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St. Cloud State University
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Jewish studies gain focus
By Ashwin Raman
Published:
Monday, September 15, 2003
One of the many new additions this fall to SCSU is the establishment and hiring of a director for the new Jewish Studies program.
Joseph Edelheit will head this new program and an office of Jewish Communal Activities and Resources, located in the philosophy department. He does so in an effort to educate students about Jewish religious philosophy and many other things. He began his appointment as director of the program July 3.
"I will teach two classes a semester and develop a program of courses, ideally multi- and interdisciplinary," Edelheit said.
"It will be Jewish studies in religious studies and in history, sociology. Everything is collaborative. Nothing stands alone," he said.
Edelheit has much experience to share with students. He has spent the last 30 years as a rabbi and has taught several college courses in the University of Minnesota and Augsburg College in Minneapolis.
Some courses he has taught have been classes in post-holocaust theology, suffering and evil and basic Judaism. He also earned a doctorate in the Divinity School in the University of Chicago in 2001.
Prior to his appointment as the director of the Jewish Studies program, Edelheit spent the last year at SCSU working as a consultant with provost Michael Spitzer to map out the framework of the current Jewish Studies program.
He does note, however, that his role on campus is not as a member of the clergy. "On campus I am a scholar and an academic," he said.
One of the main reasons for the birth of this Jewish Studies program is because of a first class-action lawsuit settlement that was made a year ago by SCSU. The lawsuit had been filed against SCSU on the grounds of anti-Semitism by one current and two former faculty members and a student.
Part of the settlement of the lawsuit was that SCSU create a Jewish Studies program.
Edelheit, however, maintains that this new program is not about dealing with the past.
"I would like to create, with the help of students and faculty, a program that doesn't require a link to past issues," Edelheit said. "Those issues may have stimulated the process in which (the program) has come, but I don't want the program to be evaluated on a basis as a solution (for anti-Semitism)."
He hopes instead that the program be evaluated on the basis of what students are learning.
Geoffrey Tabakin, one of the faculty members involved in last year's lawsuit, agrees with Edelheit. He said the new program should not be seen as a reward for the settlement. He worries that the Jewish Program has been set up as an exclusion from the rest of campus.
"This program needs to be embraced inclusively," Tabakin said. He added that he thinks the program is also a difficult one to establish because of the setting and the time.
"This is not a place that has a natural body that would support this program as in numbers and in interest," Tabakin said. "And I think Joseph (Edelheit) is the right person to make it happen."
In addition to educating students, Edelheit plans to also reach out to the community. He has planned to do six lectures on Judaism to the Christian community of St. Cloud beginning January next year.
"These lectures will be an essential part of linking the larger university community to the St. Cloud community," he said. "They will be about Judaism that are not divorced from real life."
This is only the beginning, but already he is seeing good signs ahead.
"It has been phenomenal so far, the faculty, the students, the community. I just can't say enough positive things," Edelheit said. "The key to the program's success is the communal vision of the future and not the past."
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