AJS Directory of Programs in Jewish Studies

Institution:	Portland State University
Location:	Portland, OR
Type of Institution:	public
Department/ Program:	Judaic Studies
Director:	Michael Weingrad
Website:	http://www.judaic.pdx.edu/
Contact:	weingrad@pdx.edu 503-725-3085

Degrees Offered:
Minor, Certificate, or Other

Program Description:
The program examines Judaism as an ethnic religion which became a world civilization as a result of diaspora. Focusing on the encounter of Jews and Judaism with the modern world, the core concerns of the program are: religious pluralism (interactions between Judaism and neighboring religious and philosophical traditions and their influences on one another); religion and science (how Judaism accomodated and integrated the discoveries of science and the habits of mind that characterize scientific inquiry); diaspora, citizenship, and cultural survival (how the rise of open or religiously tolerant societies and the creation of the state of Israel altered Jewish identity); community and identity (how individualization and the egalitarian ethic of modern life altered Judaism and Jewish life); and modernity and culture (how the Jewish experience became manifest in literature and the arts).

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