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The Yaschik/Arnold Jewish Studies Program

Dr. Martin Perlmutter, Director
College of Charleston    Charleston, SC 29424
Phone: (843) 953-5682   Fax: (843) 953-7624   E-mail: jwst@cofc.edu

Faculty

 

Richard Bodek, History
953-8030 bodekr@cofc.edu
An associate professor of history, Professor Bodek has been at the College of Charleston since 1990. He has studied or taken degrees at Johns Hopkins University, the University of Michigan, the University of Tübingen, and the Free University of Berlin. His research interests center on the cultural world of German Judaism from the end of the nineteenth century to the 1950s. At present he is working on a book tentatively titled, Germany in the German-Jewish Literary Imagination. Professor Bodek teaches several courses for the Jewish Studies Program, including Modern Jewish History, European Jewish History, and German-Jewish Culture.

John Huddlestun, Religious Studies
953-4996 huddlestunj@cofc.edu
Professor Huddlestun is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, having arrived at the College in 1996. His areas of specialization include Tanakh/Hebrew Bible, religion in ancient Israel and the ancient Near East, and classical Judaism. With a Ph.D. in biblical and ancient Near Eastern Studies from the University of Michigan (1996), he has done additional postgraduate work in Biblical/Modern Hebrew, Egyptology, and archaeology at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The principal focus of his research is the possible cultural and literary connections between ancient Egypt and Israel. Prior to his present career in academia, Dr. Huddlestun worked as a professional musician; he holds a Bachelor's degree in Music History and Literature and Music Performance (Ohio State University).

Stuart Knee, History
953-5938 knees@cofc.edu

Larry Krasnoff, Philosphy/Religious Studies
953-4987 krasnoff@cofc.edu
Professor Krasnoff was born and raised in Philadelphia, and received his Jewish education at Congregation Adath Jeshurun and Gratz College. He has a B.A. in history and mathematics from Williams College and a Ph.D. in philosophy from Johns Hopkins University. He has been teaching philosphy and Jewish Studies at the College of Charleston since 1998. In philosophy, his main interests are in Kant and in moral and political philosophy; in Jewish Studies, his main interests are in modern Jewish thought and in American Judaism.

Adam Mendelsohn is delighted to be joining the Jewish Studies Program at the College of Charleston! Adam received       his PhD in American Jewish history from Brandeis University in May 2008. He will spend the 2008-2009 academic year       as a fellow at the Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Adam’s research focuses on English-speaking Jewish communities that developed in the United States and British Empire from the mid-nineteenth century onward. His research takes him across much of the Anglophone Diaspora.Born and raised in South Africa, Adam originally became interested in American Jewish history at the University of Cape Town, where he compared the responses of South African   and Southern Jews to segregation and apartheid. Adam publishes extensively on this and other topics in a number of journals and maintains a fascination with Southern Jewish history. He is a member of the board of the Southern Jewish Historical Society and edits its newsletter, The Rambler. Adam and his wife, Andrea, very much look forward to moving to Charleston in August 2009.

Martin Perlmutter, Philospohy/Religious Studies
953-7625 perlmutterm@cofc.edu
A Professor of Philosophy, Dr. Perlmutter came to the College of Charleston in 1979, after teaching in Austin, Texas and Nashville, Tennessee. He chaired the Philosophy Department for eight years prior to becoming the Director of the Yaschik/Arnold Program in Jewish Studies in 1991. After receiving a Yeshiva education at Yeshiva University High School, Dr. Perlmutter attended the Jewish Theological Seminary throughout his college years at C.C.N.Y He spent his last sabbatical year away in Jerusalem. His teaching interests in Jewish Studies are Hebrew Bible and Jewish thought. Dr. Perlmutter also teaches the summer travel course to Israel, Jordan, and Egypt.

Theodore Rosengarten, History/Religious Studies
tedrsc@aol.com
Dr. Rosengarten received his A. B. from Amherst College and Ph.D. in American Civilization from Harvard University. Although his primary field of research and writing is African American history, he has been a student of the Holocaust for over fifty years and has taught on the subject at the College of Charleston and the University of South Carolina. He also directs workshops for middle and high school teachers on “Teaching the Holocaust.” In the past decade, he has taught at Duke and Harvard Universities, and at the University of California at Irvine.

Joshua Shanes, Jewish Studies
953-3929 shanesj@cofc.edu
Jewish Studies is excited to announce its first full-time faculty member. Joshua Shanes joins Jewish Studies from the University of Illinois. Professor Shanes received his B.A. in History from the University of Illinois in 1993 and his Ph.D. in History from the University of Wisconsin in 2002, spending time studying in Israel in between. Professor Shanes’ research interests focus on Central and East European Jewry in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. His specific interest is turn-of-the-century Galicia and the rise of Zionism as a counter-movement to the more traditional Jewish religious establishment. His teaching competencies include Jewish mysticism, modern Jewish history, and Yiddish.

Leah Wolfson, Holocaust Literature
953-5682 wolfsonl@cofc.edu
A native of Chicago, Leah Wolfson did her undergraduate work in English at Emory, graduating in 2001 Summa Cum Laude. Upon graduating, Leah moved to Baltimore to coordinate public programming at the Jewish Museum of Maryland. In August of 2008, she received her PhD in Comparative Literature from Emory University with an emphasis in Holocaust Studies and Jewish Studies. While at Emory, Leah was an award-winning instructor, teaching introductory and advanced courses in Jewish literature and Holocaust literature. She is excited to join the faculty of the Jewish Studies Program for the 2008-2009 academic year and looks forward to adding courses on Jewish literature to the course offerings at the College.

Zipora Wagner, Hebrew
953-7585 wagnerz@cofc.edu
A young-at-heart Holocaust survivor, Tsipi Wagner has been teaching Hebrew and English as a second language for over  45 years. After a career of teaching in Israel, Tsipi taught Hebrew at Emory and Georgia State University for nine years.       At Georgia State, she established a new program in Modern and Biblical Hebrew. Attending pedagogical workshops in the United States and Israel on a regular basis, Tsipi is well-versed in the issues of teaching Modern Hebrew as a second language. Her objective is to employ her vast experience for our Hebrew program and help it develop to an advanced level   to include third and fourth years of study. She will be teaching a third year in the Fall. Tsipi also teaches courses on Israeli film. Her appointment at the College of Charleston reflects the College’s continued commitment to Hebrew instruction.

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