By offering courses that explore the diversity of the Bay Area's Jewish community, SFSU's Jewish Studies Department hopes to reflect not only the exciting historical, cultural, and religious traditions of the Jews, but also to build bridges between Jews and non-Jews across the curriculum so that Jewish Studies can really be the "people's Jewish Studies."

Jewish Studies in the Community Announcements

The job description for the current open position in Israel Studies is available here as a pdf file. For further details, please contact Professor Fred Astren.

SF State to receive $3.75 million from Goldman Fund for endowed chair in Israel Studies

Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund will transform Jewish Studies at SF State with the largest endowed chair gift ever received in the California State University system.

SAN FRANCISCO, February 26, 2008 -- San Francisco State University today announced the establishment of an endowed chair in Israel Studies made possible by a $3.75 million gift from the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund. A portion of the endowment will be used to elevate Jewish Studies from program to department status.

The endowment will fund a new faculty position in Jewish Studies focusing on the scholarly study of Israel. The Richard and Rhoda Goldman Chair in Israel Studies will develop and deliver a curriculum that addresses the history, politics, culture and religions of Israel.

"Establishing a Chair in Israel Studies will add both depth and breadth to the Jewish Studies Program," said Fred Astren, professor and director of the Jewish Studies Program. "We have been working hard toward this goal for several years and are grateful to the Goldman Fund and our supporters who have made this possible."

Israel studies is an emerging academic field focusing on a multidisciplinary approach to Israel as a society and culture. The endowed chair will expand on the current faculty's expertise in Jewish literature, pre-modern Jewish history and American Jewish history, while also contributing to scholarly conversations across the University in such departments as political science, history, international relations and the emerging Middle East and Islamic Studies Program.

"As conflicts in the Middle East continue, it is vitally important to provide students with a deeper and more fully developed understanding of Israel. The purpose of this professorship is to accomplish that goal," said Richard N. Goldman, founder and president of the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund.

“I want to thank the Goldman Foundation for so generously expanding its visionary partnership with SF State," University President Robert A. Corrigan said. "The chair in Israel Studies will put us on the cutting edge of a new and exciting area of scholarship. It also will strengthen our longstanding commitment to keeping SF State a place where all ideas and points of view can be frankly and openly explored and where discourse remains civil.”

Part of the endowment will also provide support for the transformation of the Jewish Studies Program into an academic department – the first Jewish Studies Department in the CSU system. It will also make SF State the only Bay Area university to have a free standing Department of Jewish Studies offering undergraduate study.

"Becoming a department reflects the maturity of the curriculum and programs that we have offered since 1993 and we are honored to be granted this solid institutional standing within the University," Astren said. "Planning is already underway to implement these new developments." Recruitment of the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Professor in Israel Studies will begin in fall 2008, with the appointee expected to join the faculty in August 2009.

The Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund has contributed more than a half-billion dollars to a variety of charitable causes in the Bay Area, nationally and internationally. In 1997, SF State received a $1 million gift from the Fund to establish the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Chair in Jewish Studies and Social Responsibility, a position held by Professor Marc Dollinger. This academic year, a grant from the Goldman Fund is supporting the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Visiting Professor in Israel Studies, an initiative which was the prototype for establishing the permanent endowed chair in Israel studies.

SF State to host Goldman Visiting Professor in Israel Studies

Haifa scholar Uri Bar-Joseph, expert in security studies and intelligence

SAN FRANCISCO, June 25, 2007 -- Uri Bar-Joseph, Ph.D. has been appointed the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Visiting Professor in Israel Studies at San Francisco State University for the 2007-2008 academic year. The position, made possible by $90,000 in support from the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund, is intended to advance Israel studies on the campus and to encourage relationship-building between the campus and community.

Bar-Joseph, whose expertise is in security studies and intelligence, is currently senior lecturer of international relations, department of political science, at the University of Haifa in Haifa, Israel. He will teach SF State's long-standing class, "Israeli Democracy: Politics, Institutions and Society," two classes in international relations, and a new class on "The Arab-Israeli Conflict," cross-listed with the department of International Relations.

"This is a major step toward developing Israel studies as one of the emphases in the Jewish Studies Program's curriculum," said Fred Astren, professor and director of Jewish Studies at SF State. In addition to the Israeli democracy class introduced in spring 1998, the program added an Israeli Cinema class last year. "Israel studies is a natural component of the Jewish studies major and offers both a complement and counterweight to our strong offerings in Holocaust studies," Astren said.

Bar-Joseph earned his doctorate in political science from Stanford University, a master's in international relations from Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a B.A. in political science and sociology from Haifa University. In addition to numerous articles in professional journals, he is the author of three books: "The Watchman Fell Asleep: The Surprise of Yom Kippur and Its Sources," "Intelligence Intervention in the Politics of Democratic States: The USA, Britain and Israel," and "The Best of Enemies: Israel and Transjordan in the War of 1948." With Amos Perlmutter and Michael I. Handel he wrote "Two Minutes Over Baghdad."

A $1 million gift to SF State from the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund in 1997, at the time the largest donation in the University's history, established the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Chair in Jewish Studies and Social Responsibility, held by Mark Dollinger since 2002.

2008-2009 Lectures

• Sept 16, 3:30pm, HUM 415 (JS Office and Library).
  Donny Inbar, Ph.D., The Israel Center, SF.
  "Just a Spoonful of Sugar Makes the Gefillte Fish Go Wild."
• October 2, Zvika Serper, Theater Arts and East Asian Studies, Tel Aviv University
  Screening and discussion of his production of "The Dybbuk."
• October (date and time tba), S. Ilan Troen, Stoll Family Chair in Israel Studies and Director, Schusterman Center for Israel Studies, Brandeis University.
• November 17, Frances Dinkelspiel, award-winning journalist and author.
  Discussing her new book, Towers of Gold: How One Jewish Immigrant Named Isaias Hellman Created California (St. Martin's Press, 2008).

Alumni and Student Accomplishments
Rose Kleiner and Luis Cardona both received the Sara Ruth Award for outstanding essays.

Donations to the Jewish Studies Department
To donate to the Jewish Studies Department, please contact either Professor Fred Astren or follow the above link, "Donations."