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Click here to read the full story in our newsletter [PDF]
Inside this edition:
 Ten Reasons to Celebrate
In spring 2003, a group of Carolina faculty, administrators and alumni banded together to lay out an
ambitious plan for Jewish Studies at Carolina — a particularly bold plan for a state-funded research
university located in the American South. In the ensuing decade, the goals that were initially considered
rather audacious started to be achieved, one by one, with the top goal, an undergraduate major in Jewish Studies, being
accomplished this academic year. Check out our top 10 reasons to celebrate 10 years of excellence.
 Transformative Gift for Graduate Student
Recruitment and Support
Former members of the TEP fratinerity have committed a total of $875,000 to support Carolina's students. The new Tau Epsilon Phi Fund for Jewish Studies will support graduate students
working on topics in Jewish Studies in varying stages of their academic careers.
Jewish Studies and the Carolina Difference:
A Vision for the Next Decade of Excellence
When the Carolina Center for Jewish Studies was
created in 2003, we had a clear sense that building
a program in Jewish Studies at Carolina would
be different. The
goal for the next decade is to make the Carolina
program a nationally recognized leader in the field.
Achieving this depends on our ability to continue
to develop innovative curricular offerings, to
expand our network of faculty across disciplines,
and to promote interdisciplinary research and
teaching that reflect our global and historical
approach.
 Graduate Student Profile: Naomi Graber
This May, Naomi Graber will earn the doctorate
in musicology that has been her dream since
attending a conservatory summer camp when
she was 15. After attending Brandeis
University as an undergraduate, she came to
the Carolina Department of Music in 2007
with the initial interest in studying Mozart.
In the course of a research project, however,
she stumbled across a new subject, which has
evolved into her dissertation on the American
works of the Jewish-German composer
Kurt Weill, who fled Nazi Germany in 1933.
 Graduate Student Profile: Patrick Tobin
Patrick Tobin was drawn to Carolina in
order to work with Christopher Browning,
the Frank Porter Graham Distinguished
Professor of History, who is one of the
preeminent scholars on the Holocaust. “I honestly didn’t know a lot about North
Carolina before applying, but I knew about
Professor Browning. I’d read his book,
Ordinary Men, as an undergraduate and it
wholly reshaped my interests. Prior to that,
I’d been learning ancient Greek and preparing
for some kind of future in Classics. But
Professor Browning’s book got me interested
in Holocaust studies, so I dropped Greek for
German and began to pursue UNC.”
 From the Director's Desk: Reflecting on the Past, Planning for the Future
With this issue of News from the Center, we invite you to take a moment to reflect
on the past decade with pride. But we also want to focus your attention on
what lies ahead.
Faculty and Student Grant Awards
Thanks to generous private support, this year the Carolina Center for Jewish Studies was able to offer
more funding awards than ever before to undergraduate students, graduate students, and faculty.
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 Jerry and Huddy Cohen Faculty
Excellence Fund, the Joseph Kittner endowment fund, the Shapiro / ZBT Undergraduate Research
Fund, the Advisory Board Director’s Expendable Fund, and the Fund for Jewish Studies.
News Briefs:
ALUMNUS WINS NATIONAL AWARD: T. Fielder Valone Jr.’s UNC
honors thesis recently won a national award from the American Historical
Association. The Raymond J. Cunningham Prize for the best article by an
undergraduate published in a history department journal was awarded to
Valone for his research paper titled Destroying the Ties that Bind: Rituals of
Humiliation and the Holocaust in Provincial Lithuania.
DISTINGUISHED FACULTY APPOINTMENT: Jonathan M. Hess, director
of the Center, was recently honored at a
reception for newly appointed distinguished faculty. The College of Arts and
Sciences awards distinguished professorships to selected faculty for their
outstanding research and teaching
PRESTIGIOUS HONOR: The Stanford Humanities Center has awarded
a faculty fellowship for 2013–14 to Yaron Shemer, the Levine/Sklut Fellow
in Jewish Studies and assistant professor of Modern Hebrew Literature and
Israeli Culture in the Department of Asian Studies. This is a highly selective,
residential fellowship which offers Professor Shemer a full year to focus on
his research at the Stanford campus.
10TH ANNIVERSARY FUND FOR JEWISH STUDIES CHALLENGE: As part of the 10th anniversary
celebrations, the Center initiated a challenge
for annual fund supporters to increase their
unrestricted contributions that are so vital to the
Center’s programs.
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 A New Era for Jewish Studies:
Introducing the new Bachelor of Arts Degree
Read more....
Click here to read the full story in our newsletter [PDF]
Private Gifts Support the Next Phase of Growth
Several philanthropic gifts to the Center in recent months will have a profound impact on Carolina's students, faculty and the Jewish Studies program overall.
 Faculty Profile: Jodi Magness
"I knew at age 12 that I wanted to be an archaeologist," said Jodi Magness, the Kenan Distinguished Professor for Teaching Excellence in Early Judaism, in the Department of Religious Studies. "I remember being at Girl Scout camp and coming home with suitcases stuffed full of fossil shells."
 Student Profile: Hayley Wright, '13
Last spring, Hayely Wright, '13, took pen to paper and became the first declared major in Jewish Studies at Carolina. For the New York City native, the decision capped a mounting interest in the field that had grown since her days as a first-year student.
Launching New Academic Programs The Center is making a huge impact on campusthis year by launching the new undergraduate degree in Jewish Studies and a new certificate in Jewish Studies for graduate students. Also new this year is the University's Capstone Course in Jewish Studies, an upper-level research seminar for advanced undergraduates in the field.
 Message From the Dean
On behalf of the College of Arts and Sciences, I want to take this opportunity to thank you for your commitment to outstanding teaching, scholarship and community engagement through the Carolina Center for Jewish Studies. With your support, the Center has made remarkable gains. Your support remains critical for the Center to reach its goals for the next 10 years.
Anniversay Celebrations... and a Challenge
The years marks an historic juncture for the Carolina Center for Jewish Studies. As we gear up for our 10th anniversary, we celebrate the fact that we are the first and only university in the state of North Carolina to offer and undergraduate degree in Jewish Studies. Our goal this year is not just to celebrate what we've accomplished but to lay out our vision for the future.
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 The Jews and the Evangelicals
Professor Yaakov Ariel explores the multiple dimensions of the Evangelical-Jewish relationship. Read more...
 Graduate Student Profile:
Stephanie Gaskill Stephanie Gaskill, a native of Toledo, Ohio, has dedicated the past year to researching black protestants' attitudes toward Israel. Read more...
 Undergraduate Student Profile:
Abigail Lewis, '12 Ever since high school, Abigail Lewis knew she wanted to study history. At Carolina, she has pursued research on the history of the Holocaust, focusing on testimonies from French survivors. Read more...
Jewish Studies Certificate Program for Graduate Students A new certificate program for Graduate Students is the first in the state, and provides recognition to Carolina's graduate students who pursue advanced studies in the field of Jewish Studies. Read more...
Private Gifts Provide Grants to Students and Faculty
Read more...
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 The Many Contributions of
Graduate Students Graduate students at UNC are an important
component of the learning environment, typically
spending five years in pursuit of their Ph.D. degrees. Read more...
 Introduction to Jewish Studies Course Sets Foundation for the New Major This fall, 120 undergraduates are taking
the “Introduction to Jewish Studies” course
taught by Jonathan Boyarin, associate
director for the Center. Read more...
Graduate Student Profile:
Carrie Duncan
For as long as Carrie Duncan (Ph.D. candidate,
Religious Studies) can remember, she has
been interested in multicultural interactions,
particularly when these cultures occupy the same
geographic space. Read more...
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 Tanenbaum Family Endows Professorship in Jewish History and Culture Babette and Jay Tanenbaum have established a
new distinguished professorship in Jewish Studies,
providing an endowment that will support a tenure track
faculty member who specializes in Jewish history
and culture. Read more....
 Van der Horst Fellow Joins Carolina
Professor Flora Cassen, joined Carolina’s
History department this year as the inaugural
JMA and Sonia van der Horst Fellow in Jewish
History and Culture. Read more....
JOINING CAROLINA THIS FALL
Carolina welcomes two new lecturers
this year: Joseph Lam, lecturer in
Biblical Hebrew, comes to UNC from
the University of Chicago. Hanna
Sprintzik, lecturer in Modern Hebrew,
was born in Argentina and grew up
in Israel.
THE CENTER MOVES TO
PETTIGREW HALL
In June, the Carolina Center for
Jewish Studies moved into a new
office space to better accommodate
our faculty, staff, students and
community. We’re now located on
the first floor of historic Pettigrew
Hall, near Franklin Street.
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 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill alumnus Howard R. Levine, chairman and CEO of Family Dollar Stores Inc., has created an endowment to support undergraduate and graduate students in Jewish studies at his alma mater. Read more
Grad Student Profile: Ria Van Ryn
What seemed an otherwise unremarkable
November day turned into a deeply meaningful,
perhaps life-changing day for a group of middle
school students, thanks to the efforts of one of
Carolina’s graduate students. The teens, from
B’Nai Shalom Jewish Day School in Greensboro
and Al-Imam School in Raleigh, were meeting
each other for the first time, after months of learning
about each other’s cultures and beliefs from
Maria (Ria) Van Ryn, Ph.D. candidate in UNC’s
Sociology Department. Read moreRuth von Bernuth,
is a new junior faculty member who is based in the Department of Germanic
Languages and Literatures. Her focus on
Germany’s early modern period (15th to 18th
Century) has filled a special academic niche in the German Department, and her new research focus on Yiddish literature is likewise
filling an important curricular need for Jewish Studies. Read more for
Jewish Studies will provide a
crucial and permanent source of
funding for the Center’s director
to use for high-priority initiatives,
including instructional support,
student support, and course
development funding. Samuel
Wisnia, a partner with Goldman Sachs in London, contributed the $100,000 gift through Goldman
Sachs Gives (UK), a donor advised fund established by Goldman Sachs. James Heilpern, an Archaeology
and Religious Studies double major,
is this year’s recipient of the Elsie
Kaplan “Mother” Shapiro ZBT Undergraduate Research and Travel
Grant in Jewish Studies. He will use the $1,000 award to help fund his
senior thesis project on the dating
of ancient synagogues.
With the support of this grant, Heilpern plans to travel to Israel this summer to participate in the
archaeological excavation of the synagogue at Huqoq, under the direction of Professor Jodi Magness.
The short video, produced in 2010, features UNC students, faculty and supporters, all speaking about the Carolina Center for Jewish Studies and the Jewish Studies program at UNC Chapel Hill. View it here:
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Faculty Profile: Ruth von Bernuth 
