Tarbut: Jewish Identity & Contemporary Israeli Culture
A Fellowship Program
TUFTS UNIVERSITY
Spring 2015
Rabbi Or Rose, Director, Hebrew College
Sponsored by CJP
The Tarbut Fellowship is designed to engage Tufts students in an accessible and compelling exploration of Jewish life and thought through the lens of contemporary Israeli arts. In delving into various works of poetry, music, film, painting, and dance, we will examine how these phenomena intersect with, build upon, and depart from other forms of Jewish culture, past and present. This pedagogic approach will allow participants to deepen their understanding of modern Israeli society, while also expanding their knowledge of the history of Jewish civilizations. In addition to these conceptual goals, we seek to provide fellows with the opportunity for sustained personal reflection on their own emerging Jewish identities—spiritual, social, and political—and their relationship with Israel.
The Tarbut curriculum will be thematic in nature, focusing on four different dimensions of contemporary Israeli life and Jewish culture:
- God & the Spiritual Quest (February)
- Gender & Sexuality (February/March)
- Visions of Home: Exile, Redemption, Diaspora (March/April)
- Israelis, Palestinians, and the Search for Peace (April)
Rabbi Or Rose is the director of the Center for Global Judaism of Hebrew College. He is also co-director of CIRCLE, a joint center for interreligious learning and leadership jointly sponsored by HC and Andover Newton Theological School.
Rabbi Rose, a prolific writer and speaker, is serving as visiting scholar at Tufts in 2014-2015.