Scholarship and Secularization: Ideology in the Establishment of Jewish Institutions of Higher Learning

FAIN: FR-10210-78

Deborah Dash Moore
Regents of the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1015)

This study proposes to chart the impact of modernization of new ideological traditions in schools of higher education. In the 1920s the ideological ferment over the nature of Jewish identity in the contemporary world stimulated the establishment of three institutions of higher learning: the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, the Yiddish Scientific Institute in Vilna, and the Yeshiva University in New York City. These three institutions crystallized the relationship of Jewish culture to the Jewish people in their program of scholarship. This study argues that Jewish Studies becomes a means to integrate Jews into modern society through its expressed purpose of discovering for Jews a usable past in order to insure for them a viable future.