Yeshiva University has launched a master’s degree program intended specifically for Christian students who want to learn more about Judaism, part of a growing number of academic collaborations at US Christian and Jewish schools that draw students of different faiths.
The Hebraic Studies Program for Christian Students began this summer as a partnership with the Philos Project, a nine-year-old Christian non-profit that promotes engagement with Jews. The Philos Project also pays for one-third of the $US34,950 tuition cost. (Yeshiva provides students with a scholarship covering another third of the tuition. The rest – $US11,650 – is paid by the students.)
The program, which enrolled eight students in its initial cohort, is run through the Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies at Yeshiva University. It began with an online summer semester focused on introductory Hebrew. This fall, students will begin taking classes in ancient and modern Jewish history, post-biblical Jewish literature and Jewish-Christian relations.
“This is very much in keeping with our graduate school’s mission, which is to use the best methodologies to enhance the understanding of Jewish religion, Jewish culture,” said Jonathan Dauber, associate professor of Jewish mysticism at Yeshiva and the director of the new program.
Although Yeshiva has a rabbinical school that ordains rabbis in the Orthodox tradition – the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary – the master of arts degree program is a separate graduate school offering.
Read the article by Yonat Shimron in Sight Magazine.