Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies

About the Department

Dedicated to intellectual openness and pedagogic excellence, the Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies (NEJS) offers courses that engage critical questions of history, religion, culture, language, literary and textual studies, social and political science, law, education, and women's and gender studies, as well as rich experiential learning opportunities.

NEJS houses scholars of the Bible, rabbinics, Judaism in the medieval Christian and Islamic worlds, Jews in the Ottoman Empire, Jews in early modern Italy, European Jewish intellectual history, Jews in Eastern Europe and Russia, Sephardic Studies, Israel Studies, Hebrew literature, Holocaust Studies, Yiddish literature, Jewish film, and Jewish education. The Hebrew Language Program is the largest in the country. The NEJS faculty also includes specialists in the ancient Near Eastern religions and texts, a specialist in early Christianity, and two scholars of Islamic and Middle East Studies. Several faculty members of NEJS also are core members of the departments offering separate majors such as Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, Hebrew language and literature, history, comparative literature, and religious studies.

The department developed over the years to represent a dynamic and interdisciplinary home for scholars and students from a range of backgrounds and disciplines. Faculty, undergraduates, and graduate students have the opportunity to study a broad range of subjects like Hebrew Bible, Queens of the Ancient Mediterranean, Yiddish Literature, Medieval and Contemporary Islamic Thought, Modern Israel, and more. Opportunities for more intense study are accessible through independent studies and completion of a senior thesis for undergraduates and a Master’s thesis or PhD dissertation for graduate students.