“I am constantly reminded that people go into the field of psychology because they want to build civilization, they want to explore ideas and they’re wise enough to know that they don’t want to live in an enclosed bubble,” said YU President Richard M. Joel in his opening remarks to students. “They want to break down silos, bring their disciplines to play with other disciplines and inspire young people to explore their dreams and make those dreams come true.”
Four-Year $720,000 Grant will Enable Stern College’s Marina Holz to Investigate Breast Cancer Cell Growth
The American Cancer Society, the largest non-government, not-for-profit funding source of cancer research in the United States, has awarded Dr. Marina Holz, assistant professor of biology at Yeshiva University’s Stern College for Women, a $720,000 Research Scholar Grant. The four-year grant will be used to continue her work researching how the mTOR pathway affects the growth of estrogen-receptor positive breast cancer.
Rabbi Joshua Fass to Keynote May 30 Commencement; Honorees Include Tony Gelbart, Abraham Naymark and Merryl Tisch
Rabbi Joshua Fass, Yeshiva University alumnus and executive director of Nefesh B’Nefesh, will deliver the keynote address and receive an honorary doctorate at YU’s 82nd Commencement Ceremony on Thursday, May 30, at the IZOD Center in East Rutherford, New Jersey. YU President Richard M. Joel will also confer honorary doctorates upon entrepreneur Tony B. Gelbart; businessman and philanthropist Abraham Naymark, and Merryl H. Tisch, chancellor of the New York State Board of Regents. Read the rest of this entry…
Seeking Green Energy Solutions, Students and Faculty from Stern College and UNH Join Forces
As part of a new educational experience designed to restructure the way undergraduates are trained in science and engineering, students at Yeshiva University’s Stern College for Women participated in hands-on advanced nanoscience and nanotechnology research at Brookhaven National Laboratory on April 11.
Students toured the Brookhaven lab and used its National Synchrotron Light Source, a ring in which electrons are accelerated and also a source of powerful x-ray radiation, to study why platinum and other expensive noble metals are efficient as catalysts in chemical reactions and how new and better catalysts could be designed. The research has implications for the development of important alternate fuel sources.
Eric Goldman’s Newest Book Charts the American Jewish Story through the History of Cinema
From Al Jolson to Woody Allen, Jews have played a significant role in the American film industry even as their role in larger American society has constantly shifted and evolved. But how much of their changing experience made it to the big screen? In his new book, The American Jewish Story through Cinema (University of Texas Press, April 2013), Dr. Eric Goldman, adjunct associate professor of cinema at Yeshiva University, explores the surprising visual history of American Jewry revealed in some of America’s most classic films.
YU News: How did you become interested in the idea of American cinema as lens to study the Jewish American experience?
Goldman: I was classically trained in cinema studies, but I always had an interest in combining the Jewish with the American. My first book was a history of Yiddish cinema. As I came in contact with different people from different fields—sociology, history, semiotics—I realized that in terms of trying to understand the changing American Jew and the evolving situation of Jews in America, cinema could be used as an incredible text to see those changes right on the screen.
How is the early Jewish immigrant story reflected in early 20th century cinema, with movies like “The Jazz Singer?”
In my “Sociology of Mass Media” class at Stern College for Women, I screen “The Jazz Singer” and a silent film called “His People”together. They were made in the 1920s, within a year and a half of each other. “His People” is about the generational gap between the immigrants who came here with deep Jewish learning and found they couldn’t turn it into a living. In this movie, the father, a man of great learning, has to become a peddler on the street. And the question clearly is what will happen to the next generation? You feel the pull of assimilation. Read the rest of this entry…
Graduate Profile: Margot Reinstein, Stern College for Women
A common spirit runs throughout Yeshiva University: the mandate to matter.
Students of all ages and backgrounds come here to pursue a range of professional and personal dreams, from scientific research and medicine to law, Jewish education or public policy. Our students seek to harness their unique talents and YU education to make a lasting impact on the world around them. This spring, when they graduate from YU, these new alumni will hit the ground running.
In the weeks leading up to Commencement, YU Newswill feature one remarkable graduate from each school, reflecting, in their own words, on their time here, their passions and their dreams for the future.
Meet the Class of 2013.
Stern College senior and Legacy Heritage Fund Scholar Margot Reinstein hopes to pursue a career in Jewish education.
Graduate Profile: Michal Auerbach, Yeshiva University High School for Girls
A common spirit runs throughout Yeshiva University: the mandate to matter.
Students of all ages and backgrounds come here to pursue a range of professional and personal dreams, from scientific research and medicine to law, Jewish education or public policy. Our students seek to harness their unique talents and YU education to make a lasting impact on the world around them. This spring, when they graduate from YU, these new alumni will hit the ground running.
In the weeks leading up to Commencement, YU Newswill feature one remarkable graduate from each school, reflecting, in their own words, on their time here, their passions and their dreams for the future.
Meet the Class of 2013.
YU High School for Girls senior Michal Auerbach hopes to pursue a career in fertility science.
Yeshiva University’s Center for the Jewish Future (CJF) and Institute for University-School Partnership hosted their annual Jewish Job Fair on YU’s Wilf Campus on February 28. More than 50 Jewish day schools and 20 community organizations from across North America, including the Orthodox Union, Nefesh B’Nefesh, Repair the World and others, participated in the event, which was free and open to the public, with YU students and alumni given one hour of priority access.
“Our annual Jewish Job Fair is a natural outgrowth of our mission to support and strengthen Jewish communities and organizations around the world,” said Rabbi Kenneth Brander, David Mitzner Dean of the CJF. Read the rest of this entry…
Eliyahu Stern Examines Zionism’s Roots at Rogoff Memorial Lecture
While Zionism has been interpreted in many different ways, it is generally understood as a form of Jewish nationalism promoting the formation of a Jewish nation in the land of Israel. However, in a February 25 talk titled “Zionism and the Battle over Judaism” delivered at Yeshiva University’s annual Hillel Rogoff Memorial Lecture, Dr. Eliyahu Stern questioned a view of the movement he felt was becoming all too common—that an ideology formulated by Jews must be Jewish.
Dr. Eliyahu Stern offered an in-depth look at Zionism’s roots at the annual Hillel Rogoff Memorial Lecture.
“In recent years it has become fashionable in both academic and political circles to attribute religious, messianic origins to the modern Jewish nationalist movement called Zionism,” said Stern, a graduate of both Yeshiva College and YU-affiliated Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary and an assistant professor of modern Jewish intellectual and cultural history at Yale University. Citing scholars such as Columbia University’s Gil Anidjar, who see racial overtones in a movement founded on religious principles, Stern said, “The assumption behind Anidjar’s claims is a kind of guilt by association—since Zionism draws on religious motifs, either Jewish or Christian, its goals must be inherently messianic, and thus exclusionary, anti-ethical and racist.” Read the rest of this entry…
Yeshiva University Students Combine Technological Innovation and Torah Study
In the 21st century, web technology is a given. Want to know when the next train’s arriving? Look it up on your smart phone. Curious about a science term in a news article? Google it. But what if these same innovations could help you search the text of the Mishnah or pull up a range of opinions on any subject in Jewish law?
Stern College junior Atara Siegel is serving as a research assistant for the Digital Mishnah Project.
At Yeshiva University, two students are fusing that forward-thinking and technological fluency with their passion for Judaic studies.
Atara Siegel, a junior at Stern College for Women, is compiling different manuscripts of the Mishnah—found everywhere from the Cairo Genizah to the Vatican—as a research assistant for the Digital Mishnah Project, which seeks to create an online resource for study and comparison of Mishnaic manuscripts throughout history. “Sometimes the variations in the text don’t mean anything. Sometimes they can change the meaning of the Mishnah drastically—like a comment might be attributed to a totally different person,” said Siegel. “Having the different manuscripts side by side is a way of trying to figure out what the most accurate text is.” Read the rest of this entry…
“I am constantly reminded that people go into the field of psychology because they want to build civilization, they want to explore ideas and they’re wise enough to know that they don’t want to live in an enclosed bubble,” said YU President Richard M. Joel in his opening remarks to students. “They want to break down silos, bring their disciplines to play with other disciplines and inspire young people to explore their dreams and make those dreams come true.”
