Brandeis UniversityMaurice and Marilyn Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies

2012-13 Israel Studies Report and Directory

June 2014

Annette KorenEric Fleisch

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Acknowledgments The authors thank student research assistants Chelsea Norman, Hannah Vester, and Dana Lipper for their extraordinary efforts finding and checking every entry, and Viktoria Bedo, David Bigio, Yana Bushmelov, Aviv Dolev, Sara Fried, Ariella Kasmer-Jacobs, Rebecca Rose, and Evan Taksar for their continuing work on the Directory project. For his critical feedback, we thank Leonard Saxe, the Klutznik Professor of Contemporary Jewish Studies and director of the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies and the Steinhardt Social Research Institute at Brandeis University. We also thank managing editor, Deborah Grant, and research specialist, Joshua Davidson, for their assistance in preparing the document for publication. We greatly appreciate the work of David Manchester, graduate research assistant at the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies, for his technical expertise in creating the relational database that is the foundation of the Directory. Support for this study was provided by the Israel Institute.

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Contents Table of Figures and Tables ............................................................................................................................. 4

Executive Summary ........................................................................................................................................... 5

Introduction ........................................................................................................................................................ 7

Trends over Time .............................................................................................................................................. 7

Israel-Focused Courses and the Study of Language ................................................................................... 10

Distribution of Israel-Focused Courses ....................................................................................................... 11

Hebrew and Arabic Language Courses ........................................................................................................ 13

Enrollment ........................................................................................................................................................ 14

Colleges and Universities ................................................................................................................................ 15

Faculty ............................................................................................................................................................... 19

Conclusions and Areas for Further Research .............................................................................................. 21

References ......................................................................................................................................................... 23

Appendix A: Methodology ............................................................................................................................. 24

Appendix B: Schools with No Israel-Focused Courses ............................................................................. 28

Appendix C: Number of Israel-Focused Courses by University Type .................................................... 30

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Table of Figures and Tables Figure 1 : Number of Israel-Focused Courses* ............................................................................................ 7 Figure 2: Change in Number of Israel-Focused Courses by Universities (n=316) .................................. 8 Figure 3: Israel-Related Courses and Israel-Focused Courses 2008-09 through 2012-13* ................... 10 Figure 4: Course Distribution by Department* .......................................................................................... 11 Figure 5: Course Distribution by Subject Area ........................................................................................... 13 Figure 6: Universities Offering Hebrew and Arabic Language Courses.................................................. 13 Figure 7: Number of Hebrew and Arabic Language Courses by Universities ........................................ 14 Figure 8: Enrollment Data by Course Subject Area (n=701 courses) ..................................................... 15 Figure 9: Institutions and the Number of Courses Offered in 2012-13 (n=316) .................................. 16 Figure 10: Size of Undergraduate Population and the Number of Israel-Focused Courses ................ 17 Figure 11: Percentage of Jewish Students and Number of Israel-Focused Courses .............................. 17 Figure 12: Israel Studies Resources and Israel-Focused Courses Offered in 2012-13 .......................... 18 Figure 13: Faculty Teaching Israel-Focused Courses by Departments (n=489) * ................................. 19

Table 1: Presence of SIIS Fellows and Change in Course Offerings 2008-09 to 2012-13* ................. 18 Table 2: Selection of Schools with No Israel-Focused Courses ............................................................... 28 Table 3: Number of Israel-Focused Courses at Top 10 National Universities ...................................... 30 Table 4: Number of Israel-Focused Courses at Top 10 Liberal Arts Colleges ....................................... 30 Table 5: Number of Israel-Focused Courses at Big Ten Universities ..................................................... 31 Table 6: Number of Israel-Focused Courses at California State Schools ............................................... 31 Table 7: Number of Israel-Focused Courses at Top 20 Regional Universities ...................................... 32

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Executive Summary The 2012-13 Directory of Israel Studies builds on the work of previous directories in 2005-06, 2008-09, and 2011-12. It expands the earlier work and enhances knowledge of the field of Israel studies through inclusion of course enrollment data and identification of faculty. A key change is the recognition and addition of upper-level Hebrew language courses as Israel-focused. The Directory this year documents three important findings about the field of Israel studies:

Growth in the number of Israel-focused courses, albeit at a slower rate than seen in the past

The importance of institutional and external support for professorships, chairs, centers, and programs to prepare scholars to teach in the field

Student demand for Israel-focused courses in enrollment numbers and the number of faculty teaching about Israel

Classification of Courses

The Directory classifies courses into Israel-focused (those principally concerned with studying Israel) and Israel-related (those that include the study of Israel to a lesser extent). In this Directory, upper-level Hebrew language courses with extensive cultural, societal, and political content about Israel are included as Israel-focused. For purposes of comparison with previous years, Hebrew language courses that would not have been included in the 2008-09 or 2011-12 Directories are not included in the count of Israel-focused courses. In the analysis of 2012-13 courses, Hebrew language classes that have been designated as Israel-focused are included.

Number of Courses

At the 316 colleges and universities included in the Directory, Israel-focused courses increased from 609 in 2011-12 to 616 in 2012-13 (+1%). Including upper-level Hebrew language courses, however, increases further the total number of Israel-focused courses in 2012-13: 701 courses. Over the four-year period from 2008-09 to 2012-13, the number of Israel-focused courses grew by 7%, compared with a 5% growth in the number of Israel-related courses (from 822 to 867). The growth is slow but stable.

Long-Term Effect of University and External Funding

An examination of the schools with programs to stimulate the growth of Israel studies courses suggests that such programs have lasting impact. The number of Israel-focused course offerings grew from 2008-09 to 2012-13 at schools with fellows from the Summer Institute for Israel Studies at Brandeis University (SIIS) at a rate higher than schools without faculty participation in the program. Not surprisingly, that growth continues beyond the years immediately following the participation of fellows in SIIS. However, schools with visiting Israeli professors from the American Israel Cooperative Enterprise (AICE) also experienced stronger growth in the number of Israel-focused courses, despite the fact that they no longer had visiting Israeli professors in 2012-13. This

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trend suggests that universities continue to try to meet the demand created by the visiting professors for high-quality courses about Israel. Schools with Israel studies programs and Israel studies chairs also have larger numbers of courses. The support of such programs as well as from the universities and colleges themselves helps make the academic study of Israel a reality on many campuses.

Israel Studies Courses Attract Students

A factor supporting the growth of Israel studies is student demand—apparent in the number of students enrolling in Israel-focused courses. Courses on the conflict tend to attract the largest enrollment, averaging 33 students. Hebrew language courses tend to be smaller (averaging 16 students), and many Israel-focused courses are upper-level courses capped for smaller classes. Nonetheless, the average course size for Israel-focused courses is 23 with classes ranging in size from one or two participants in independent studies to as many as 340 in a history course on the Arab Israeli Conflict. The Directory documents over 15,000 students studying about Israel in this sample of 316 colleges and universities. Because students may be enrolling in more than one course about Israel, this count is somewhat higher than the actual number of students who are enrolled, but it represents significant interest in the field.

Faculty Teaching about Israel

In earlier iterations of the Directory, the research team did not collect instructor names. In 2012-13 the research team was able to identify over 500 people teaching about Israel in schools. Trends in the number of faculty teaching about Israel as well as the frequency with which specific courses are being taught can now be tracked in the future.

Implications of the Research

The data suggest that much has been done to expand the study of Israel on campus, but much remains to be accomplished. The research suggests two important areas for further exploration:

The Directory documents the large number of undergraduates at 135 institutions (43% of the sample’s 316) who had no access to Israel-focused courses on their campuses in 2012-13. These schools represent over one million undergraduates with little or no venues for learning about Israel through academic scholarship. Of the 316 schools in the Directory, 82 have never offered a course related to or focused on Israel. Schools with large undergraduate populations such as Texas A&M or University of Houston, and highly ranked schools such as Bowdoin College and the California Institute of Technology represent the potential for educating additional students about the economy, culture, and history of Modern Israel.

Courses in Modern Hebrew, especially on the intermediate and advanced levels, are strong resources for learning about Israeli culture and current events and may have been overlooked as a place to expand Israel studies on campus. Hebrew faculty could be actively recruited to expand their areas of expertise and integrate even broader and deeper modern Israel components in their classes.

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Introduction Courses in the Directory are categorized as Israel-focused, Israel-related, or language-only. Israel-focused courses are defined as devoting almost all of their content to Israel or including Israel in a comparative framework for studying a particular concept within a discipline. A course entitled Jewish Experience in Comparative Perspective: Israel, France, and the United States is considered Israel-focused. Israel-related are concerned with Israel less centrally, although it is not always possible to determine whether a course on the Modern Middle East includes any discussion of Israel. Within the language-only category, distinctions are made between Arabic language and Hebrew language courses. In the past, the Directory included Israel-focused and Israel-related courses. In 2012-13, the Directory lists only Israel-focused courses, but the number of Israel-related courses is given as well, and course titles and descriptions are maintained in the Directory database for further analysis. Every effort has been made to preserve consistency across the years of study, but new information in course descriptions about the use of Israeli cultural, societal, and political content in Hebrew language courses has changed their classification from language-only to Israel-focused in the 2012-13 directory (see Appendix A: Methodology). In the following discussion, trend data excludes Hebrew language courses in 2012-13 that would not have been included in the 2008-09 and 2011-12 directories. In discussion of the distribution of courses in 2012-13, the full 701 Israel-focused courses in the Directory are included.

Trends over Time In the four years after 2008-09, the number of Israel-focused course offerings increased, however, the growth appears to have slowed. In the three years between 2008-09 and 2011-12, the number of Israel-focused courses increased by 6% from 576 to 609. From 2011-12 to 2012-13, there was little increase (+1%) from 609 to 616 (See figure 1). Figure 1 : Number of Israel-Focused Courses*

* The darker blue portion of the bars exclude Hebrew language courses that likely would not have been included in previous years. The numbers for 2011-12 also correct for courses listed in the 2011-12 Directory that faculty, reporting in 2012-13, indicated had not been taught the previous year.

576 609 616

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The trend, if such exists, appears to be one of modest growth with some schools expanding and other schools decreasing their Israel-focused course offerings (See figure 2). Discussions with instructors and department chairs suggest that the reasons for these fluctuations are particular to each school: hiring of new faculty with Israel studies expertise or retirement of those who have been teaching Israel studies courses, faculty on sabbatical or returning from leave, established rotations of offerings based on department curricula, or adjunct instructors hired or laid off in response to changes in an institution’s overall financial health. Nonetheless, the plurality of schools did not change the number of courses they offered over the four-year period. Even excluding the schools that offered no Israel-focused courses in any of the three years, the vast majority (78%) either changed very little (no more than one or two courses in either direction) or not at all. Figure 2: Change in Number of Israel-Focused Courses by Universities (n=316)

Schools with large growth in Israel-focused course offerings over the four-year period include: University of Maryland, College Park; Yeshiva University; University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; and Columbia University. Many courses appear for the first time, but others that were listed in the past were not offered in 2012-13.

At University of Maryland, College Park, the Institute for Israel Studies offered “Investigating topics” courses such as The Migration to Israel, Conflict Resolution - the Israeli Palestinian Experiment, Israel in Women’s Art/Film, and Israeli Economy. Seminars listed by the Institute included Elections in Israel 1949-2013, Media Campaigns in Israel, and Israeli Politics—Young Leaders. Critical Approaches to Israeli Culture, previously offered by Jewish studies, and The Arab-Israeli Conflict through Readings in Translation, offered by Arabic studies, were not found in 2012-13 course listings. The University of Maryland is notable for having 10 faculty members teaching about Israel—some senior, some junior, some Israeli, some Americans, some visiting, some not, some based in the Israel Institute for Israel Studies, and some coming from other academic fields.

5% 6%

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Touro College also added Israel-focused courses such as: Contemporary Israeli Society, Religious Zionism, Iran & the Bomb: US, Israel & the West, and Geography of Israel. The school continued to offer The Political Economy of Israel, Eretz Yisrael in Jewish Thought and Law, The Literature of Modern Israel, and Government & Politics of Israel.

The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, offered five courses listed in 2011-12 and 2012-13: The Arab-Israeli Conflict in Middle Eastern Literature (Comparative Literature) and the History of the Arab-Israeli Conflict (History), for example. Four courses in intermediate and advanced Modern Hebrew were listed in 2012-13 but not in 2011-12. Other courses listed in 2012-13 but not in 2011-12 include Israeli Women in Film and Fiction (Jewish studies), Israeli Society and Politics (Political Science) and The Politics of Immigration and Identity in Israel (Jewish studies). A Tale of Two Cities: Tel Aviv and Jerusalem in Israeli Culture (Jewish studies) and Arab-Israeli Conflict—Simulation (Education) are examples of courses offered in 2011-12 but not in 2012-13.

At other schools as well, some courses were carried over from previous years, and others appeared to be new. It is not always possible to distinguish new courses from adapted. At Carnegie Mellon, for example, a course that was offered by the history department in 2008-09 and 2011-12, The Arab-Israeli Condition: War and Reconciliation, was not listed in 2012-13. A course listed in the latter year, The Arab-Israeli Conflict and Peace Process Since 1948, may have been an entirely new course, a revision, or merely a change of title. Almost every school in the Directory sample (312 of 316) offered at least one course categorized as Israel-related. These courses may have a unit or a few lectures on Israel or include Israel as one of several examples of the course subject focus. The research team assessed whether the course had content about Israel based on the course descriptions. Vienna Around 1900: Cradle of Modernity, a course at Amherst College, along with discussing artistic experimentation, the emergence of psychoanalysis, and the philosophy of Ernst Mach and Ludwig Wittgenstein, also discusses “the emergence of modern Zionism (Theodor Herzl) in a context of a growing anti-Semitism that shaped Hitler’s irrational worldview.” While not specifically about Israel, the course provides background on the movement that is the core of Israel’s foundational history. With other courses, it is less clear the extent to which they discuss Israel. Introduction to the Modern Middle East, at Ohio State University, “presents the student with a multi-disciplinary analysis of the issues involved in the modern-day transformation of the Middle East.” The course description does not mention Israel, but as a course about the geographic region of which Israel is part, it is categorized as Israel-related. Other examples of Israel-related courses are:

Jewish History, 1500-1948 at Rice University

U.S. Foreign Policy in the Middle East at Bates College

Ethnic Nationalism at Claremont McKenna College

Seminar on Contemporary Peace Making and Peace Building at St. Joseph’s University

Colonialism in the Greater Middle East at James Madison University

Jewish Music at Tulane University and Newcomb College

Middle East Politics at Villanova University The 2012-13 Directory Database lists almost 1000 Israel-related courses (957), including 110 Hebrew language courses. Although the 2011-12 Directory suggested a dip in Israel-related course

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offerings from 2008-09, the 2012-13 number shows growth. In comparison with the dramatic and seemingly unpredictable change in the number of Israel-related courses, the number of Israel-focused courses remained relatively stable. Figure 3: Israel-Related Courses and Israel-Focused Courses 2008-09 through 2012-13*

*2012-13 bars include Hebrew language courses in clear box.

Israel-Focused Courses and the Study of Language The 2012-13 Directory marks the first time that course descriptions have been collected and entered in the Directory database. Based on those descriptions, all courses are classified as Israel-focused, Israel-related, and language-only. On systematic review of course descriptions and classifications, the research team learned that most intermediate and advanced Hebrew courses—and even elementary courses— place emphasis on Israeli literature and culture. Hebrew instructors use Israeli film, television, news media, art, and music to familiarize students with modern Hebrew and the land in which it is spoken. As a result, in 2012-13, more Hebrew language courses are classified as Israel-focused. For example:

At Washington University, the Fourth-Level Modern Hebrew: Seminar in Hebrew Literature provides an introduction “to modern Israeli literature and literary analysis for the advanced student of Hebrew. Topics include selected genres, influential writers, and the relationship between literature and society.”

At Brandeis University, Intermediate Hebrew II is subtitled: Aspects of Israeli Culture.

Bard College offers a course entitled Elementary Hebrew II. In addition to “mastering the verb system” students “will continue to explore the various elements of Israeli culture using technology and media (popular songs, movies, newspapers).”

Elementary Modern Hebrew I at University of Maryland, Baltimore County includes “introductory exposure to Israeli society and culture.”

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Introduction to Hebraic and Israeli Culture, a course required for the major and minor in Jewish studies at Dartmouth College, “explores the interaction of Hebrew literature, film, music, religion, and society…focus on the Bible as wisdom, law, and poetry, the Talmud of the ancient Rabbis, Kabbalah and Hebrew alphabet mysticism, war and the Israeli cinema, Hebrew folk and rock culture, and a modern political mystery: how today’s Hebrew created a new Jewish identity.”

In order to provide a more useful comparison of Israel courses from 2008-09 and 2011-12 to 2012-13, we limited the total Israel-focused courses to those that would likely have been included in 2011-12. The full number of Israel-focused courses, including all relevant Hebrew courses, however, is 701. The analysis that follows includes the full 701 courses.

Distribution of Israel-Focused Courses The distribution of courses by department, due to the additional Hebrew courses, is much more heavily weighted toward Hebrew and Jewish studies (figure 4) than was found to be the case in 2011-12. Nonetheless, half the courses originate in other departments: political science, history, literature, and language (comparative literature, English, African and Middle Eastern Languages, etc.), Middle East studies, social science (anthropology and sociology), Israel studies, and fine arts including film, art history, music, and theatre. Figure 4: Course Distribution by Department*

*Includes Hebrew language courses.

Designation by department or program, however, is a poor substitute for classification of course subject matter. It is difficult, and in some schools impossible, to determine the department in which the courses actually originate. Many courses are cross-listed in multiple departments, and, in some schools, each department or program assigns the course a different course number. Jewish studies programs often offer Israel-focused classes that seemingly have little to do with Judaics. For example:

Art, Music, Film, Dance

2%

Hebrew26%

History14%

Israel Studies3%

Jewish Studies23%

Literature and Language

7%

Middle East Studies6%

Political science/ International

Relations15%

Social Science4%Course Distribution

by Department(n=701)

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Israel’s Wars at Brown University, from the course description a history course, is taught by an adjunct instructor in Jewish studies

A visiting professor, hired jointly by history and Jewish studies, taught The Arab-Israeli Conflict at Tulane University. The course, listed in Jewish studies, was taught all three terms.

Power and Diplomacy in the Modern Middle East, at Vanderbilt University, was listed in Jewish studies, history, religious studies, and Islamic studies. The course appears to have been created by a professor in the history department, introduced by Jewish studies, and co-taught by a professor in political science.

Likewise many courses offered by Hebrew departments deal specifically with Israeli culture and society apart from Hebrew language. For example:

Israeli Culture and Society (Arizona State University)

Israeli Humor and Its Roots (Princeton University)

Dynamics of Israeli Culture (Yale University)

Hebrew in Song (University of Washington) In the other direction, the research team found Hebrew language and literature courses in departments other than Hebrew language or Jewish studies.

Hebrew courses offered by the Asian Studies department at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Hebrew Forum, an “intermediate and advanced level biweekly discussion on contemporary issues…[with] focus on exposure to academic Hebrew” offered by Stanford University’s African and Middle Eastern Languages department

A better way to look at course distribution is to assign each course a topic area based on the course title and description (see Appendix A: Methodology, for a discussion of how topic areas were assigned). This assignment shows 21% of all courses focusing on the conflict (figure 5.) When taken together, culture courses (Hebrew, literature, film, and general culture) comprise almost half of the total (47%). The remaining third of courses concern history, political science, international relations, religion, and other.

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Figure 5: Course Distribution by Subject Area

Hebrew and Arabic Language Courses Of the 316 schools in the Directory, most offer language instruction in Hebrew and/or Arabic; only 54 have neither. Twenty offer only Hebrew, 89 offer only Arabic, and 153 offer both. Figure 6: Universities Offering Hebrew and Arabic Language Courses

Language instruction requires more than one or two course offerings, and 44% of the schools offering Hebrew language instruction listed at least five different courses in 2012-13. Arabic language programs typically offer more courses than Hebrew programs with 60% of Arabic language programs offering five or more courses (figure 7).

Conflict21%

Culture10%

Film6%

Hebrew20%

Literature11%

History9%

Politics/ International

relations9%

Religion3%

Society7%

Other4%

Course Distribution by Subject Area

(n=701)

Hebrew Only6%

Arabic Only28%

Hebrew and Arabic49%

No Hebrew or Arabic courses

17%

Universities by Languages Offered(n=316)

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Figure 7: Number of Hebrew and Arabic Language Courses by Universities

Enrollment In 2012-13, CMJS began collecting information on student enrollment as part of the Directory database. The data document over 15,000 students studying about Israel in this sample of 316 colleges and universities (see Appendix A: Methodology). Because students in one Israel-focused course may be enrolled in others, this count may somewhat over-estimate the actual number of students, but note that enrollments were collected only for Israel-focused courses; many additional students are enrolled in Israel-related courses. For these reasons, the number of students, rather than the percentage of students, is given in the following description of enrollments by subject area and in figure 8. The average course size is 23, ranging from one or two participants in independent studies to over 300 in The History of the Arab-Israeli Conflict at the University of Michigan. Many Israel-focused courses tend to be upper-level courses capped for smaller classes, but courses on the conflict attract the larger enrollments, averaging 33 students. The sum of students enrolled in courses about the conflict at the schools in the Directory is almost 5,000. Hebrew language courses are smaller, averaging 16 students, but culture, film, literature, and Hebrew courses with culture components taken together enrolled more than 5,700 students. History, political science, and international relations comprised about 2,700 students. It will be important in future years to track the number of courses, and their enrollment by subject area, to document shifts and explore areas for future development.

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Figure 8: Enrollment Data by Course Subject Area (n=701 courses)

Colleges and Universities The number of Israel-focused courses in 2012-13 differs substantially from one campus to the next. The schools offering the greatest number of courses were the University of Maryland, College Park with 22 and Brandeis University with 20. American Jewish University offered six courses and the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Rhode Island offered none (although the University of Pittsburgh offered Government and Politics in the Middle East and an intermediate level Hebrew course, both Israel-related. Also, students at the University of Pittsburgh are able to cross-register for courses at Carnegie Mellon which listed a course on the conflict in 2012-13). Almost half of schools in the Directory had no or only a few (one to two) Israel-focused or Israel-related courses (figure 9). More than one million students attend the 135 schools that offered no Israel-focused courses 2012-13. Students at 35 of these schools had access to Hebrew language courses, and at 100 of the schools, students could take courses related to Israel. But in 2012-13, over one million students had no opportunity to study Israeli society, culture, politics, or history in any depth. (See Appendix B for a listing of schools which have no Israel-focused courses but have large populations and/or large Jewish populations.)

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Figure 9: Institutions and the Number of Courses Offered in 2012-13 (n=316)

Rarely do schools offer Israel-focused courses in a vacuum. The schools with Israel-focused courses usually have Israel-related courses and Hebrew language courses as well. Only 10 schools with Israel-focused courses had no Israel-related or Hebrew language courses. The relationship of the size of the undergraduate population to the number of Israel-focused courses can be seen in figure 10. Larger schools offer more courses about Israel, but a number of schools with large undergraduate populations have no Israel studies courses at all, and Brandeis University, Yeshiva University, and Barnard College, small schools with fewer than 2000 students, have considerable Israel-focused courses offerings.

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Figure 10: Size of Undergraduate Population and the Number of Israel-Focused Courses

The size of the Jewish population and the percentage of the total undergraduate body that it represents is much more closely related to the number of course offerings. Figure 11: Percentage of Jewish Students and Number of Israel-Focused Courses

Schools offering the largest number of courses possess substantial resources for Israel studies. Of the 30 universities that offered seven or more Israel-focused courses, all have Jewish studies programs, and almost all (27) have study abroad opportunities in Israel; 11 have Israel studies programs as well, and nine of those have chairs in Israel studies. In short, the more resources for expanding Israel studies that a university has, the more courses it offers. The relationship between having such resources and offering Israel studies courses is shown in figure 13.

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Figure 12: Israel Studies Resources and Israel-Focused Courses Offered in 2012-13

In addition to these resources, universities benefit from external programs such as SIIS and the AICE visiting Israeli professors and Israel Scholar Development Fund grants (ISDF). Seven former recipients of ISDF fellowships taught a total of 16 Israel-focused courses in 2012-13, and, on average, schools with SIIS fellows experienced more growth in Israel-focused courses than schools without such fellows (table 1). The Directory will be able to track their numbers and enrollments in the future as well. Table 1: Presence of SIIS Fellows and Change in Course Offerings 2008-09 to 2012-13*

Israel-Focused

Courses Offered in 2008-09

Israel-Focused Courses Offered

in 2012-2013

Change 2008-09 to

2012-13

Institutions with a faculty member attending SIIS between 2008-09 and 2012-13 (n=71)

214 242 13%

All other institutions (n=245) 362 374 3%

*Numbers do not include Hebrew language courses

In its initial Directory study in 2008-09, CMJS showed the number of Israel-focused courses at the most highly ranked universities and colleges, Ivy League schools, and the largest universities. These data are available in Appendix C along with numbers of top regional universities.

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Faculty Since the original Directory of Israel Studies in 2005-06, universities, as well as external organizations such as AICE, SIIS, and, most recently, the Israel Institute, have sought to increase the number of faculty who can teach about Israel by supporting graduate students, post-docs, and visiting professor positions. SIIS has provided formal instruction, study tours in Israel, access to resource materials, and post-institute programing to over 175 individual faculty members in the United States–106 of whom teach at 71 schools included in the Directory. For the first time in 2012-13, the Directory has collected information on faculty who teach Israel-focused courses on campus. The data is not complete, but 482 individuals were identified teaching at 180 of the 184 campuses offering Israel-focused courses. These faculty members come from a wide variety of departments and programs (figure 14). The distribution reflects course listings rather than actual faculty appointments, and many of the courses, especially in Jewish studies are taught by faculty with appointments in other departments or programs. A little over 40% of the faculty members teaching courses about Israel in Jewish studies have appointments in other departments. Figure 13: Faculty Teaching Israel-Focused Courses by Departments (n=489) *

* The 36 faculty members teaching in more than one department or program are counted twice in this figure.

Faculty teaching about Israel were identified on 126 campuses. Although on some campuses, all come from Jewish studies or Hebrew departments, in many instances faculty have appointments in history, political science, arts and literature, and social sciences. The diverse backgrounds of the professors provide students with the opportunity to learn about Israel from more than one perspective. Universities make use of visiting scholars and adjuncts as well as assistant, associate, and full professors.

At American University in 2012-13, two courses in history and another in Jewish studies were offered by a scholar now associated with the University of Maryland’s Israel Institute.

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An American University history department scholar in residence taught a course listed in sociology, and an adjunct associate professor and an assistant professor in the School of International Relations taught courses in that area.

At Indiana University, 12 Israel-focused courses were taught in 2012-13. A visiting Israeli professor taught three courses in Near Eastern Languages and Culture; a professor of Jewish studies and Near Eastern Languages taught three courses in Jewish studies; a senior fellow in Middle East studies taught a course in International studies on ethnography and bridge blogging in Jerusalem; an associate professor of communication and culture taught a course entitled Images of War and Peace in Israeli Public Culture in Jewish studies; and two faculty members offered courses in advanced Modern Hebrew.

At the University of Arizona, the coordinator of the Hebrew Program taught two Israel-focused courses in advanced Modern Hebrew, the David and Andrea Stein Visiting Professor of Modern Israel Studies along with an adjunct lecturer taught a course on Modern Israel with six sections; and two people from the School of Government and Public Policy, one a doctoral candidate and the other an adjunct instructor, taught separate sections on the Arab-Israeli conflict in Middle East studies.

This data on faculty suggest the need for a study of the communication channels among the different faculty members teaching about Israel on campus. Is there any attempt to coordinate course offerings about Israel between political science and Jewish studies or Hebrew and history? What benefits might there be from team teaching and development of a sequence of study? To what extent, if at all, do university administrators attempt to foster such communications? The collection of faculty names, along with the courses they teach and the course descriptions, will allow the Directory’s research team to track Israel expertise over time and space. Many of the faculty from 2012-13 have already moved to other colleges and universities. The field is fluid and diverse. In future years, the Directory will assess the field: faculty turnover, new faculty hires, movement from visiting positions to more permanent positions, the use of adjuncts, and any movement in the number of tenured faculty positions in the field.

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Conclusions and Areas for Further Research The Directory suggests that the field of Israel studies has a foothold in the American academy. The position it holds is relatively stable with some small growth of Israel-focused courses offered in 2011-12 and 2012-13 and more substantial growth when additional Hebrew courses are included in 2012-13. The Directory is currently being developed for 2013-14 and will be followed by another in 2014-15. Future updates will allow more in-depth trend analysis of courses by department, subject area, and institution; more study of faculty who teach Israel-focused courses; and research into enrollment issues. Enrollment data confirm that demand exists for courses. The Directory documents a total enrollment of over 15,000 students in Israel-focused courses. There may be duplication of individuals taking these courses, but the data do suggest strength of student interest in the subject matter. As in the past, courses about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict appear to represent a large portion, but by no means the majority, of Israel-focused courses. Nonetheless, these courses attract the largest number of students, and efforts to expand the field to include a more normalized view of Israel will have to confront that reality. In looking for opportunities for students to develop a broader and deeper picture of Israel, the content of Hebrew language and literature courses suggests questions for further exploration:

Who is teaching Hebrew courses on campus and what do they see as their mission visa-vis imparting cultural, geographic, historic, and political familiarity with Israel? What is happening to enrollment in Hebrew language classes and might this suggest a different approach to university Hebrew curricula, i.e., learning language through or stimulated by cultural, societal, religious, or historical approaches?

What would a model Hebrew language/Israel studies program look like? What are the characteristics of Hebrew programs whose students go on to other Israel-focused courses and Israel experiences?

How qualified are existing Hebrew faculty to teach about politics and society as well as the language and culture of Israel? How can these facets of Israel be woven into the context of Hebrew education? What opportunities exist for Hebrew faculty to develop their range of teaching options? What models exist and how can they be promoted more widely?

Similar questions can be asked about Israel studies centers and programs. There are 17 Israel studies programs in the United States. Some centers focus on graduate education; others offer undergraduate minors within Jewish studies, courses for credits in other departments, or credits toward a Jewish studies major. The time may be propitious for an evaluation of those efforts.

What has been the vision of these centers and programs? How do these visions differ, and how do the programs themselves differ?

What are the benchmarks for success for Israel studies on campus? How many courses? How curricularized an approach? How large an enrollment? What size faculty? What degree of interaction with other departments, centers, institutes, and programs?

What are the documentable advantages of organizing Israel studies as programs rather than seeding chairs, training indigenous faculty, funding graduate study, or allowing the field to

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grow within existing programs and centers? Although 11 of the 30 institutions offering seven or more Israel-focused courses have Israel studies centers or programs, the remaining 19 do not. Why are Israel-focused courses so plentiful on those campuses? To what extent do faculty members at individual schools such as these communicate and coordinate their Israel-focused course offerings? What are the opportunities for students to design minor or even major concentrations in Israel studies in schools without Israel studies programs?

Questions remain about who enrolls in Israel-focused courses and why. We know relatively little about the students or what they learn in their courses (see Koren & Einhorn, 2012 and Koren & Boxer, 2011 for information on this subject). With the information in this Directory, a research team can select a sample of schools, create pre- and post-course surveys of student learning, and document changes in interest and attitudes. With an adequate sample and a comparison group, such work could explore the relationship of Israel-focused courses to developments in knowledge of, and attitudes toward, Israel. Finally, 135 schools in the Directory listed no Israel-focused courses in 2012-13. Schools with large undergraduate populations, large state schools (LSU, Iowa State, etc.), particularly those with large Jewish populations, would be expected to have courses about Israel. The 2013-14 Directory will explore whether these schools added courses this year. If they have not, what can be done to help those schools add such opportunities to learn about Israel in the future? Should a certain few be targeted? If so, what selection criteria should be used, and how can faculty be identified who can help create courses? Much has been accomplished in the relatively short period since the initial advancement of Israel studies in the academy, but the task is not complete. The Directory will continue to follow the development of the field.

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References Koren, A. & Einhorn, E. (2010). Expanding the study of Israel on campus: The American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise 2005-2009. Waltham, MA: Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies, Brandeis University. Koren, A. & Boxer, M. (2011). The Summer Institute for Israel Studies 2004-2010. Waltham, MA: Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies, Brandeis University.

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Appendix A: Methodology The original Directory of Israel Studies was published in 2006 by the Israel on Campus Coalition (In Search of Israel Studies, 2006). CMJS produced two additional directories at three-year intervals in 2008-09 and 2011-12. As in these previous directories CMJS relied primarily on web searches of university registrars sites to find Israel-related, Israel-focused, and language courses relevant to the study of Israel. These searches were conducted by student research assistants supervised by a research associate. For the 2012-13 Directory, CMJS created an ACCESS relational database.

Courses

The team assembled course section-level data including the names and emails of instructors, enrollment (where available), and potential maximum enrollment (less available). As in the past, research assistants attempted to find courses through course listings for each semester and were instructed to use course catalogs only to obtain course description. When course listings were not available on line, the team consulted directly with registrars’ offices. Courses noted as cancelled are listed in the Directory database but not in the Directory, and they are not included in this report. Courses were categorized as Israel-focused, Israel-related, or language only. Israel-focused courses were defined as devoting almost all of their content to Israel or including Israel in a comparative framework for studying a particular concept within a discipline. For example, a course examining “several different constitutional systems from around the world, using cases such as the United States, Israel, Canada, Poland, and South Africa,” was considered Israel-focused. Israel-related courses concerned Israel less centrally, although it is not always possible to ascertain whether a course on the Modern Middle East included discussion of Israel. Within the language-only category, distinctions were made between Arabic language and Hebrew language courses. Research assistants used the following list of words to search courses listings:

20th century Jewish Jerusalem Palestine

Conflict Jewish Palestinian

Diaspora Jews in the Modern Peace

Haifa Mandate State

Hebrew Middle East Tel Aviv

Holy land Mid-East Zion

Homeland Modern Jewish Zionism

Israel Nationalism Zionist

Israeli Near East

For schools with PDF files of course listings, research assistants were able to use word searches to search the full document. Where only online databases were available, forcing searches by individual departments, research assistants were instructed to search the following:

American Studies Hebrew Language

Anthropology History

Arabic Language International Relations/Global Studies

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Art History Israel Studies

Art/Fine Art Jewish Studies

Business Middle East Studies

Dance Politics/Political Science/Government

Design Religious Studies

Economics Sociology

English/Language/Literature Theater

Film

Each school search was conducted twice by different research assistants, and their assignment of courses as Israel-focused or Israel-related was reviewed by the authors of this report. Every effort was made to be consistent with previous years but open to reflection on the meaning of Israel-focused. That reflection caused the team to include more Hebrew language courses as Israel-focused, specifically intermediate and advanced courses that use Israeli literature, media, art, song, and/or discussion of Israeli society as part of teaching the language. In cases in which discrepancies existed between the search results of the two searchers, registrars’ offices and individual departments were contacted directly for clarification. In almost all instances, offices and departments were willing to clear up the discrepancy.

Challenges

Every school lists its courses somewhat differently, and offerings are not always updated. In addition, the search tools they offer on their websites vary from school to school. Courses may be cancelled and still appear in the listings, and new courses may be added or redefined outside of the registrars’ parameters. “Special topics” courses often have no course description and may lack subtitles that help identify content. In several cases of unusual decrease in courses from 2011-12 to 2012-13, schools were contacted only to find that the 2011-12 Directory included courses that had not actually been offered that year. For the 2012-13 Directory, the team reached out to over 200 faculty members and departments. Although the purpose was to collect course enrollment data, faculty verified or corrected Directory course listings.

Colleges and Universities

Institutional-level data was also collected to reflect 2012-13. Undergraduate enrollments were taken from the College Board College Search website (https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/find-colleges) or from the websites of individual schools. If not available through the web, universities were contacted directly. Jewish enrollment estimates were taken from the Hillel College Guide. (http://www.hillel.org/college-guide). In the 47 cases in which the Hillel College Guide did not include estimates of Jewish populations, the research team contacted institutions directly to obtain estimates. The estimated Jewish populations of 21 institutions were obtained in this fashion. Estimates for the other 26 institutions remain unknown. The presence of Jewish studies, Israel studies department or programs, Israel study abroad programs, and scholarships were all determined as part of course searches and that information is included in the Directory listings; the presence of SIIS fellows and AICE visiting Israeli professors were obtained from organization lists.

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In a few cases, the Directory counts courses included in more than one institution’s course listings under all schools that list the course. This is the case with some courses at Columbia University and Barnard College; and all courses at the Claremont Colleges in California (Claremont McKenna, Harvey Mudd, Pitzer, Pomona, and Scripps). Some courses, therefore, are double counted, but this more clearly reflects the numbers of students that have access to opportunities to study about Israel. On the other hand, courses offered at schools in both the Quaker Consortium in Pennsylvania (Bryn Mawr, Haverford, and Swarthmore) and the Five Colleges Consortium in Massachusetts (Amherst, Hampshire, Mt. Holyoke, Smith, and University of Massachusetts-Amherst) are listed only at their home institution, and thus appear only once. Decisions on how to treat each consortium was based on how the consortiums, themselves, list courses to their own students.

Enrollments

Enrollment data was publicly available through their registrars’ websites for one third of the course sections. For courses without publicly available enrollment, CMJS conducted a brief survey of the faculty teaching those courses. Almost all faculty who received the request submitted enrollment numbers. As a result, the 2012-13 Directory Database has enrollment for 90% of all Israel-focused courses. Using the average enrollment for courses by subject areas, CMJS imputed enrollment for the remaining 10%. For example, a course entitled Israeli Society through Hebrew Song and Video was imputed to have 16 students, the average for other courses about Israeli society.

Course Topic Categories Courses were categorized by topic (see figure 5 above) using their titles and course descriptions. Courses on the “conflict” usually have the word “conflict” in their titles. The History of Israel’s Wars, The United States, Israel, and the Arabs, and Israeli Territorial Politics: Between Security & Identity can be assumed to be about the conflict as well. Many courses in the Directory center on Israeli culture and literature; history, political science-international relations, and society make up most of the remaining. Film and literature are separated out from art, music, and dance in preparation for assessing the growth in these areas in the future. Courses that covered multiple subject areas are classified by an analysis of the course description. For example, a New York University course entitled: Israeli Politics and Society examines “the power structure and mechanisms of contemporary Israeli politics” according to its course description. It is therefore classified as “political science.” Israel: Religion, State and Society, taught at Brandeis University, “explores the relations between pluralism, religious resurgence, secularism and democracy in our time through readings in history, literature, philosophy, sociology, theology and law.” It is classified as “religion,” although it clearly touches on other fields as well. Courses on Jerusalem or Tel Aviv are classified as “other,” as are courses on water resource management, a business course, a course on the Israeli economy, and Israel in Contemporary Jewish Education, a course offered at the Jewish Theological Seminary.

Changes in Directory Content

This Directory lists only Israel-focused courses. It does not include Israel-related courses. The Directory provides statistics about each school: size of undergraduate population, estimated size of Jewish population, and the number of Israel courses offered in 2008-09, 2011-12, and 2012-13. It also provides information on the number of Hebrew and Arabic courses, and whether the school

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has a Jewish studies, Israel studies, or Israel study abroad program. As well, it notes the presence of chairs in Israel studies and Israel study abroad scholarships. The Directory does not include course enrollment numbers or faculty names. Some of that information was publicly available, but faculty members, department chairs, and registrar personnel who provided enrollment data directly did not give permission to share it, and therefore it is not included.

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Appendix B: Schools with No Israel-Focused Courses Meeting the following criteria:

Total undergraduate population at least 1,000, and

Total Jewish undergraduate population at least 250 or greater than 5% of total Table 2: Selection of Schools with No Israel-Focused Courses

University Undergraduate Population

Jewish population

Percentage Jewish

Courses Offered in the Past

Texas A&M University 44072 500 1.1

Florida International University 37468 3500 9.3 Yes

University of Houston 32639 1500 4.6

Florida State University 32171 2964 9.2

University of Alabama 28026 600 2.1 Yes

University of Texas, San Antonio 25979 700 2.7

Iowa State University 25555 250 1.0

California State University, Sacramento 25541 500 2.0

Louisiana State University - Baton Rouge 24923 350 1.4

Florida Atlantic University 24823 3000 12.1 Yes

University of South Carolina, Columbia 23363 400 1.7 Yes

West Virginia University 22827 800 3.5

Ohio University 22685 600 2.6 Yes

University of Nevada, Las Vegas 22432 1000 4.5

Central Michigan University 21332 400 1.9 Yes

University of Iowa 21320 600 2.8 Yes

Grand Valley State University 21317 100 0.5

University of Tennessee, Knoxville 20916 350 1.7 Yes

University of Kentucky 20827 200 1.0

Eastern Michigan University 18914 900 4.8 Yes

University of Pittsburgh 18429 2000 10.9 Yes

University of Southern California 18316 2000 10.9 Yes

Illinois State University 18257 500 2.7

James Madison University 18107 1200 6.6

California Polytechnic, San Luis Obispo 17680 800 4.5 Yes

SUNY Stony Brook University 16003 1700 10.6 Yes

Drexel University 15876 900 5.7 Yes

Miami University of Ohio 15462 1000 6.5 Yes

College of Staten Island 13463 1100 8.2

University of Rhode Island 13398 1000 7.5 Yes

University of Vermont 11211 2200 19.6 Yes

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University Undergraduate Population

Jewish population

Percentage Jewish

Courses Offered in the Past

SUNY Fashion Institute of Technology 9848 900 9.1

Richard Stockton College of New Jersey 7517 500 6.7 Yes

SUNY College at Oswego 7328 1050 14.3

College of New Jersey 6653 350 5.3

Quinnipiac University 6430 350 5.4

University of San Francisco 6344 300 4.7 Yes

College of William and Mary 6171 285 4.6

SUNY College at Oneonta 5820 500 8.6 Yes

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 5391 300 5.6

Elon University 5357 450 8.4 Yes

Long Island University, Brooklyn Campus 5109 1200 23.5

Adelphi University 5103 370 7.3

Bradley University 4872 250 5.1

Wake Forest University 4815 300 6.2 Yes

Bentley University 4237 400 9.4

Emerson College 3675 350 9.5

University of Redlands 3360 212 6.3

University of Richmond 3074 200 6.5 Yes

Illinois Institute of Technology 2801 150 5.4

Gettysburg College 2601 150 5.8

Franklin and Marshall College 2365 370 15.6 Yes

Occidental College 2176 125 5.7

Macalester College 2070 175 8.5 Yes

Babson College 2015 200 9.9

Alfred University 1935 150 7.8 Yes

Rollins College 1884 250 13.3 Yes

Bowdoin College 1839 165 9.0 Yes

Amherst College 1817 225 12.4 Yes

Bates College 1753 180 10.3

Grinnell College 1674 100 6.0

Lesley University 1568 150 9.6

Swarthmore College 1552 275 17.7

Whitman College 1539 125 8.1 Yes

Goucher College 1484 450 30.3 Yes

Knox College 1430 100 7.0 Yes

Sarah Lawrence College 1420 400 28.2

Kalamazoo College 1379 75 5.4 Yes

Haverford College 1205 300 24.9 Yes

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Appendix C: Number of Israel-Focused Courses by University Type Table 3: Number of Israel-Focused Courses at Top 10 National Universities

Top 10 National Universities* Israel- Focused Courses

Princeton University 9

Harvard University 8

Yale University 7

Columbia University 16

Stanford University 7

University of Chicago 3

Duke University 5

Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2

University of Chicago 5

California Institute of Technology 0

Dartmouth College 5

*U.S. News and World Report 2012-13 University Rankings

Table 4: Number of Israel-Focused Courses at Top 10 Liberal Arts Colleges

Top 10 Liberal Arts Colleges* Israel-Focused Courses

Williams College 3

Amherst College 0

Swarthmore College 0

Bowdoin College 0

Middlebury College 4

Pomona College 4

Carleton College 3

Wellesley College 4

Claremont McKenna College 4

Davidson College 1

Haverford College 0

*U.S. News and World Report 2012-13 University Rankings

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Table 5: Number of Israel-Focused Courses at Big Ten Universities

Big Ten Universities Israel-Focused Courses

Indiana University 11

Michigan State University 5

Northwestern University 8

Ohio State University 6

Pennsylvania State University, University Park 3

Purdue University, West Lafayette 3

University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign 4

University of Iowa 0

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor 18

University of Minnesota 7

University of Nebraska, Lincoln 2

University of Wisconsin, Madison 4

Table 6: Number of Israel-Focused Courses at California State Schools

California State Schools Israel-Focused Courses

California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo 0

California State University, Chico 1

California State University, Fullerton 1

California State University, Northridge 1

California State University, Sacramento 0

San Diego State University 1

San Francisco State University 4

University of California, Berkeley 7

University of California, Davis 1

University of California, Irvine 2

University of California, Los Angeles 5

University of California, Riverside 1

University of California, San Diego 5

University of California, Santa Barbara 4

University of California, Santa Cruz 3

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Table 7: Number of Israel-Focused Courses at Top 20 Regional Universities

Top 20 ‘Regional Universities’ Israel- Focused Courses

Creighton University 0

Butler University 1

Drake University 1

Xavier University 0

Bradley University 0

Villanova University 1

Providence College 0

Fairfield University 0

Bentley University 0

Elizabethtown College 1

College of New Jersey 0

Loyola College in Maryland 0

Elon University 0

Rollins College 0

The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina 1

Stetson University 1

Trinity University (San Antonio, Texas) 0

Santa Clara University 0

Loyola Marymount University 2

Gonzaga University 1

Mills College 0

The 2012-13 Israel Studies Directory

This directory documents Israel-focused course offerings at 316 American colleges and

universities in 2012-13. For each institution, the Directory lists:

Estimated undergraduate 2012-13 enrollment (Source: College Board College Search

website. (https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/college-search)

Estimated number of Jewish undergraduates (Source: College Guide—Hillel.

http://www.hillel.org/college-guide. The research team contacted schools directly for

where Hillel estimates were not available. N/A means no estimate was available.

The number of Israel-focused courses offered in 2008-09, 2011-12, and 2012-13

The number of Israel-related courses offered in 2012-13

A list of Israel-focused courses offered in 2012-13 with the department listing the courses

in parentheses. Often courses are listed and cross-listed in multiple departments. The

Directory includes only one department for each course. As in previous years, courses are

counted only once regardless of whether they were offered in more than once.

The number of Hebrew language courses and the number of Arabic language courses.

Courses are listed only once regardless of the number of times they were offered or the

number of sections.

Other Israel and Israel-related academic programs such as Jewish studies, Israel studies,

Israel studies chairs, and study abroad programs in Israel.

The institutions included in this directory represent a purposive sample of 316 schools. They

include top-ranked national and regional universities and liberal arts colleges (following U.S.

News and World Report rankings). Unranked and lower ranked schools with large Jewish

populations are included as well.

Brandeis University

The Steinhardt Social Research Institute, hosted at CMJS, is committed to the development and application of innovative approaches to socio-demographic research for the study of Jewish, religious, and cultural identity.

The Maurice and Marilyn Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies at Brandeis University is a multi-disciplinary research institute dedicated to the study of American Jewry and religious and cultural identity.