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The Stroum Jewish Studies Program’s 2012 Annual Report is here!

Read the Letter from our Chair below, and view the full newsletter to the right.

From the Chair of the Stroum Jewish Studies Program:

“It is such an honor and a privilege to be serving as chair of the Stroum Jewish Studies Program, and I am extremely proud of what our faculty, students, and community have been able to accomplish together during the 2011-12 academic year.

You may have noticed that we have revamped the form and content of our newsletter. With our new website, JewDub.org, now available for regular news updates, we decided to dedicate this publication to sharing what makes our program unique—our commitment to building an innovative Jewish Studies program dedicated to engaged scholarship. As you will see on these pages, our faculty and students are unearthing the richness of the past while utilizing the latest technologies to connect and inspire.  In the classroom, on the streets of Seattle, and abroad, they are discovering new insights about what Judaism and the Jewish people have been, are now, and will be in years to come.

We are poised for another fantastic year. As we fondly say farewell and thank you to Jen Cohen, our outgoing Assistant Director, we welcome Lauren Spokane as our new Assistant Director. Lauren will bring her experience in leadership development and community engagement in Reform synagogues to the table as she works to strengthen our community and student outreach, helping us to maximize the impact of our academic resources.

As we look to the coming year and begin preparations for our program’s 40th anniversary in 2014, we will continue to cement our reputation as a cutting-edge Jewish Studies program, where experimentation leads both to relevant scholarship and new ways of engaging with it. This includes carving out new territory for the preservation of Sephardic history and creating ways for students and community members alike to interact in-person and on-line. This year we are excited to present New Voices in World Jewish Music, a series of music and lecture events that will continue our tradition of offering strong public programming. We will also work to expand our level of student engagement on campus through building unique partnerships with other UW programs, launching our brand new Graduate Fellowship, harnessing the power of social media, and using good old-fashioned peer-to-peer student outreach.

We are able to do all of this incredible work because we have been blessed with unparalleled community support and talented leadership. Thank you to all of our supporters who have contributed year in and year out. It will take a group effort to face the challenges of maintaining high-quality public education in such a time of transformations across the academic spectrum. Together, we can define what a Jewish Studies program that is truly engaged – with scholarship, students, and the community – can be.”

Professor Noam Pianko
Samuel M. Stroum Endowed Chair of Jewish Studies
Lucia S. & Herbert L. Pruzan Professor of Jewish Studies

Download a full PDF version of our Fall 2012 newsletter here or read the Fall 2012 Newsletter with Issuu, a free digital reader service.