Jewish Studies

Jewish Studies is a vibrant interdisciplinary field of academic inquiry that examines Jewish cultures and civilizations from the biblical period to the present day in every part of the globe. The field draws on the disciplines of history, literature, linguistics, philosophy, religion, anthropology, music, art and architecture, and other fields in the arts, humanities, and social sciences.

Jews are, in the words of the founder of Jewish Studies at Columbia, historian Salo Baron, a “permanent minority” with powerful lessons for our times. Many students come to Barnard with little education about Jewish heritage. Non-Jews from different parts of the U.S. and world are often fascinated by Jewish life when they encounter it for the first time in New York City, home to the largest population of Jews of any city around the globe. Many Jewish students come to Barnard having had immersive Jewish educations from Jewish day schools and yeshivas. Academic Jewish Studies is essential for all these students, from those with little exposure to Jewish heritage to those steeped in it, to gain not an “objective” perspective but a mature one that draws from diverse scholarship in the field of Jewish Studies. 

Columbia University has a history of Jewish Studies that dates back to its early years with the founding of a professorship in Rabbinic Literature and Semitic Languages in the 1880s and the acquisition of a collection of rare Hebrew manuscripts and books. Columbia’s appointment in 1930 of Baron was the first of its kind at an American secular university. Barnard College’s Program in Jewish Studies came into being in 1997 with a donation by the Rennert family to establish the Ingeborg Rennert Professorship in Judaic Studies and the Women in Judaism Forum Fund, though Barnard students before that time were able to take Jewish Studies courses at the nearby Jewish Theological Seminary. Barnard College’s Program in Jewish Studies now works cooperatively with the Columbia Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies and the Jewish Theological Seminary to provide Barnard students with a well-developed interdisciplinary, interdepartmental education in Jewish Studies.