars of
Judaica, we all know a lot, have wellhoned critical skills, overcrowded calendars, and some attitude. To get us to
work together smoothly, as Charles has
done, took meticulous concern for detail, considerable perspicuity, and not a
little tough-mindedness, thickness of
skin, and sagacity.
During the last
twenty-five years the AJS has been an
especially effective agent for upholding
Jewish Studies, it is fair to say that
Charles Berlin was its main driving engine for a quarter of a century.
Through some unorthodox means,
I was able to obtain a message that
Charlie received by e-mail from one of
his many admirers (you'd be surprised
what you can do with technology). I
would like to read you that message.
Upon hearing that Charlie is leaving the
organization, the person writes, "Dear
Charles, I just read in the latest AJS
Newsletter of your decision to step down
from your position as Secretarystandards and maintaining respect for
scholarship and scholars. And it has
also been one of the truly successful
ecumenical associations in the American
Jewish community in its goodwill toward such a broad range of methodologies, convictions, and opinions about
Jewish Wissenschaft and Judaism.
Under Charles' eye, the annual conference grew ever more ambitious, professional, inclusive. Credit, of course, is
due to our series of notable program
chairs—Frank Talmage, Michael Meyer,
Jane Gerber, Steve Katz, David Blumenthal, Ruth Wisse, David Berger, Rela
Geffen, and Berny Cooperman. All of
them can testify to the behind-the-scenes
role that Charles played so calmly and
determinedly as nudge, facilitator, traffic
cop, guardian angel of modern Jewish
learning in America. The same can be
said with respect to the structure Charles helped to create for the AJS Review,
which has achieved such distinction under Frank Talmage, Robert Chazan,
Norman Stillman, and their coworkers.
It is due to Charles's watchfulness that
this has been accomplished within our
limited resources: modest dues, rental of
the mailing list (the sanctity of which
Charles has guarded so ferociously), and
exceptionally
frugal
administrative
costs. We have one of the lowest overheads of any similar organization and
one of the highest percentage of attendance at the annual meeting because of
Charles's careful planning and skill in
mobilizing our members to volunteer
their time and services to such a remarkable extent. Unlike the full-time,
professional managers that have become
an omnipresent feature of academic and
Treasurer of the AJS. What an incredible record of service, you certainly deserve relief from the responsibility after
all these years. The success of the AJS
and the standing of the field in North
America owe you an incalculable debt
and it is no exaggeration to say that
what you have contributed so much to
is really a historic achievement in the
history of American Higher Education.
Yishar kohakha and many thanks." What
else can one add after hearing such
praise except to say: "Ich bin auch ein
Berliner!" Thank you.
organizational life in recent decades,
Charles is one of us, a practitioner in
the advancement of Jewish learning
while keeping this association solvent
and growing.
No doubt there is more that the AJS
should do. For example, the most recent phase of computer networking may
allow us to provide bibliographies on
demand, current news of the profession,
and easier access to existing and possible
databases. We have wanted the AJS
Newsletter to provide articles on the
practical side of our teaching and research roles and on campus issues that
affect us directly. This moment of appreciation, however, acknowledges that
we can do so because we are building on
the substantial foundation laid by Charles and the officers of the first quartercentury of the association.
Many of us know only too well the
glazed look that comes over our children when urged to appreciate what
their parents have done to provide the
opportunities and choices they now
face. Which doesn't make it any less
true. It is because of Charles Berlin's
hard work and dedication that the AJS
has achieved such recognition and respect among learned societies here and
abroad.
I am sad to see him step down as
Executive Secretary after only 22 years,
but I interpret this as yeridah le-tsorekh
'aliyah. We are not losing the presence
of Charles Berlin, but allowing him to
gain greater transcendence as eminence,
senior statesman, and rational conscience, while we move on to new matters for which his solid achievements
paved the way.
5
Gender and Women's Studies
Gender and Jewish Studies
Dorothy O. Helly
Professor of History and Women's Studies
Hunter College and The Graduate School
The City University of New York
THE RECOGNITION within Jewish Studies that "the lives and concerns of Jewish
women have often differed from the
experiences of men and are deserving of
study on their own terms," has been
gathering momentum in scholarly terms
over the past decade. The contributors
to Gender and Jewish Studies: A Curriculum Guide, edited by Judith R. Baskin
and Shelly Tenenbaum (New York:
Biblio Press, 1994), reveal the considerable range and variety of this scholarship that can now be brought into the
classroom. There is always a gap between the production of new knowledge and its introduction to university
students. The process of integrating
new information, new questions, new
methods of analysis about gender—as
about race, ethnicity, class, sexual orientation, and other particularities that
identify us as social beings—into our
courses is neither easy nor accomplished
in a single semester. The nature of the
process itself, transforming the curriculum to include what has formerly been
excluded, makes us face difficult decisions of selection and emphasis at every
turn, but the more we engage in it, the
more intellectually exciting it becomes.
The resultant ferment also leads to new
programs, such as the Master's degree
being offered in Jewish Women's Studies at the Jewish Theological Seminary
beginning this fall.
Our disciplines and fields, conceptualized with a default system that has
usually excluded gender as a critical issue, make first efforts to include gender
usually a patchwork of undigested addition. The editors of Gender and Jewish
Studies: A Curriculum Guide are to be
6
congratulated for choosing forty syllabi
which met the standard of integrating a
gender analysis throughout the topics
involved. These syllabi therefore offer
the user of the guide a thoughtful beginning in terms of what gendered questions might be raised in a wide range of
Jewish Studies. The thirty-three women
and men who created these syllabi give
us an excellent overview of what is currently available in books and film for
use in the classroom. The syllabi are
organized under the categories of: Bible
and Rabbinics;
General
History;
Women in Jewish History; Women and
Religion; Literature; Social Science; and
Learning Programs in the Women's
Community. As Baskin and Tenenbaum put it, it is now possible to hear
gendered voices in many scenes of Jewish life and to find writing by Jewish
women which has not only confronted
living in "a male-dominated Jewish culture" but also has faced the "duality of
being part of a Jewish minority in often
uncongenial cultural environments."
The curriculum guide is a practical consequence of the establishment in 1986 of
the Jewish Studies Women's Caucus in
the Association of Jewish Studies to
further the academic study of women in
Jewish life and culture.
There is space here to mention only
a few of the innovative and imaginative
efforts at curriculum transformation
represented in this collection. Finding
women's voices where they have not
been recorded has led to innovative
methodologies to tease out from the
male- authored sources patterns of gendered behavior. Recent sociological and
anthropological theory provides some
ways to analyze such information and
to reconstruct women's status, roles,
and activities. Carol Meyers in her
"Women in the Biblical Tradition," for
example, takes this approach.
Some syllabi are especially useful
for integrating issues of race and sexual
orientation in their themes, such as
those by Laura Levitt ("Women in Judaism"), Lynn Davidman ("Women in
Jewish Culture: Image and Status"), and
Judith Baskin ("Women in Jewish History and Literature"). A syllabus by
Deborah Hertz (The History of Jewish
Women in Europe 1700-1932") provides
an analysis of Jewish women in terms of
wider European phenomena such as
socialism and feminism.
Two syllabi raise methodologically
interesting issues regarding immigration
and autobiographical memory (Yael
Zerubavel's "Jewish Immigration in
Fiction and Ethnography") and the use
of folklore and ethnography (Chava
Weissler's "Jewish Folklore: The Folklore and Folklife of Ashkenazic Jewry").
Striking contributions to their fields are
Ellen M. Umansky's "History of Jewish
Women's Spirituality" and Myrna
Goldenberg's "Literature of the Holocaust," the latter for the way it deals
with problems of historical context,
ethics, and responsibility, as well as for
its supplemental
bibliography
of
women's Holocaust narratives. Shelly
Tenenbaum's "American Jewish Life,"
demonstrates the wide range of such a
topic handled by a sociologist. It includes Eastern European Jewish immigration, class formation, intermarriage,
women's roles, religious and secular
bases for Jewish identity, feminism,
anti-Semitism, voting patterns, and
black-Jewish relations.
With this curriculum guide and
books like Judith Baskin's Jewish
Women in Historical Perspective (1991)
and Lynn Davidman and Shelly Tenenbaum's Feminist Perspectives on Jewish
Studies (1994), no one in Jewish Studies
can any longer say, "I don't know
where to begin."
Gender and Women's Studies (continued)
Report from
the AJS Women's Caucus
Pamela S. Nadell
The American University
Women's Caucus Co-Chair
THE WOMEN'S CAUCUS o f the Associa-
tion for Jewish Studies was founded in
1986 after a number of scholars remarked that, while women in other
academic professional associations, notably the American Academy of Religion, regularly gathered to discuss their
concerns, this had not yet occurred at
the AJS. Founding co-chairs were Susan
Shapiro and Ellen Umansky. In 1988,
when the Caucus began its tradition of
holding a breakfast meeting on the
Monday morning of the AJS conference, members adopted a statement of
purpose. It defined the Caucus as a
"support and networking organization
of and for women in Jewish Studies. Its
primary concerns are the advancement
both of women in the profession and of
the academic study of women in Judaism."
Initially, the Caucus was open only
to female scholars, reflecting the goal of
providing a place and a space for
women, historically a small minority of
AJS members, to meet. But after discussion at the 1993 annual meeting, Caucus
members, now numbering close to 200,
voted overwhelmingly to open their
ranks to all interested AJS scholars, male
and female.
Current co-chairs Pamela Nadell and
Tamar Rudavsky work with a Steering
Committee to discuss issues and decide
directions for the Caucus. These are
reported and voted upon at the annual
breakfast meeting of the Caucus.
In addition to a time for spontaneous sharing and networking, this meeting has become a forum for informal
presentations by Caucus members on
how the intersections of gender and
Jewish studies have shaped their careers
and scholarship. Past programs have
included reflections by scholars at different stages of their careers (Paula Hyman, Marsha Rozenblit, and Judith
Romney Wegner) on how the field had
or had not changed since they began
their initial training. Upon the occasion
of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the
AJS, another group of scholars, also at
different stages of their careers (Judith
Hauptman, Pamela Nadell, and Miriam
Peskowitz), considered changes they had
observed since they first began attending
AJS annual meetings (increased presence
of women, their growing representation
on panels, and the emergence of sessions
devoted to Jewish women's and gender
studies, including an annual session cosponsored by the Caucus). At the most
recent meeting, Kay Kaufman Shelemay
presented "On Gender and Marginality:
On being an Ethnomusicologist," and
Ruth Tsoffar offered "Speaking from
the Margins." These addresses, a highlight of Caucus meetings, furnish perspective and support a sense of collective
identity on issues individual scholars,
working in comparative isolation, often
encounter.
Another feature of the annual breakfast meeting is the dissemination of information about new scholarship in
Jewish women's and gender studies.
Scholars bring their current works to
the attention of Caucus members. In
addition, Laura Levitt organizes a display of books from small presses of interest to Caucus members that may not
appear at the larger AJS book exhibit.
While the annual meeting provides a
forum for celebration of this burgeoning field, scholars of Jewish women's
and gender studies remain cautious.
Those whose essays appear in Lynn
Davidman and Shelly Tenenbaum's collection, Feminist Perspectives on Jewish
Studies (Yale University Press, 1994),
contend that much remains to be done.
In evaluating the cumulative effect upon
various disciplines of the new scholarship on Jewish women's and gender
studies, these scholars find the influence
of a gendered analysis absent in many
fields of Jewish Studies. In others, it is
just at its inception, with many
"mainstream" scholars either unwilling
to incorporate the new scholarship or
largely ignorant of it. To date, only in
anthropology, biblical studies, and literary studies have feminist approaches led
to significant and wide-reaching reconceptualization of these areas.
Despite the reservations expressed
by the authors of Feminist Perspectives
on Jewish Studies, new materials on Jewish women's and gender studies have
already entered the classroom. That this
new scholarship promised to enrich
university Jewish Studies courses led
Judith Baskin, then Caucus co-chair, to
begin assembling an archive of genderinclusive syllabi and curricular material
from all AJS members. That proved
such a rich resource that Baskin and
Shelly Tenenbaum edited Gender and
Jewish Studies: A Curriculum Guide
(Biblio Press, 1994), a compilation of
both gender-inclusive syllabi for standard Jewish Studies courses, i.e. Modern
Jewish Civilization, as well as syllabi
devoted exclusively to aspects of Jewish
women's and gender studies, i.e.
Women in Jewish Tradition. Royalties
from the sale of the Guide benefit the
Caucus.
To foster the original goal of networking, a new Women's Caucus directory was mailed to all members-in-goodstanding earlier this year. Scholars wishing to join the Caucus and to receive
this directory (which includes e-mail
addresses) should contact:
Professor Pamela Nadell
Jewish Studies Program
The American University
Washington, DC 20016-8042
e-mail: pnadell@american.edu
phone: 202-885-2425
Dues are $5.00 for graduate students,
$10.00 for all other AJS members, and
are waived for foreign scholars. The
Caucus mailing list is also available for
purchase.
The Women's Caucus of the Association for Jewish Studies remains excited about the new directions and developments in Jewish women's and gender studies, and gratified that our collective efforts have played some part in
shaping this growing field as well as
scholarly endeavors in Jewish Studies as
a whole.
7
Pedagogy at the AJS
"Find(ing) Yourself A Teacher:"
Opening the Discussion on
Pedagogy at the AJS Conference
Susan Handelman
University of Maryland, College Park
AT LAST DECEMBER'S AJS conference,
Marc Bregman (Hebrew Union CollegeJerusalem), Michael Signer (University
of Notre Dame) and I tried to do something different. We organized a session
entitled "Aseb Lekhka Rav u-Qneh Lekha
Haver—Teaching Traditional Texts: An
Open Discussion on Pedagogy." The
title reflected our aim: we wanted to
initiate discourse on the subject of
teaching and we wanted an open discussion rather than another block of paper
readings. We did not expect a large
turnout, but, much to our surprise, the
room filled up with around 80 people
from the broad spectrum of graduate
students and senior scholars who make
up the AJS.
We had many reasons for proposing
a session on teaching. First, this subject
has been conspicuously absent from AJS
programming. It is a commonplace that
with rise of the post-war modern university, teaching became a kind of poor
step-sister to research. In recent years,
however, that trend has begun to be
reversed. Some of this interest has come
from transformations in methodology,
new questions about what constitutes
knowledge and its modes of transmission, and issues surrounding politics in
the classroom. Some of it has arisen in
reaction to attacks on the university and
its ethos. But there is also an independent desire to take teaching more seriously by a new generation of scholars
who are questioning the conventions on
which our professional lives as academics have been based.
We also believed that the AJS conference itself needed some alternative
formats. What we ourselves do in these
conferences implicitly reflects much
about what we think teaching and learning are, and how we construct academic
community.
The fixed structure of
most sessions—three or four separate
papers read to the audience with relatively little time for questions or dialogue—reflects an underlying assumption about how we think knowledge is
best communicated. There have been
radical changes in our postmodern view
of knowledge, and in the kinds of stu-
8
dents who now make up the university
(and seminary) population. But we still
seem to be employing a mode of scholarly discourse appropriate for pre-print
culture, some aspects of which may
even harken back to medieval scholasticism.
II
So our plan for our session was simply for each of us to talk informally and
personally for only ten minutes each, on
a very practical level, about what techniques we have found particularly useful
in teaching traditional Jewish texts to a
variety of non-specialists, and to use
these remarks as a springboard for an
open discussion with the entire audience.
We first decided to break the "ascetic
tradition" of having only ice water on
hand at AJS sessions and replace it with
a more Jewish mode—serving food. The
Passover Seder and Hasidic "tish" aside,
there is indeed a deep connection between "opening the mouth" and
"opening the mind"—a kind of receptiveness created by the communal sharing of food that is a great facilitator of
learning. Since our session was scheduled for 9 PM on Tuesday evening, we
passed around after dinner liqueurs and
chocolates.
To further foster interchange with
the audience, we abandoned the dais and
re-arranged the large room ahead of time
by putting as many of the chairs as we
could in a large circle. Many of us do
this routinely in our classrooms—why
not at a conference?
What indeed
physically constitutes a good "scene of
instruction"? Why is it that often the
most instructive and interesting intellectual interchanges at conferences take
place in the hallways, lounges, and bars
rather than at the sessions themselves?
How can we integrate that lively exchange of ideas into the sessions? Is
there any reason why we must only
lecture frontally at colleagues sitting
silently before us in straight rows of
chairs?
The common thread in all our informal remarks was based on a key
point made by Michael Signer, that, "in
good teaching, form should follow function, ... i.e., the students should do
something that imitates the life of the
text they are studying." In what sense,
one might ask, do traditional Jewish
texts themselves contain an implicit
pedagogy? How does any text teach us
how to teach it? As Marc Bregman said
in his comments, his goal was not only
to teach his students how to decipher
rabbinic texts to his satisfaction as their
teacher ... but also to demand that they
think constantly about how they would
communicate these texts to their future
students and congregants who know less
than they. "I like to think that this recaptures something of the traditional
transmission of rabbinic learning." In
teaching, he said, he has learned not
only that "the best way to learn is to
teach," but also that "the best way to
teach is to teach to teach."
Marc and I also have a special interest in midrash and share a sense of the
"performative" nature of these texts.
Marc described a course he has designed
on "Interpreting Scripture" that focuses
on the Aqedah, telling how he begins by
having students elaborate and concretize
the brief biblical text as if they were
making it into a film. My comments
were based on a handout I gave illustrating methods I have found successful in
teaching "The Bible as Literature" in an
English Department to a mix of Jewish
and non-Jewish undergraduates, many
of them with little background, at a
large state university. Among the examples were: techniques for "putting a
text into play," i.e., seeing it as a "script"
to be "performed" by its readers; samples of student re-writes of biblical stories in contemporary style (Joseph and
Potiphar's wife as a "Silhouette Romance"); role plays; and letters of students to each other, to biblical personae
and to me. Instead of journals, which
have no real audience, I now have my
students
write
letters
that
are
"published" by their bringing copies for
the entire class and reading them aloud.
m
After the three of us had spoken for
the first half-hour, we decided to take a
risk. Rather than just open the floor to
discussion, we actually employed some
techniques from what is now known in
educational circles as "collaborative
learning," a mode of restructuring the
classroom for more interactive and interdependent learning and teaching.
(Many collaborative learning techniques
are surprisingly similar to the venerable
hevruta method of yeshiva learning.) We
announced that we would like to divide
the audience into small groups of four
persons each, in which they would introduce themselves and discuss in each
group for ten minutes or so the following two questions: "What is the biggest
problem you are having in your teaching? What's the most successful teaching technique you have discovered?"
Then we would solicit comments from
the small groups and open it to a whole
group discussion.
At this point, not surprisingly, a
mini-walk-out occurred. About onequarter of the audience got up and made
haste for the doors. Some were probably already tired by the long day, but
my hunch is that others left out of resistance to the idea of having to talk in a
small group. Perhaps we teachers are so
used to the controlled rhetoric of solitary performance in front of a passive
class or audience that the idea of turning
to the person sitting in the next seat and
talking more personally about one's
own teaching made some people uneasy.
We were, however, pleasantly surprised by the intensity of the reactions
of those who stayed. One especially
noteworthy theme was the Angst several
audience members expressed about the
conflicts of teaching "sacred texts in
profane settings," of how to balance
spiritual commitment with critical dispassion.
We then allowed a free non-directed
discussion with the microphone being
passed from one audience member to
the next, and little commentary from
us. In retrospect, this discussion, like
any good classroom discussion, could
have been moderated more, but an interesting weave of voices and concerns
was heard. Moshe Greenberg (Hebrew
University), for example, put it simply
and eloquently by saying that "the
teacher is a model of inquiry. He displays how he inquires into the text and
creates a paradigm and standard by
which the student can judge what he
doing." The good teacher, then, does
not go into the classroom fully knowing
in advance what the text means, but
tries to find out together with the students. This reminded Marc Bregman of
the saying in the Talmud Bavli, "Teach
your tongue to say, I do not know"
(Ber. 4a; Derekh Eretz Zuta 3:30), for
that is what enables true "inquiry" (also
the meaning of the Hebrew root darash
for the word midrash).
Joseph Lukinsky (Jewish Theological Seminary) noted that, "aside from
some technical imperatives, in much of
our teaching there is no absolutely necessary reason why students are learning
any given specific material. Ultimately,
what the teacher is trying to do is to
imbue students with your vision. ... We
are artists. The job of art is to make
you see the world in a way you never
saw it before. ... [In our case, it is] to
get them to see not just the surface of
this text we are teaching, but to see that
it is deeper. I think it is deeper this
way, and four-fifths of them will see
that it's deeper in a totally other way,
which may be interesting to me or totally boring. But they see it as deeper,
and they are excited and I did my job."
IV
Was the session successful? Yes and
no. The problems of a professor at a
large state university with a mix of Jewish and non-Jewish undergraduates are
different from those of a scholar in an
advanced graduate program at a rabbinical seminary or Ph.D. program. Teaching Talmud is different from teaching
Italian Jewish history or Saul Bellow.
And yet, at least a discussion was begun,
and pedagogy was given a place and a
name at the AJS.
We would urge that discussions and
sessions on teaching become an integral
part of every AJS conference. There
should be a regular division devoted to
it, just as there is to Kabbalah, or Chassidism, or Rabbinic Literature. Our
hope is also that, as a collective body,
the AJS begin to experiment with different formats for the conference itself.
Other academic conferences have begun
to include many options including:
roundtable seminars where the papers
are distributed in advance; workshops
that are designed for maximum interchange among leaders and participants;
sessions where "great teachers" illustrate
how they teach "great texts"; ideaexchange tables, where participants leave
copies of teaching ideas and exercises
that have worked well for them and
pick up those of others, and so forth.
Certainly, chairs of conventional
panels could help make sure that there is
ample time for audience questions, and
even for one speaker on a panel to actually engage with another! Studies have
shown that the maximum average adult
attention span in listening to oral discourse is no more than twenty minutes.
It is mind-numbing rather than mind-
enriching to try to listen to three or
four 20-minute-plus papers often read
hurriedly one after another. Speakers
could also help by not writing up their
talks as if they were journal articles, i.e.,
in the complex language adapted to the
printed text, but rather than in the simpler more recursive language needed by
the listening ear. Yet many speakers are
loath to do this. Why? What drives the
writing and delivery of some of these
highly difficult-to-absorb papers, I
think, is as much performance anxiety
as a desire to communicate, i.e., a fear of
being exposed as ignorant, or a need to
prove mastery of the field so as to forestall attack.
In sum, the principles for good
communication are the same for both a
conference session and classroom. For
what, in the end, is the purpose of an
academic conference, and of scholarship
in general? Parker Palmer, an educational theorist, has written eloquently in
his book To Know as We Are Known
(Harper San Francisco, 1983) about
some of the negative effects of the
"hidden curriculum," of cruel competition within the university, of how "the
whole culture of the academic community with its systems of rewards and
punishments works to shape our views
of self and world." It is that "hidden
curriculum" that students absorb as
their lessons as much as if not more
than the actual "content" of the material
(19). But "to teach," continues Palmer,
"is to create a space in which the community of truth is practised."
And truth he defines as a kind of
"troth"—a covenant with another, a
pledge to engage in a mutually accountable and transforming relationship, a
relationship forged of trust and faith in
the face of unknowable risks. To know
something or someone in truth is to
enter troth with the known, to rejoin
with new knowing what our minds
have put asunder (31).
"The true work of the mind," then,
"is to reconnect us with that which
would otherwise be out of reach, to
reweave the great community of our
lives" (xvi).
That, too, may be the
deeper meaning of the line from Pirke
Avot (1:6) that we chose for the title of
our session: the relation between Aseh
Lekhka Rav u-Qneh Lekha Haver—
"finding and making" oneself a teacher,
and the acquiring of a friend.
9
Jewish Music in the Curriculum
Does Jewish Music
Have a Place in Jewish Studies?
Joshua R. Jacobson
Northeastern University
JRJ@neu.edu
WHAT IS YOUR FIRST association when you hear the term
Jewish Music? That volunteer choir at your synagogue? Your
cantor who should have retired a decade ago? Or the one who
offers you a new improved guitar-based liturgy? Your grandmother singing "My Yiddishe Mama"? Perry Como singing
"Kol Nidre"? The ear-splitting band at your nephew's wedding? The way you butchered your bar- or bat-mitzvah haftarah? The muzak you were fed on El Al?
Jewish music is all that and a whole lot more. After
twenty-five years of conducting concerts of Jewish music and
teaching college-level Jewish music courses, I find that the general public is still surprised to discover that there can be firstrate performances of music arising from the Jewish traditions,
and that Jewish music in the classroom can be taught as a subject worthy of scholarship.
More and more frequently one encounters courses in Jewish music in the catalogues of colleges, universities, and conservatories. Ethnomusicologists examine the unique musical
cultures of various Jewish civilizations. Great concert artists
teach the performance practice of Klezmer and other ethnic
styles. And yet, in the typical college course in the history of
Western music or music appreciation, students are taught, "In
the beginning there was Gregorian Chant." Rare indeed is the
general music teacher who demonstrates the origins of Christian chant in the singing of the Bet ha-Mikdash!
The introductory course on Jewish music presents a unique
dilemma. How does one organize the material? What approach does one take? One can try to present the material in a
strictly chronological sequence, one can deal with one geographical area at a time, or one could organize the course
around music associated with the various holiday-cycle and
life-cycle events. One could take the approach of the ethnomusicologist and consider all music in the context of the culture that produced it, or one could take the approach of the
strict structuralist, analyzing the music as a pure art form
without external references, or the approach of the historical
musicologist, teaching only the great masterworks, ignoring
the music of the common people and the lesser masters. Like
many of my colleagues, I take a kaleidoscopic approach, trying
to make my students aware of all these approaches over the
course of a semester.
In an effort to' halt the decline in Jewish music literacy,
many institutions of higher Jewish learning are now offering
performance practicum courses in nusah ha-tefillah, the prayer
modes, and ta'ame ha-mikra, the cantillation. There is evidence
that in ancient times, Jewish prayer and learning were unthinkable without music. "If one reads the Scripture without a
melody or teaches the Mishnah without a tune, of him Scrip-
10
ture says, 'Wherefore I gave them also statutes that were not
good, etc.'" (Talmud Bavli Megillah 32a). Through my current
area of research, the connection between melody and syntax in
the Masoretic cantillation, I have developed new pedagogical
methods to facilitate learning, deepen understanding, and
sharpen performance skills.
Taking a cue from Avrohom Goldfaden, I view the concert
hall as a classroom as well. Through aesthetic experience, the
Zamir Chorale, a community chorus of which I am the music
director, seeks to transport its audiences to distant civilizations: music becomes a window to the culture out of which it
arose. I make a point of introducing each piece in a concert.
Thus, listening to a seventeenth-century synagogue motet by
Salamone Rossi, one can come to sense the Jewish participation in the Italian Renaissance. A Psalm setting by Salomon
Sulzer is meant to evoke the enlightenment in nineteenthcentury Vienna. Through a work by Pavel Haas one may
sense both the anguish and the courage of the inmates of the
Terezin concentration camp.
The serious academic study of Jewish Music from many
angles belongs in the curriculum. Unfortunately, the few academicians who specialize in Jewish Music are spread quite thin.
Outside of several universities in Israel and three institutions in
New York for the training of clergy, there is no focal point for
scholarship in this area. The Association for Jewish Studies
can play an important role by providing a venue for the
presentation and centralization of research and curriculum in
Jewish Music.
The Zamir Chorale of Boston
PROGRAM
Sunday, December 18, 1994
Association for Jewish Studies Annual Conference
The Worlds of Jewish Music
HaZamir
Leo Low
Adon Olam
Psalm 92 (Tov LeHodos)
Avodat HaKodesh (second movement)
Salamone Rossi
Louis Lewandowski
Ernst Bloch
Tsen Brider
Martin Rosenberg (arr: J. Jacobson)
Ani Maamin
Vishnets (arr: M. Lazar)
Zol Shoyn Kumen Di GeUuleh
S. Kaczerginski/A. I. Cook (arr: J. Jacobson)
Erev Shel Shoshanim
Dodi Li
Tikvateinu
Break Forth into Joy
Amen Shem Nora
Joseph Hadar (arr: J. Klebanow)
Nira Chen (arr: J. Jacobson)
David Burger
Robert Starer
traditional North African
The AJS at ACLS
The Executive Secretary of AJS represents the organization in the Conference of Administrative Officers (CAO) at the American Council
of Learned Societies (ACLS). The CAO of the ACLS holds semi-annual meetings on issues of current interest in the humanities and the
humanistic study of the social sciences. The mission of the ACLS is to support humanistic research by grants, to identify and meet the present and future needs of humanistic scholarship, and to put forth a unified national voice and presence on matters of interest to scholars.
AJS also sends a delegate to the annual meeting of the ACLS. Robert M. Seltzer, President of AJS, is the delegate of the AJS, and is also
currently Chair of the Executive Committee of the Delegates.
The following were written by Aaron L. Katchen, the AJS Executive Secretary, for recent meetings of the CA O.
The Internationalization
of Scholarship
and Scholarly Societies
November 1994
THE MEMBERS OF the Association for
Jewish Studies are full participants in
the many and diverse fields of Jewish
Studies scholarship practiced around the
world. We have members in more than
fifteen foreign countries. As a corporate
entity, however, the Association for
Jewish Studies maintains no international affiliations. We conduct no activities jointly with our organizational
counterparts elsewhere.
Indeed, our
activities in the United States serve as a
prime venue for foreign scholars, who
participate annually in our December
meeting and contribute frequently to
our AJS Review.
More than twenty years ago, the
Association gave consideration to establishing formal links with the World Union of Jewish Studies, headquartered in
Jerusalem. Given the very different
agendas of the two organizations, such
an arrangement did not materialize.
The World Union has only two functions: to convene the quadrennial World
Congress of Jewish Studies and to publish its proceedings. The Union has
never sought to become a membershipbased organization, as is the AJS. The
Union does not see itself, other than
indirectly, as promoting the cause of
Jewish Studies or the welfare of its practitioners, as does AJS. The Union, in
sum, has a very limited scope and maintains and fosters no continuity, connection, or solidarity between participants
during the four-year intervals between
Congresses.
One might suggest that the field of
Jewish scholarship as practiced in North
American academic institutions and in
Europe has very different concerns and
organizational structures than Jewish
scholarship overseas. In North America, the typical model, with two notable
exceptions, Brandeis University, where
AJS is now housed, and New York
University, shows individual scholars in
academic departments across the spectrum of arts and sciences disciplines. In
a few institutions, so-called Centers for
Jewish Studies do provide gathering
places for those with an interest in Judaica. In Israel, however, Jewish Studies
is itself routinely organized along departmental lines, with large departments
of Jewish Philosophy, Jewish History,
Hebrew Literature, etc., the more widespread phenomenon. There is, as a result, perhaps, less concern for the material and intellectual welfare of scholars
in the field and less need for continuity
outside the immediate department or
institution.
This having been said, the World
Congress organizers have frequently
solicited participation from abroad and
regularly invite overseas scholars to deliver papers; the Congress also accommodates those who volunteer. Members of our association have always participated fully in the Congress and published their papers in its Proceedings.
Inasmuch as the World Union has met
its goals without outside subvention or
support, control has always remained in
the hands of Israeli scholars.
The European Union of Jewish
Studies has grown up only over the last
decade or so. Its membership is more
scattered, and it is more loosely organ-
ized. Though American scholars were
instrumental in getting it off the
ground, its contacts with the AJS as a
body have remained informal.
Aside from participating in international conferences held overseas, our
American members contribute regularly
to (as well as serve on the boards of or
edit) prestigious foreign journals, often
in languages other than English.
Americans and other non-Israelis write
in Hebrew for Israeli journals, for example, while foreign scholars regularly
contribute in English to American journals besides our own, which also contains a Hebrew section. Monographs by
American members of our association
are frequently published at foreign
presses. Some of our members publish
in languages other than English or Hebrew. Translations of foreign language
Judaica into English have become more
widespread, and not merely from Hebrew to English, of which there is a
veritable flood. The phenomenon is
equally true in reverse, with much Jewish Studies scholarship by Americans
finding a ready audience outside the
United States. There are no national
boundaries any more for either periodicals or monographs. That this is an
especially acute problem for libraries is
the subject of yet another conference.
This reflects a larger phenomenon,
and one that, issues of institution or
affiliation aside, is a prime concern of
this symposium. Jewish Studies scholarship is international almost by definition. Scholarship in Judaica draws on a
world-wide, linguistically diverse body
of learning. In all fields of Judaic Studies, scholars disregard what has been
published or produced outside the
11
I
Internationalization of Scholarship
(continued from page 11.)
United States or in a foreign language at
their peril. While this was true in previous generations as well, when, more
often than not, core works were created
and appeared elsewhere, the transfer of
the centers of scholarship to America
and Israel
has enhanced
crossfertilization.
It appears, indeed, that, despite the
natural diversity in the topics and questions that form the core focus and interest of scholars in any given country,
those interests now appear less difficult
to erase or bridge than hitherto. While
Americans studying American Jewry,
for example, pay a great deal of attention to community issues, the interest in
such issues from overseas has grown,
particularly, with the large number of
foreign scholars who spend large
amounts of time in this country. They
bring their concerns home with them,
but they also bring home a sense of
solidarity with their American counterparts. The establishment and maintenance of contact, facilitated by e-mail,
on-line interest groups, FAQs, etc., etc.,
have exploded the envelope of opportunity for collaboration.
for the American experience or are in
any way "alien" in their perspective.
That they are as perspicacious as we and
often more so is undeniable fact, and
only our own arrogance would presume
otherwise. In Judaic Studies in particular, we have, I believe, overcome the
view that we Americans do it best. This
is evidenced by a number of features in
the history and current practice of our
association.
It is hard to justify the impression
that foreign scholars have less of a "feel"
A number of years ago, there was
an attempt to establish regional gatherings of the AJS above and beyond the
annual conference. One of these was
even held in Canada. While the initiative did not last, it is noteworthy that
the organizers of the initial meetings
were Israeli scholars with a long connection to the United States. One was the
late Shlomo Dov Goitein, a European
immigrant to Israel who spent many a
year at the Institute for Advanced Study
in Princeton, the other the now nonagenarian Jacob Katz, a Hungarian-born,
German-trained former Rector of the
Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who
has held numerous visiting professorships in the United States and was here
earlier this fall (1994) for a lecture at the
Harvard Law School. Their activism
has long been characteristic of the association's foreign members. Also to be
noted is the fact that the first editor of
Missions of a Learned Society in
an Electronic Age
lieve it will impact our mission and that
of other learned societies as well.
November 1995
THE ASSOCIATION FOR JEWISH STUDIES
was founded "to promote, maintain, and
improve teaching, research, and related
endeavors in Jewish Studies in ... institutions of higher learning." It has tried to
achieve this by furthering contacts between scholars through conferences and
publications. We take these to be the
principal functions of learned societies.
As the information revolution transforms the character and the techniques
of research and teaching and facilitates
communication through a variety of
new technologies, it has begun to transform the scope and management of our
activities. We have good reason to be-
12
ADMINISTRATIVE APPROACHES
The areas in which we have already implemented change are the obvious operational ones. We have maintained a
membership database for about five
years; this year we upgraded to
MS-Access, a relational database. We
have been composing our conference
program using Pagemaker for several
years. This year the database virtually
generated the conference program. We
have even availed ourselves of project
management software to aid in conference planning. Along with every other
learned society, we are on the Internet
for email. We are about to put up a
gopher site and a Web page. Looking
ahead to the future, the means by which
we collect and process dues may well
the AJS Review was the late Frank
Talmage, an American living and teaching in Toronto. We really have no international boundaries as far as membership and participation are concerned.
[
,
Finally, the program from our 26th
Annual Conference this December >
(1994) shows participants from Israel in
large numbers and at many of the sessions likely to attract the greatest inter- j
est. Our Canadian contingent is substantial, as usual. The U.K., France, |
Russia, Germany, Greece, and South j
Africa are also represented. There will !
be attendees from other countries as !
well. It will be hard to distinguish foreign perspectives from American ones at
this conference, as it is at most. When
some of our members are Europeanborn South Americans who, after migrating to Israel, now reside from time
to time as visiting scholars in the United
States, or some variation on this construct, it is hard to speak of whether we
have become more international or less,
given the history of migrations.
In sum, Jewish Studies scholarship
seems destined to maintain its international character. The Association for
Jewish Studies will continue to provide
a forum and a link between practitioners world-wide.
change dramatically because of new
banking regulations, policies, and available services. We will still continue to
need the support of dues, which (along
with some grants) sustain the journal
that members receive. We also expect
that such activities and services as those
described below will never be completely self-funding. We will have to
continually reexamine our dues policies
to take account of ever-changing cost
structures and staffing requirements.
These tools and administrative factors
do not, however, speak to our mission,
even if they facilitate its execution.
A J S IN A CHANGING
CLIMATE
SCHOLARLY
The question that we have not addressed
fully enough is whether we can continue to be a driving intellectual force in
the scholarly lives of our members.
Will they continue to regard attending
our annual conference in December in
Boston as a worthwhile enterprise,
which more than a third of our membership currently does. Will chat rooms
replace face-to-face contact? Will it soon
be our role to moderate such a virtual
discussion group? Will we be reduced
to the modern version of a cafe society?
We are not yet operating in this mode.
Furthermore, it is unlikely that the intellectual focus of the practitioners of
our discipline will undergo a paradigm
shift as rapidly as that of many other
users of the technology AJS members
are increasingly adopting. The subject
matter, both retrospective and contemporary, both abstract and applied, will
continue to be the prime attraction for
those working in our field, as it must be
in any field. Among the new scenarios,
however, will be the enhancements that
new technologies enable. The collegial
atmosphere that our meetings are
known for and the personal contacts
they foster will benefit from more sustained correspondence and collaboration. Meetings can be more productive
and intensive, with sessions better prepared beforehand. Ease of access to colleagues overseas appears to have joined
all our members more closely to one
another and even to have increased
scholarly productivity. AJS provides a
forum for initiating contacts and reinvigorating them annually. It is probably fair to say that periodic video teleconferences will not replace such meetings; rather, they can and should provide a useful supplement to our December venue.
RISKS AND
GROWTH
OPPORTUNITIES
FOR
The new tools and technologies afford
increased access to information and enhanced contact between scholars. At
the same time, by their modus operandi,
they pose a threat to the scholarly profession. While they enable almost every
practitioner to achieve a broader scope
of vision, they mislead the untrained
searcher into assuming that understanding and experience are bundled with the
download data. The data itself may also
be unreliable. Postings of Judaica to the
Internet have proliferated, their source
often-times being individuals and organizations with no scholarly creden-
tials and with a doctrinaire or promotional intent. Some of these have been
disseminated as a necessary counter to
deliberate distortion or to anti-Jewish
propaganda, though much of what appears is without academic integrity or
accuracy. So much for purveyors.
As for consumers, with a browsing tool
on the Web, even the beginner can soon
pretend to expertise and even skill. It is
already beginning to be difficult to distinguish a gourmand from a gourmet at
the banquet of learning. An all-too
prevalent character on the current scene,
one who surely has his counterpart
elsewhere, is the "CD-ROM talmid hakham," whose inadequately seasoned
learning can easily escape notice. The
Hebrew appellation has distinguished
the most learned of scholars for two
millennia. The CD-ROM, on the other
hand, the on-line database, and access to
the Internet appear to create a level
playing field. (This is independent of
the question of the two-tier society of
the computer literate and the nonliterate that needs to be addressed separately.)
Rather than pouncing on this new dilettantism as pernicious, it may be wise to
view it as an opportunity to disseminate
knowledge in new and creative ways to
an eager public. The mission of a
learned society in a democratic society
has to be inclusive of the larger public.
We now have a lever with which to
raise the standards of scholarship among
the broadest possible network of students and teachers. We view this as a
direct benefit to all scholars and students.
A learned society's carefully
monitored, moderated, and regulated
Web site or listserv can serve as an
"expert system" for guiding both successful and aspiring practitioners in their
investigations.
THE NEW REVENUE STREAM
The learned society can expect to find
new sources of revenue in refereed electronic journals and evergreen bibliographies (it is all-too-easy to recall printed
bibliographic resources that were out-ofdate when they appeared). The society
can serve as the repository of "libraries"
of images with an "imprimatur" of
authenticity and hypertext ties to guide
learning. In the new publishing uni-
verse, a learned society that fosters collaboration in such ventures by the leaders in the several disciplines it comprises
has a new opportunity to raise the standards in the profession. Scholars represented in this galaxy by their membership in the learned society will have
greater visibility. It is also possible that
the learned society will be better
equipped by its access to almost all
those who work in the field to handle
more mundane, yet equally critical
tasks. These include the traditional ones
of job placement and advocacy on behalf of its members, which become all
the more valuable in a world of declining university resources and greater job
insecurity.
There can even be an opportunity for
the learned society to reengineer or retool, by recreating, in a new form, the
academy by correspondence, as the familiar university structure continues to
erode. Although some universities have
taken to creating virtual campuses, with
courses available remotely, the learned
society can draw on resources far more
extensive than a single department at a
single university. The learned society
has the power to deliver programs of
learning on every level, either autonomously or as the linchpin of a broadbased consortium of universities. The
careful maintenance of standards that a
for-profit venture may have to forego
will be the hallmark of such a new
"institution." This is only one of the
many ways in which the learned society
can help maintain the integrity and enhance the teaching of its subject.
TIME-HONORED
VALUES,
MARKETS AND TECHNIQUES
NEW
The value-added in such tools and programs, then, is that in the proper hands
they can reinforce in a new way the
time-honored rules, values, and activities, and the integrity that characterize
the scholarly profession. Scholarship
must be a collaboration among great
minds. It requires constant rapid feedback and monitoring that continue over
a long period of time to deepen the student's understanding of the subject matter and of the process of education itself.
It relies on the chance to float "trial balloons" and put forth meritorious, yet
inchoate theories before a select, easily
accessible group of experts. Scholarship
13
Missions of a Learned Society
(continued from page 13)
must be free of bias and readily disseminated. The ease of use offered by the
new media almost guarantees that these
values and approaches will be more easily maintained and even furthered. The
learned society can serve as a conduit
and facilitator for this enterprise and
derive appropriate fees for helping consumers navigate the scholarly highways
and by-ways of the larger information
highway.
OUR STRENGTH AND POTENTIAL
This approach should not be regarded as
an attempt to control. It is rather the
kind of benefit to the profession that
only the professional organization, with
its unique access and vantage point, is
able to provide. Such considerations
also address directly the question of elitism that raises itself constantly. As electronic technology becomes more and
more of a commodity, the cost of market entry for even the least advantaged
among us becomes lower and lower.
Everyone can become a "knowledge
worker." The learned society must be a
market leader and move ahead of the
curve to capture the reins, so that its
historic mission can be maintained: to
promote teaching and scholarship.
The learned society can do this if it steps
forward to be more than a clearing
house for issues in the field, more than a
facilitator of on-line conferences, and
more than a purveyor of on-line journals. It has to use the bully pulpit at its
disposal to disseminate its message. The
learned society adds value only to the
extent that 1) it creates a more learned
general society through the efforts of its
members in that larger society, and 2)
that it upholds the standards of scholarship to which its members aspire
through the fostering of true collaboration among scholars. Our harnessing of
the new technologies now at our disposal and of those that are rapidly
emerging can enable this vision to become more than a virtual reality, as we
transform ourselves from the traditional
learned society to the "learning organization."1
See Peter M. Senge, The Fifth Discipline:
the Art and Practice of the Learning Organization (1990).
1
14
ACLS Travel Grants
ACLS Travel Grant Program, 1995
Competition Recipients Recommended
by the Association for Jewish Studies:
Conference of the International Organization for Qumran Studies, Cambridge,
United Kingdom / July 16-17, 1995
Joseph M. Baumgarten
Professor Emeritus
of Rabbinic Literature
Baltimore Hebrew Univesity
"Description of an Unpublished
4Q Text"
Robert A. Kugler
Assistant Professor
of Religious Studies,
Gonzaga University
"Isaac's Halakhic Instructions
to Levi in 'Aramaic Levi': a discussion of a newly available
.»
text
Dr. Marvin Fox Honored
The AJS is proud to congratulate its
past president, Dr. Marvin Fox, on the
signal honor accorded him by the Boston Jewish community. A new $1 million gift to the Fund for Jewish Continuity from the Louis and Ida Selib Memorial Fund has been presented to the
Combined Jewish Philanthropies of
Greater Boston to be used to create the
Marvin Fox Fund for Jewish Learning.
This endowment is named in honor of
Dr. Fox, scholar and Professor Emeritus
of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies at
Brandeis University, and Professor of
Religion and Philosophy at Boston
University, in recognition of his commitment and contribution to Jewish
scholarship and the Jewish community.
The funds are to be used to help support the Boston Kollel and CJP's overall
Jewish continuity efforts.
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AJS Newsletter
Bernard D. Cooperman
University of Maryland
Vice-President for Publications
Editor
Aaron L. Katchen
Association for Jewish Studies
Managing Editor
Correspondence / articles for the
Newsletter should be sent to:
Bernard D. Cooperman, Editor
AJS Newsletter
Meyerhoff Center
for Jewish Studies
0113 Woods Hall
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742
Association for Jewish Studies
Robert M. Seltzer
Hunter College
President
Executive Secretary:
Aaron L. Katchen
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€> 1995 Association for Jewish Studies
ASSOCIATION FOR JEWISH STUDIES
Report of the Nominating Committee
November 1995
The following is the report of the Nominating Committe, presented to the membership at the Annual Business Meeting
on 17 December 1995:
1. Nominees for Officers for 1995-1996:
•
•
•
•
•
President
Vice President/Program
Vice President/Publications
Vice President/Membership
Secretary/Treasurer
Robert M. Seltzer (Hunter)
Lawrence H. Schiffman (NYU)
Bernard D. Cooperman (Maryland)
Paula E. Hyman (Yale)
Benjamin Ravid (Brandeis)
2. Nominees for Members of the Board of Directors to serve a two-year term (December 1995-December 1997)
until the Annual Meeting in 1997:
Adele Berlin (Maryland)
Arnold M. Eisen (Stanford)
Michael Fishbane (Chicago)
Deborah Lipstadt (Emory)
Frances Malino (Wellesley)
David Roskies QTSA)
Tamar Rudavsky (Ohio State)
Marc E. Saperstein (Washington U.)
Michael A. Signer (Notre Dame)
Haym Soloveitchik (Yeshiva U.)
David Sorkin (Wisconsin)
Yael Zerubavel (U. of Pennsylvania)
3. The following Directors continue to serve until the annual meeting in 1996,
in terms to which they were elected at the Annual Meeting in 1994:
David Berger (Brooklyn C.)
Elisheva Carlebach (Queens)
Todd M. Endelman (U. of Michigan)
Talya Fishman (Rice)
Ernest M. Frerichs (Brown)
Rela Geffen (Gratz)
Jay M. Harris (Harvard)
Jacob Lassner (Northwestern)
Jehuda Reinharz (Brandeis)
Alvin H. Rosenfeld (Indiana)
Jonathan Sarna (Brandeis)
Naomi B. Sokoloff (U. of Washington)
Steven J. Zipperstein (Stanford)
4. Honorary Directors:
Leon A. Jick (Brandeis)
Baruch A. Levine (NYU)
Arnold J. Band (UCLA)
Marvin Fox (Boston U.)
Michael A. Meyer (HUC, Cine.)
Jane S. Gerber (CUNY-Grad. Ctr.)
Nahum M. Sarna (Florida Atlantic)
Ruth R. Wisse (Harvard)
Robert Chazan (NYU)
Herbert H. Paper (HUC, Cincinnati)
5. Ex officio:
Norman A. Stillman (Oklahoma), Editor, AJSReview
Respectfully submitted,
Arnold J. Band (UCLA) (Chair)
Charles Berlin (Harvard)
Deborah Lipstadt (Emory)
Naomi Sokoloff (U. of Washington)
Jeffrey Tigay (U. of Pennsylvania)
Steven Zipperstein (Stanford)
15
ASSOCIATION FOR JEWISH STUDIES
Advance Notice:
28th Annual AJS Conference
Copley Plaza Hotel, Boston, MA, Dec. 15-17,1996
Proposals are due on March 29,1996.
Watch the mail in early February for proposal forms/instructions.
Tapes of all sessions of the 27th Annual Conference are available from:
Audio Archives Intl., 3043 Foothill Blvd., Suite 2, La Crescenta, CA (800) 747-8069
AJS Review 20:1 has appeared.
Paid-up members who have not received their copies
are asked to notify the AJS office.
AJS' Information Bulletin: Positions in Jewish Studies appeared in November.
Our list of 1995-96 visiting scholars at American institutions is also now available.
(1996-97 visitors: please use the questionnaire found on the Gopher and e-mail us.)
Visit the AJS Gopher/Web site!
Connect to:
URL: gophery/gopher.brandeis.edu:70/ll/campusinfo/ajs
AJS NEWSLETTER
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