Jewish studies | EPFL Graph Search

Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?

Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of GraphSearch.

Jewish studies (or Judaic studies; madey ha-yahadut) is an academic discipline centered on the study of Jews and Judaism. Jewish studies is interdisciplinary and combines aspects of history (especially Jewish history), Middle Eastern studies, Asian studies, Oriental studies, religious studies, archeology, sociology, languages (Jewish languages), political science, area studies, women's studies, and ethnic studies. Jewish studies as a distinct field is mainly present at colleges and universities in North America. Related fields include Holocaust research and Israel studies, and in Israel, Jewish thought. Bar-Ilan University has the world's largest school of Jewish studies; while Harvard was the first American university, and perhaps the first in the world, to appoint a full-time scholar of Judaica to its faculty. The Jewish tradition generally places a high value on learning and study, especially of religious texts. Torah study (study of the Torah and more broadly of the entire Hebrew Bible as well as Rabbinic literature such as the Talmud and Midrash) is considered a religious obligation. Since the Renaissance and the growth of higher education, many people, including people not of the Jewish faith, have chosen to study Jews and Judaism as a means of understanding the Jewish religion, heritage, and Jewish history. The term Wissenschaft des Judentums (Science of Judaism) first made its appearance among young Jewish intellectuals in Berlin during the 1810s and 1820s. The first organized attempt at developing and disseminating Wissenschaft des Judentums was the Verein für Kultur und Wissenschaft der Juden (Society for Jewish Culture and Science of the Jews), founded around 1819 by Eduard Gans, (a pupil of Hegel), and his associates, among them Leopold Zunz, Moses Moser, and later Heinrich Heine. Its principal objective, as it was then defined in the Zeitschrift für die Wissenschaft des Judentums (1822), was the study of Judaism by subjecting it to criticism and modern methods of research.

About this result

This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.

Related publications (96)

Related people (13)

Related units (11)

Related concepts (12)

Q & A - Melanie Blokesch

Melanie Blokesch

Interview with Melanie Blokesch, who studies the lifestyle and evolvability of pathogenic bacteria at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne. ...

2024

, ,

For the dimensioning and assessment of structures, it is common practice to compare action effects with sectional resistances. Extensive studies have been performed to quantify the model uncertainty on the resistance side. However, for statically indetermi ...

Ernst & Sohn2024

Photocatalyzed [2σ + 2σ] and [2σ + 2π] Cycloadditions for the Synthesis of Bicyclo[3.1.1]heptanes and 5- or 6-Membered Carbocycles

Jérôme Waser, Matthew Wodrich, André Bossonnet

We report the use of photocatalysis for the homolytic ring-opening of carbonyl cyclopropanes. In contrast to previous studies, our approach does not require a metal cocatalyst or a strong reductant. The carbonyl cyclopropanes can be employed for both [2σ + ...

2023

Jewish culture is the culture of the Jewish people, from its formation in ancient times until the current age. Judaism itself is not a faith-based religion, but an orthoprax and ethnoreligion, pertaining to deed, practice, and identity. Jewish culture covers many aspects, including religion and worldviews, literature, media, and cinema, art and architecture, cuisine and traditional dress, attitudes to gender, marriage, and family, social customs and lifestyles, music and dance.

"Wissenschaft des Judentums" (literally in German the expression means "Science of Judaism"; more recently in the United States it started to be rendered as "Jewish Studies" or "Judaic Studies," a wide academic field of inquiry in American universities) refers to a nineteenth-century movement premised on the critical investigation of Jewish literature and culture, including rabbinic literature, to analyze the origins of Jewish traditions.

Following is a listing of rabbinical schools, organized by denomination. The emphasis of the training will differ by denomination: Orthodox Semikha centers on the study of Talmud-based halacha (Jewish law), while in other programs, the emphasis may shift to "the other functions of a modern rabbi such as preaching, counselling, and pastoral work.” Conservative Yeshivot occupy a position midway, in that their training places (significantly) more emphasis on Halakha and Talmud than other non-Orthodox programs.