John F. Kennedy and ISRAEL The Jews of the Middle East and North America in Modern Times Lodz Ghetto: A History John F. Kennedy and ISRAEL The Jews of the Middle East and North America in Modern Times Lodz Ghetto: A History

Mission Statement

The Judaic Studies Department is committed to rigorous, critical and serious teaching and research about the Jewish civilization born in the ancient Middle East that has flourished in a variety of forms in many places for more than three thousand years. The department's course offerings and programs reflect the chronological scope and geographic diversity of the Jewish experience, with particular strength in the fields of intellectual, religious and social history, founded on analytic study of primary sources. Courses on Hebrew and Yiddish promote access to broad Jewish literature that is also studied in translation, while students are urged to study Arabic, Spanish and other languages that facilitate access to primary sources. The department also actively seeks to promote study of the many Jewish communities of Brooklyn.

Current News

New York Times Columnist Addresses the Question of How Well the Press Covers Israel

Clyde Haberman, a renowned newspaperman and CUNY graduate, who spent 13 years as a globetrotting foreign correspondent for The New York Times in locales such as Tokyo, Rome and Jerusalem before taking up his current assignment in 1995 as Metro section columnist for the paper, delivered this year's Frances Haidt, '44, Memorial Lecture presented by the Ethyle R. Wolfe Institute for the Humanities in cooperation with the Department of Judaic Studies and the Department of English.

The subject of Haberman's talk, which was held March 18 in the Woody Tanger Auditorium at the Brooklyn College Library, was "Covering Israel: Does the Press Get It Right?" His answer was usually, but not always. "Nobody always gets it right," he told his audience of more than 100 persons. "But, yes, mostly over all we get it right."

Haberman described how shortly after arriving in Jerusalem in 1991, he joined several other correspondents in covering an anti-Palestinian demonstration by Orthodox Jews. One of the protestors came up to him and bluntly asked, "Are you a Jew?" Haberman replied that he was and the man quickly rejoined his fellow demonstrators. Then one of Haberman's fellow journalists, a Briton, who also was Jewish, warned him not to tell people he was Jewish. "It will just cause trouble for you," he said.

Haberman, a 1966 graduate of City College of New York who is married and has three children and one grandchild, admitted that covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for four years was one of the most troublesome - even dangerous - assignments for the Times, with the exception of covering the Iraq War. He spoke of aspects of his time in the Middle East that bothered him and others that amused him, then took questions from his mostly elderly audience.

Prior to joining the Times in 1977, Haberman worked at the New York Post, where he covered a wide range of local and national stories, including the bloody Attica prison rebellion in 1971 and Jimmy Carter's 1976 campaign for President.

The Israelis and the Palestinians have many different words to describe the things they are fighting over, he said. But, he added, they both claim to be fighting for the same thing. The Palestinians call it "Salaam," the Israelis call it "Shalom." Both words mean "Peace." (BC Office of Communications, edited.)

Robert Moses Shapiro has been promoted to Associate Professor of Judaic Studies, in which he specializes in the history, culture and literature of East European Jewry, Polish Jews and the Holocaust, as well as Yiddish language and literature.

Prof. Sara Reguer, Chair of the Judaic Studies Department, used a prestigious research fellowship to travel to a series of archives in Italy during January 2008, pursuing her study of the figure of Judith in Italian Jewish liturgical and folklore traditions.

Prof. Sharon Flatto has been promoted to Associate Professor of Judaic Studies and was elected to tenure at Brooklyn College, in recognition of her scholarship, teaching and service to the community. Her study of Rabbi Ezekiel Landau, the prominent 18th century leader of Prague Jewry, is scheduled for publication by the Littman Press in 2008.

On September 20, 2007, the Judaic Studies Department cooperated with the Wolfe Institute for the Humanities and the English Department to sponsor a lecture, "Whose Story? Israeli and American Jewish Autobiography," presented by the distinguished scholar Hana Wirth-Nesher, who compared and contrasted the autobiographical writings of the Israeli Amos Oz and the American Philip Roth. Dr. Wirth-Nesher is professor of English at Tel Aviv University, where she also directs the study of the Jewish experience in the USA, and is director of the Goldreich Institute for Yiddish Language, Literature and Culture.

Prof. Robert M. Shapiro's translation of Isaiah Trunk, Lódz Ghetto: A History (Indiana University Press, 2006), was awarded a Bronze Medal in the ForeWord Magazine competition for Book of the Year in History. Lódz Ghetto: A History was issued in a new paperback edition in February 2008.

On October 28, 2007, Prof. Robert M. Shapiro participated in a symposium, "Jewish Resistance Reconsidered," at the Museum of Jewish Heritage. Dr. Shapiro spoke on "Popular History, Judaism, and Resistance." Other participants in the symposium were Israel Gutman and Yehuda Bauer of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, David Engel of New York University, Judy Baumel-Schwartz of Bar-Ilan University, and museum curator Yitzchak Mais.

The second Frances Haidt '44 Memorial Lecture was held on April 24, and delivered by Dr. Ruth Westheimer, noted family therapist, researcher, author, documentary filmmaker, and television personality. chair of New York Univeristy's Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies. "Dr. Ruth" spent the early years of her career in the Heath and Nutrition Department at Brooklyn College. Her theme for the 2nd Haidt Lecture was "Heavenly Sex: The Jewish Family." She addressed the large audience in her renowned fashion that combines humor with serious observations about fundamental aspects of human relations and family life. She interwove recollections of her own life that began in Frankfurt, Germany, continued with refuge in a Jewish orphanage in Switzerland and immigration to then-Palestine, where she joined the Haganah and participated in the nascent Jewish State of Israel's fight for survival in 1948-49. After recovering from her injuries, "Dr. Ruth" left Israel to pursue education and a career in research, teaching, and writing in the USA.The lecture was co-sponsored by the Wolfe Institute for the Humanities.