Latest News
Spring 2012
The Jews and the Evangelicals
In recent years, there has been a growth of
interest, both public and cademic, in the relationship
between Evangelical Christians and Jews.
Often, this interest focuses on American foreign
policy in the Middle East. Professor Yaakov Ariel
of the Department of Religious Studies considers
this to be merely one aspect of a much larger
inter-religious encounter and has spent a number
of years exploring the multiple dimensions of the
Evangelical-Jewish relationship.
“It is a fascinating story and the only instance
I know of,” Ariel explains, “in which members of
one religious tradition are seeing members of
another religious tradition as necessary elements
on the road to salvation.”
A prolific scholar with a diverse body of interests,
Ariel’s work has often addressed this important
and enigmatic relationship. His previous book,
the award-winning Evangelizing the Chosen People,
offered an in-depth study of Christian evangelizing
missions towards Jews in America and how this
relationship changed over the past century.
His current book project (his fourth) continues
with this theme. An Unusual Relationship, forthcoming
with New York University Press, takes a
broader approach than his previous work. Ariel
says, “I am trying to build an overarching picture
of Evangelical and Jewish relations, and am
asking the question: Where are the roots?”
This question led Ariel to explore an overlooked
trove of Evangelical literature dating back to
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries aimed
at Jews. By studying these fascinating materials,
Ariel argues for a more nuanced understanding
of the Evangelical mission to the Jews. “It is not
just about teaching Jews Christianity, but about
engaging with them.”
Ariel began his academic career studying
Medieval History at the Hebrew University of
Jerusalem in the 1970s. After receiving a Master’s
Degree there, he decided to cross borders—both
disciplinary and geographic. He began a Ph.D.
program at the University of Chicago in Religious
Studies and received his Ph.D. from the Divinity
School in 1986.
In 1994, Ariel joined the Department of
Religious Studies at Carolina. In the eighteen
years since, he has offered twenty different courses
addressing topics as varied as The Protestant
Tradition, The Holocaust in History and Memory,
and Judaism in Our Time. Outside the classroom,
Ariel has advised or served on the committee for
over twenty graduate students, including students
from other departments, such as Art History,
Communications, and Peace, War, & Defense.
Since coming to Carolina, Ariel has seen
tremendous growth in the offerings and opportunities
for Jewish Studies. “When I first arrived,
any talk of anything Jewish was very rare; today
we even have competing events. I think it’s
impressive how the Center has taken off, including
its contribution to the public.”
For Ariel, Jewish Studies offers a diversity
of voices that can get lost in the often strictly
defined disciplines of academia. “I learn from
anthropologists, from scholars of literature, from
Holocaust scholars. I learn all the time. I’m not
just a teacher or a scholar—I’m a student.”
Certificate Program for Graduate Students
Fall 2012 will be an exciting time for the
Center: the new B.A. degree for undergraduates
will officially be on the books, and
Carolina will also start a Jewish Studies
certificate program for graduate students.
This is the first certificate program of its
kind at any college or university in North
Carolina, and it is offered in conjunction
with similar efforts at Duke University.
“We already have many graduate students
who are taking coursework and conducting
research in the various academic disciplines
related to Jewish Studies with the intention
of gaining greater expertise in the field,”
said Jonathan Hess, director. “This program
provides the recognition they are due
while establishing clear guidelines for any
student wishing to pursue a graduate-level
certificate in Jewish Studies.”
The program is available to degreeseeking
graduate students studying in the
humanities and social sciences at Carolina.
It includes opportunities for graduate
students to explore Jewish languages,
culture, literature and history in both their
coursework and research endeavors.
Certificate requirements include:
• Completing three graduate-level courses
on a topic related to Jewish Studies.
• Submitting a major seminar paper or a
section of a broader thesis or dissertation
on a topic related to Jewish Studies.
• Demonstrating relevant language skills
either by taking advanced language
courses or by using primary language
texts in a major research project.
For more information regarding the
certificate program, contact Jonathan
Hess at jmhess@email.unc.edu.
Grad Student Profile: Stephanie Gaskill
Stephanie Gaskill, a native of Toledo, Ohio,
has dedicated the past year to researching black
Protestants’ attitudes toward Israel. A graduate
student based in the Religious Studies department,
Gaskill became interested in studying
religion while she was completing
her Master’s degree in
History. “I had started my graduate
career intending to study
diplomatic history, but found
myself again and again gravitating
toward topics that
addressed religion. I am
fascinated by the role religion
has played (and continues
to play) in foreign policy
decisions.”
This broader interest led
her to pursue research on
Christian Zionism, which
in turn has broadened her interest
in many other topics within
American religious history.“This topic is interesting to me
because it addresses the underlying
relationship between
African-Americans and Jews.
Both historical scholarship and
popular perception portray this
relationship as one that has
been on the decline since the
1960s because of social and
political disagreements. But the role religion
plays in interactions between African-Americans
and Jews has often been overlooked. Viewing this
relationship through the lens of religious history
reveals an important point: neither African-
Americans nor Jews are monolithic groups, and
religious convictions help to account for the
varying ways they can interact with one another.
More specifically, black Protestants’ support for
Israel subverts the traditional notion that African-
Americans have grown more antagonistic toward
Jews and adds an important element to current
discussions of black-Jewish relations.”
Gaskill was recently awarded a Graduate
Student Research and Travel grant, made possible
by generous private gifts to the Center. With this
travel grant, Gaskill will be able to travel to
Detroit to conduct several weeks of field research
at Glenn Plummer’s Ambassadors for Christ
Church. “Plummer is unique in that he is an
African-American minister who is very outspoken
about his support for Israel. This support is especially
intriguing given the fact that
Plummer carries out his ministry
in an area suffering greatly from
the recession, raising questions
about why he and his congregation
in particular are devoted to supporting
Israel. I hope to determine
the reasons for this support and
what it says about black-Jewish
relations in America more broadly.”
Carolina was Gaskill’s top
choice for graduate school. “This
program is a perfect fit for me
because I am able to work with two
incredible faculty members who
are experts in my two main areas
of interest.” Gaskill’s two faculty
advisors are Yaakov Ariel, an
expert on Christian Zionism, and
Laurie Maffly-Kipp, an expert on
African-American religious history.
“I also cannot say enough about
how much I appreciate my department
as a whole. My professors
and fellow graduate students are
not only brilliant, but also unbelievably
supportive, both inside
and outside the classroom. I really cannot imagine
myself anywhere else.”
Gaskill, who holds a B.A. in History and
English, and an M.A. in History, all from Bowling
Green State University, expects to complete
her Ph.D. program in 2015. She then plans to
pursue a career as a professor at a small liberal
arts college.
Private support for graduate student fellowships and graduate student research, travel and summer stipends,
help nurture young scholars, create relevant scholarly works, train the next generation of leading teachers and
researchers, and further Carolina’s commitment to student-focused research. For more information, contact
Margaret Costley at the Arts and Sciences Foundation at (919) 843-0345 or at margaret.costley@unc.edu.
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Undergraduate Profile: Abigail Lewis, '12
Although many undergraduates begin their
college careers with an idea of their future, many
completely change plans during their course of
study. Not so with Abigail (Abby) Lewis, ’12. “Ever since high school,” she says, “I knew I
wanted to study history.”
For the senior from Apex, North Carolina,
UNC has presented her with many opportunities
to pursue her ambitions of higher study in history.
Early on at Carolina, she increasingly came to
concentrate her studies on the history of the
Holocaust. “I took a class on analyzing camp and
gulag memoirs and then gravitated towards that
field of study.” Currently a senior honors student
in the Department of History, Lewis has gone on
to take numerous upper level and even graduate
level courses in history, in addition to learning
German and French.
This past summer, she had the chance to use
these language skills when she conducted research
in Paris for her honors thesis, which she found
exhilarating.“It was fun to sit down in a French library and
read original French documents. That’s fun for me.
Maybe that’s nerdy, but hanging out in libraries in
Paris for a job sounds awesome to me.” She added,“I guess I have a thing for libraries.”
During fall semester, she received a Carolina
Center for Jewish Studies Undergraduate
Research Grant to conduct additional research
utilizing the Fortunoff Video Archive of survivor
testimonies, which is housed at Yale University. “Without the Center’s funding, my project would
primarily be reading published memoirs and
watching interviews available at UNC, but thanks
to this funding, I have had access to a greater
breadth of resources and I will have a more wellrounded
project.”
Focusing on French survivor accounts, Lewis’
research explores Jewish identity in Europe in the
wake of the Holocaust. She is also interested in
the ways memories of survival change over time.“What people say in 1946 versus what they say
in 1970 reveals a great deal about the way their
own thinking about survival and about witnessing
changes over time.”
Lewis will present her research at an honors
symposium in the spring, and she intends to convert
the thesis into an article for an undergraduate
journal. The thesis represents the capstone of a
four-year program of intensive historical studies.
She will attend graduate school in the fall to
pursue a Ph.D. in Jewish History.
While Lewis has come a long ways towards
her goal of becoming a historian, her career at
Carolina has not been without regrets. “I wish
I had figured out my interest in Jewish Studies.
Last month, Professor Ruth von Bernuth
took a break from the year she is spending in
Jerusalem on a Yad Hanadiv Jewish Studies
fellowship to come back home to Carolina and
deliver a lecture on the origins of “The Wise Men
of Chelm,” a classic of modern Yiddish folklore.
Drawing on her current research project on the
relationship of Yiddish literature between 1450
and 1700 to German literature of the same period,
von Bernuth explained to an audience made
of Carolina students, faculty and community
members how this exemplar of Yiddish culture
had its origins not in the Polish city of Chelm
but in a long German tradition of literature
about fools.
Von Bernuth’s research creates new
paradigms for how we think about Jewish culture
and its relation to the non-Jewish world. It also
serves as an example of how research in the
humanities can invigorate our classrooms and
provide transformative experiences for our
students. Now in her fourth year at Carolina,
von Bernuth has developed a number of new
courses in her period of expertise in both German
and Yiddish literature, and both undergraduates
and graduate students have sought her out as a
mentor for their own research. In this sense,
the case of von Bernuth serves as a wonderful
reminder how the mission of the Carolina Center
for Jewish Studies to foster new research enables
us to create new courses, reach more students,
and enrich the quality of education for all
students—particularly those who may never have
heard of “The Wise Men of Chelm.”
When Frank Porter Graham Professor of
History Christopher Browning began his career
almost 40 years ago, there was no recognized field
called Holocaust history at universities in the
U.S. It is in large part because of Browning’s
groundbreaking research—books such as
Ordinary Men (1992) and The Origins of the
Final Solution (2004), among many others—that
thousands and thousands of students all over
the world now study the Holocaust.
Our Chancellor Holden Thorp has garnered
national attention for his vision of the research
university as an “engine of innovation.” With
its support for groundbreaking research in the
humanities, the Carolina Center for Jewish
Studies fosters innovation. Whether rethinking
the boundaries of Jewish culture, lobbying to
get fields like Holocaust history recognized, or
reflecting on the roles Jews play in contemporary
American life, Jewish Studies pushes the
boundaries of knowledge, creating new paradigms
for studying the world we inhabit. This issue of
News from the Center focuses on the pioneering
research going on here in Chapel Hill in the field
of Jewish Studies—by our world-class faculty, by
our talented graduate students, and by the exceptional
undergraduates we have the privilege to
teach in our classrooms.
Thanks to generous private support,
this year the Carolina Center for Jewish
Studies was able to offer several grants
supporting undergraduate students,
graduate students and faculty. “Private gifts have funded the various
grants that have made a tremendous
impact on our students and faculty
members,” said Jonathan Hess, director.“We are very grateful for the support.”
Funding for these awards was made
possible by the Howard R. Levine Student
Excellence Fund, the Rhonda A. and Robert
Hillel Silver Fund for Graduate Support,
the Jack O. Spies and Family Jewish
Studies Fund, the Jerry and Huddy Cohen
Faculty Excellence Fund, the Hal and Holly
Levinson Fund, and two new funds created
by the Center’s advisory board members:
the Graduate Student Expendable Fund
and the Board Director’s Fund.
Undergraduate Research and Travel Awards:
Abigail Lewis, to review archived
materials housed at Yale University relating
to her honors thesis project on Holocaust
testimonials regarding the return of
survivors to France; Haley Sklut, to study
abroad at the Rothberg International
School at Hebrew University; Katie Zolot,
to improve Hebrew language skills during
a semester abroad at Hebrew University
Graduate Student Research and Travel Awards:
Brian Coussens, to travel to Israel to work
on excavations in Huqoq; Leila Family,
to conduct research on the risk of breast
cancer for Ashkenazi Jewish women;
Stephanie Gaskill, to travel to conduct
interviews and research on the changing
significance of black Protestant support
for Israel; Daniel Schindler, to create a
typology and chronology of the pottery
excavated from Huqoq; Emma Woelk,
to attend an intensive Yiddish language
program in New York City, so as to further
her long-term work on Yiddish Theater in
postwar Germany
Graduate Student Summer Stipend:
Joseph Gindi, for summer 2012, to
focus exclusively on research pertaining
to his dissertation on how contemporary
Jewish practice shapes, and is shaped by,
discourses of Jewish law.
Faculty Course Development / Course
Enhancement Awards:
Yaron Shemer, to create a community
film series, with international filmmakers in
attendance, as part of the Israeli Cinema:
Gender, Nation, and Ethnicity course;
Hannah Sprintzik, to revise the Hebrew
language program so that it better meets
the needs of Jewish Studies majors, and to
enhance extracurricular activities for
Hebrew language students; Shai Tamari,
to plan a student trip to D.C. for the
Challenges to Peace-Making in the Israeli-
Palestinian Conflict course
Faculty Research Awards:
Greg Flaxman, to travel to Jerusalem
to present a paper at the Israeli Film
and Documentary Conference; Hannah
Sprintzik, to travel to California to
present a paper at the National Association
of Professors of Hebrew conference;
Yaron Shemer, to present a paper at the
Association for Israel Studies conference,
held in Israel this summer; Rosa
Perelmuter, to present a paper at the Latin
American Studies Association conference
in California; Ruth von Bernuth, to
present at the 15th Annual Symposium
for Yiddish Studies, held in Germany
Rhonda A. and Robert Hillel Silver Graduate
Fellowship:
This non-service fellowship, made possible
through the generosity of Rhonda and
Robert Hillel Silver, ’77, supports a graduate
student working in Jewish Studies in
the advanced stages of his or her career at
Carolina. This fellowship enables a student
to focus full time on his or her scholarship,
improving quality and shortening the time
required to complete a Ph.D. degree.
