Jewish Studies Center for University of Texas-Austin

The University of Texas will soon boast the state’s first center for Jewish studies.

The Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation has provided a $6 million initial challenge grant, and the university has pledged to raise the remaining $6 million over the next five years.

The center, which will be housed in the Religious Studies Department of the College of Liberal Arts, will have three endowed chairs: Jewish history, Jewish thought and text studies.

It also will support professorships in social science and literature.

Noting that U of T has more than 4,000 Jewish students, foundation president Lynn Schusterman said the school is “the ideal venue for a world-class Jewish studies center” that will become “an international beacon for Jewish studies.”

AUTHOR

SPME

Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME) is not-for-profit [501 (C) (3)], grass-roots community of scholars who have united to promote honest, fact-based, and civil discourse, especially in regard to Middle East issues. We believe that ethnic, national, and religious hatreds, including anti-Semitism and anti-Israelism, have no place in our institutions, disciplines, and communities. We employ academic means to address these issues.