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Welcome to the Bud Shorstein Center for Jewish Studies

Norman J.W. Goda - Director

Greetings, everyone!

My colleagues and I are most proud that our center will be known from 2023 as the Bud Shorstein Center for Jewish Studies. For many years Bud Shorstein has been a wonderful friend to the Center and has been instrumental in helping us to fulfil our mission in terms of curriculum, high-level research, and community outreach. In this the Center’s fiftieth year, we cannot imagine a greater honor than being named for him, and we look forward to new initiatives in the years ahead.

This fall, we are pleased to offer a number of fascinating classes, some of them brand new including “Filming Palestine 1896-1948” (Yehoshua Ecker), “Yiddish New York” (Jason Wagner), “Israel in French Cinema” (Gayle Zachmann), ”Topics in Israeli Politics and Society” (Patricia Sohn), “Writing Local Jewish Histories” (Yehoshua Ecker), “Broadcasting Diaspora” (Yaniv Feller) and an up-to-date interdisciplinary course on antisemitism (Norman Goda). I am also pleased to announce that the university’s Hebrew Language program is now housed within the Center.

Our undergraduate major is undergoing an update and we offer several five-course undergraduate certificate programs including a brand-new certificate in Israel Studies. Finally, we offer generous scholarship opportunities for students working on research projects. In the past couple of years, we have sent students for research in Israel, Spain, France, Germany, and, in the US, New York and Washington, DC. Note that you do not have to major in Jewish Studies to apply for our certificate or scholarship programs.

Our calendar of events for 2022-23 is growing as I write. On September 7 we will celebrate the naming of the Center with Bud Shorstein, his friends, and numerous other supporters; on October 2-3 the Center will host an interdisciplinary symposium on Jews and Ukraine; and on October 17 we will, together with faculty and students from UF and Florida State University, commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Rosenstrasse protest, the single protest in Nazi Germany against the deportation of the Jews.

Other events will be added to our calendar soon, including the annual Gainesville Jewish Film Festival in March 2024, so keep checking back.

I also invite you to sign up for our email announcements.

Until then, I wish everyone a wonderful academic year.

Norman J.W. Goda
Norman and Irma Braman Professor of Holocaust Studies
Director – The Bud Shorstein Center for Jewish Studies
University of Florida

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