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The Richard S. Dinner Center for Jewish Studies

Welcome from the CJS Director

The Richard S. Dinner Center for Jewish Studies provides an M.A. program in Jewish Studies and a Certificate of Jewish Studies. It also offers courses in Jewish subjects to the larger GTU community and serves as a resource to students in the Joint Doctoral Program in Jewish Studies at UC Berkeley and the GTU.

The Center is distinguished by its academically rigorous, text-based approach to Judaism, in which students and faculty study in a collaborative atmosphere in small seminars, "wrestling with" Jewish classical sources, often in the original languages. We're also committed to reading these texts from a sophisticated theoretical perspective, using the most recent approaches in feminism, postcolonialism, new historicism, anthropology, and cultural studies to illuminate the Jewish tradition.

While we study the traditional Jewish library, working at acquiring the textual skills to read the Hebrew Bible, Talmud, and Jewish thought, we are also committed to an open, non-sexist, non-ethnocentric and pluralistic approach to Judaism, in which all students and all questions are welcome. This combination makes CJS a unique environment in which to study Judaism, intellectually challenging, committed to the tradition both textually and pedagogically while continually opening it up to new horizons.

CJS is a unique institution, beginning in 1968 as a resource for the teaching of Judaism to students at the nine GTU member schools, and then moving to attract its own body of Jewish studies students, and achieving a reputation as one of the foremost centers for the study of Judaism.

It continues to benefit from the proximity of the member schools and other centers, and has developed a particular focus on the study of Jewish-Christian interactions, a field that is being radically rethought, with Berkeley (UC as well as the GTU) being an epicenter of the historical revisioning of this relationship.

CJS is a small but growing center, at an exciting stage of its development. We offer an array of educational opportunities designed to engage students in various ways:

• from those who'd like to explore Judaism for a year or so, in a flexible program
• to those who are interested in committing to a program that provides a thorough-from the Bible to the present-education in Jewish history, thought and literature (the M.A. program)
• to doctoral students interested in the Ph.D. either in Near Eastern Religions or in Jewish Studies.

Our course offerings are supplemented with opportunities for students to form a community, through colloquia, lectures and parties. We have a student lounge, host an annual Passover Seder and a Holocaust memorial service, and have built a succah. We have a fascinating array of students and faculty. We welcome visitors. For more info, please e-mail the Center for Jewish Studies or call us at 510/649-2482.

The Center for Jewish Studies
Graduate Theological Union
2400 Ridge Road
Berkeley, CA 94709
Telephone: 510/649-2482
E-mail: cjs@gtu.edu