Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies

This article is about the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at 420 Walnut Street. For the historic building at 2321-2335 N Broad Street, see Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning.
Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies
The Katz Center's Building on Walnut Street
Former name
Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning; Annenberg Research Institute
Established1993
DirectorSteven Weitzman
Location
420 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

39°56′50″N 75°08′55″W / 39.9473°N 75.1486°W / 39.9473; -75.1486
Websitehttps://katz.sas.upenn.edu/

The Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, commonly called the Katz Center, is a postdoctoral research center devoted to the study of Jewish history and civilization.[1]

Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies 420 Walnut St Philadelphia PA

History

The Katz Center is the continuation of two pioneering institutions devoted to advanced research: Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning and the Annenberg Research Institute. Dropsie College was the first accredited doctoral program in Judaic studies in the world. The Annenberg Research Institute was a center for advanced study in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam founded in 1986 with staff and collections carried over from Dropsie College. The founding director of the Katz Center was David B. Ruderman.[2] The current Ella Darivoff Director is Steven Weitzman.[3]

The Katz Center was established in 1993 as a part of the School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania. It was first named the Center for Judaic Studies (CJS); later, the Center for Advanced Judaic Studies (CAJS)—and in 2008, the Katz family endowed the center in memory of former board chair and philanthropist Herbert D. Katz. It is located in an award-winning building across from Independence National Historical Park in Center City Philadelphia.[4]

The Katz Center houses offices for scholars who are in residence throughout the academic year for postdoctoral research, as well as an extensive library of Judaica,[5] a reading room, and seminar and meeting spaces.[6]

Fellowship program

The Katz Center's primary activity is an academic fellowship program, which brings scholars from around the world to Philadelphia for a semester or a year. The program supports approximately 20 fellows each year; scholars apply if their current research fits the annual theme.[7]

Weekly seminars allow fellows to share their findings with each other and with invited scholarly guests; annual conferences are open to the wider academic community.[8]

Dropsie University Complex

In addition, the Katz Center offers public programs and a summer intensive course for graduate students.[9]

Library at the Katz Center

The combination of the Dropsie/Annenberg library with the Judaica holdings of the Penn Libraries resulted in a 350,000-volume collection of Judaica, including more than 8,000 rare books and an assortment of cuneiform tablets.

There are also 451 codices in eleven alphabets and 24 languages and dialects. Some of the languages and dialects represented include Hebrew, English, German, Yiddish, Ladino, Arabic, Latin, Judeo-Arabic, Armenia, Telugu, and Syriac. Fragments from the Cairo Geniza and others written in Coptic and Demotic on papyrus round out the collection.

The library also holds the personal letters of more than 50 Jewish-American leaders from the 1800s and 1900s, including Isaac Leeser, Sabato Morais, and Abraham A. Neuman (three ministers of Congregation Mikveh Israel in Philadelphia), Cyrus Adler (president, Dropsie College, Mikveh Israel, American Jewish Committee, Jewish Theological Seminary of America; librarian, Smithsonian Institution), Charles Cohen (president, Mikveh Israel, Fairmount Park Commission), his journalist sister Mary M. Cohen, Yiddish journalist Ben Zion Goldberg, and the benefactor Moses Dropsie.[10]

Publications

The Katz Center houses the Jewish Quarterly Review, the oldest continuously published journal of Judaic studies in English. Founded in England in 1888 under the editorship of Claude Montefiore and Israel Abrahams, JQR first came to the U.S. in 1911 under the editorship of Solomon Schechter and Cyrus Adler. It is currently published by Penn Press.

A Cairo Geniza fragment is part of the collection.

The Katz Center partners with the University of Pennsylvania Press to publish the book series Jewish Cultures and Contexts. The series is edited by Shaul Magid, Francesca Trivellato, and Steven Weitzman.[11]

Notable fellows

References

  1. ^ "Home | Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies". katz.sas.upenn.edu. Retrieved 2020-07-22.
  2. ^ katzcenterupenn. "History". Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies. Retrieved 2020-07-22.
  3. ^ katzcenterupenn. "Staff". Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies. Retrieved 2020-07-22.
  4. ^ "University of Pennsylvania – Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies | The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life". magnes.berkeley.edu. Retrieved 2020-07-22.
  5. ^ katzcenterupenn. "Library at the Katz Center". Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies. Retrieved 2020-07-22.
  6. ^ katzcenterupenn. "FAQs". Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies. Retrieved 2020-07-22.
  7. ^ katzcenterupenn. "International Fellowship". Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies. Retrieved 2020-07-22.
  8. ^ katzcenterupenn. "Academic Gatherings". Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies. Retrieved 2020-07-22.
  9. ^ katzcenterupenn. "Advanced Summer School for Graduate Students in Jewish Studies". Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies. Retrieved 2020-07-22.
  10. ^ "Library at the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies & Penn Libraries Judaica - collections | Penn Libraries". www.library.upenn.edu. Retrieved 2020-07-22.
  11. ^ katzcenterupenn. "Jewish Quarterly Review". Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies. Retrieved 2020-07-22.
  12. ^ "Menahem Ben-Sasson". en.jewish-history.huji.ac.il. Retrieved 2020-07-20.
  13. ^ "Prof. Amnon Ben Tor to receive Israel Prize in archaeology". The Jerusalem Post | JPost.com. Retrieved 2020-07-21.
  14. ^ "The Hebrew University of Jerusalem - Division of Marketing & Communication". www.huji.ac.il. Retrieved 2020-07-21.
  15. ^ "Clémence Boulouque — Department of Religion". religion.columbia.edu. New York City: Columbia University in the City of New York. 2023. Retrieved 24 March 2023.
  16. ^ "Clémence Boulouque — Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies". katz.sas.upenn.edu. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania. 2023. Retrieved 24 March 2023.
  17. ^ "Jewish Art and the Struggle of Tradition in Modernity". bildnercenter.rutgers.edu. Retrieved 2020-07-20.
  18. ^ "Natalie Zemon Davis Biography | AHA". www.historians.org. Retrieved 2020-07-20.
  19. ^ "About Daniel J. Elazar". www.jcpa.org. Retrieved 2020-07-21.
  20. ^ katzcenterupenn. "Professor Yaakov Elman z"l (1943–2018)". Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies. Retrieved 2020-07-20.
  21. ^ "Gitin, Seymour | Encyclopedia.com". www.encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 2020-07-21.
  22. ^ "Nurith Gertz". www.ithl.org.il. Retrieved 2020-07-20.
  23. ^ "Moshe Greenberg". www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org. Retrieved 2020-07-21.
  24. ^ "Bio - American Bar Foundation". www.americanbarfoundation.org. Retrieved 2020-07-20.
  25. ^ "Gershon D. Hundert". Jewish Studies מדעי היהדות. Retrieved 2020-07-21.
  26. ^ "Idel, Moshe | Encyclopedia.com". www.encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 2020-07-21.
  27. ^ "Natalie Zemon Davis Biography | AHA". www.historians.org. Retrieved 2020-07-21.
  28. ^ "Prof. Yosef Kaplan". pluto.huji.ac.il. Retrieved 2020-07-21.
  29. ^ "Ruth Mazo Karras". | College of Liberal Arts. Retrieved 2020-07-20.
  30. ^ "Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett Oral History". Library of Congress. Retrieved 2020-07-21.
  31. ^ "Jewish Museum Chief Curator Norman Kleeblatt Steps Down". artnet News. 2016-12-29. Retrieved 2020-07-21.
  32. ^ "David C. Kraemer". www.jtsa.edu. Retrieved 2020-07-20.
  33. ^ "Shaul Magid". Shalom Hartman Institute. Retrieved 2020-07-20.
  34. ^ "Michael A. Meyer, Ph.D." Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion. Retrieved 2020-07-20.
  35. ^ "David Nirenberg | History | The University of Chicago". history.uchicago.edu. Retrieved 2020-07-20.
  36. ^ "David B. Ruderman | Penn Arts & Sciences Department of History". live-sas-www-history.pantheon.sas.upenn.edu. Retrieved 2020-07-20.
  37. ^ "Maurice Samuels | Yale MacMillan Center Council on Middle East Studies". cmes.macmillan.yale.edu. Retrieved 2020-07-20.
  38. ^ "Sharpest Brains, Widest Hearts, Gifted Minds: The Fantastic 16 to Win the 2018 Israel Prize". mfa.gov.il. Retrieved 2020-07-21.
  39. ^ "Stefanie B. Siegmund". www.jtsa.edu. Retrieved 2020-07-20.
  40. ^ "Shaked, Gershon | Encyclopedia.com". www.encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 2020-07-21.
  41. ^ "Eminent historian delivers lecture about Israel's founding father". College of Social Sciences and Humanities. 2015-01-27. Retrieved 2020-07-21.
  42. ^ German, Department of (2014-03-15). "Anna Shternshis". Department of Germanic Languages & Literatures. Retrieved 2020-07-21.
  43. ^ katzcenterupenn. "Reuven Snir". Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies. Retrieved 2020-07-20.
  44. ^ "Muzeum Historii Żydów Polskich". 2011-07-23. Archived from the original on 2011-07-23. Retrieved 2020-07-20.
  45. ^ "Guy G Stroumsa | Hebrew University of Jerusalem - Academia.edu". huji.academia.edu. Retrieved 2020-07-21.
  46. ^ "Susan Rubin Suleiman". rll-faculty.fas.harvard.edu. Retrieved 2020-07-21.
  47. ^ "Ilan Troen '63". www.brandeis.edu. Retrieved 2020-07-21.
  48. ^ "Prof. Yaron Tsur". Tel Aviv University. Retrieved 2020-07-20.
  49. ^ "Chava Turniansky". press.uchicago.edu. Retrieved 2020-07-21.
  50. ^ "elliot r. wolfson: scholarship". wolfson.faculty.religion.ucsb.edu. Retrieved 2020-07-20.
  51. ^ Giving a Diamond: Essays in Honor of Joseph Yahalom on the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday. Brill. 2011-02-22. ISBN 978-90-04-20382-2.

39°56′50″N 75°08′55″W / 39.947312°N 75.148493°W / 39.947312; -75.148493