March 5, 1999   17 Adar 5759

Jewish Emory
How did a Methodist college become a hotbed of Jewish life and learning?

When Aaron D. Stein was a high school senior, he narrowed his college
choices to Haverford College and Emory University.
He says something clicked on his visit to Emory's campus when he overheard
two students strolling on the quad discussing where they'd attend Megillah
reading that night.
"I was like, you know what? If I go to a campus and the first thing I hear
is Purim, I'm in the right place," says Stein, 19. The Fairfax, Va., native
is an Emory sophomore majoring in international and Middle Eastern studies.
Increasingly, Emory is the right place for Jewish students, Jewish studies
and Jewish life. Courses on Jewish topics from history to Hebrew have been
steadily expanding, and the university last month announced the creation of
an Institute for Jewish Studies and a $100,000 contribution to fund
students' studies in Israel. Construction starts soon on a Jewish Life
Center that will give Jewish student activities a permanent headquarters
and an undeniable presence.
It's never been easier to be Jewish at Emory, a university founded in 1836
as a United Methodist institution. Estimates suggest that as many as 25 to
30 percent of Emory's 11,300 undergraduates and graduate students are
Jewish, on par with major prestigious American schools. A quip that
circulates regularly on campus is that Emory stands for Early Methodist
Only Recently Yiddish.
"If you had asked me in 1977 if, in 20 years, there'd be four or five
people teaching Hebrew ... and an Institute for the Study of Modern Israel
... I would have said, 'You're a dreamer.' I never would have predicted
it," says Kenneth W. Stein, a professor of Middle Eastern history and
political science and director of the year-old Emory Institute for the
Study of Modern Israel. He is not related to Aaron Stein.
Kenneth Stein arrived at Emory about 22 years ago for what was supposed to
be a three-month gig teaching courses on modern Jewish history and Israel.
Professor David R. Blumenthal was hired at the same time, in January 1977.
"When I came to Emory, the department of religion was basically the
department of Christian studies," says Blumenthal, who is also a rabbi.
He knew that before department meetings, he'd get a phone call from the
dean's secretary thoughtfully inquiring what he could eat. Now the fruit
plate for the rabbi is routine, says a grinning Blumenthal, whose navy
blazer sports a lapel pin of crossed Israeli and American flags.
Like other Emory professors who teach courses with Jewish content,
Blumenthal is a popular lecturer and guest speaker in the Atlanta Jewish
community. He recently spoke on Jewish mysticism at the Epstein School's
"Education Celebration."
Other Emory faculty have taught at Jewish U., which is sponsored by the
Atlanta Jewish Community Center, and Atlanta's Jews often visit the Emory
campus for lectures and seminars on topics ranging from ancient Israel to
Jewish responses to domestic violence.
Phyllis Levine, 71, is a campus regular. Her idea of a lovely retirement is
sitting in on as many Jewish studies courses as Emory offers. "I'm making
up for what I didn't learn. I though I had a good Jewish education," she
says after an afternoon class last week called "Interpreting the Middle
East."
Emory's third annual Tenenbaum lecture, which featured a Talmud scholar
from the Jewish Theological Seminary, last month drew a standing-room-only
crowd of more than 300. Students in jeans mingled with bearded men in
yarmulkes.
Atlanta's Jews show their appreciation for Emory's scholarship by pulling
out their checkbooks. The Emory Jewish Life Center is funded in part by
local contributions.
Construction is expected to start in a few months on the center, which will
be built at 722 Gatewood Road, where a house now stands. The
10,000-square-foot building with lounges, computer space and meeting rooms
- but not a kosher cafeteria, to Aaron Stein's dismay - will supplant the
crowded cottage that temporarily houses Jewish student activities and
staff.
The Atlanta Jewish Federation's capital campaign provided $1.95 million,
and Emory alumni and parents of students raised $3 million. Want your name
on the building? It's yours for $2 million.
"A bargain," says a straight-faced Rabbi Louis Feldstein, executive
director of Atlanta YAD, the Jewish chaplaincy.
A little history
Atlanta's Jews had been involved in the Druid Hills university long before
it developed a national reputation and attracted students from beyond the
South.
Joe Franco, 89, figures he was one of about 50 Jews among the 2,000
students when he graduated in 1934.
By the time Franco's son Richard enrolled in the late 1950s, the Jewish
student population had grown to nearly 300, about 5 percent of the student
body, Richard Franco estimates. Jewish Atlanta families favored Emory
because it was close to home.
But the university's now-defunct dental school was tainted by a decade of
Jewish student quotas so troubling that the Anti-Defamation League launched
an investigation. Between 1948 and 1958, the ADL found, 64 percent of
Jewish dental students either failed courses or had to repeat them,
compared to just 16 percent of non-Jewish dental students, according to a
1962 book by Benjamin R. Epstein and Arnold Forster.
Before 1948 - the year the new dental school dean, Dr. John Buhler, was
appointed - the repeat rate for Jewish students was less than 4 percent
with no failures. Buhler eventually resigned after pressure from Atlanta
Jewish community leaders armed with data from the Anti-Defamation League.
Jewish students' treatment at the dental school did not deter Jewish
undergraduates. Neither did the school's unabashed ties to the Methodist
church. Emory was, according to its mission statement, "designed to be a
profoundly religious institution without being narrowly sectarian."
Atlanta neurologist Richard Franco and his wife, Phyllis, both 1960
graduates, recall a mandatory Bible course for freshmen that they enjoyed
because it was intellectually challenging without being preachy.
Emory hadn't yet established a national reputation, says Richard Franco,
60. The Jewish students from the Northeast who wound up there "basically
didn't get into Ivy League schools," he says, but wanted a strong pre-med
or pre-dental education.
Emory's reputation and fortunes changed for the better in 1979. The
Woodruff family, heirs to the Coca-Cola fortune, gave the school $105
million in Coke stock, a gift the university says remains the largest
single contribution to any American college or university. Emory channeled
its new wealth into scholarships, graduate fellowships, professorships and
its library, boosting its academic caliber.
That endowment was impressive, but it took an exhibit of relics from the
pre-World War II Jews of Danzig to draw sizable Jewish attention to the
campus. More than 80,000 people viewed the exhibit during the month it was
on display at the Schatten Gallery. There was no Schatten gallery before
the exhibit. And if the Atlanta family hadn't provided a five-figure gift
for security at the library where the treasures were displayed, the exhibit
wouldn't have come to town, Blumenthal says.
The Schatten family was one of Emory's earliest major Jewish supporters,
endowing Blumenthal's chair, the Jay and Leslie Cohen professorship in
Jewish studies, as well as a chair in international law and human rights.
This year, Emory named a chair in memory of Dr. William Schatten, a
surgeon, former Federation president and graduate of Emory's undergraduate
program and medical school. Stein was last month named the first professor
to hold that chair.
Emory's course offerings expanded to include Hinduism, Buddhism,
ethnography and cultural history. Elie Wiesel received an honorary degree
from the Candler School of Theology. Professor Deborah E. Lipstadt,
recently named chair of the new Institute for Jewish Studies, joined the
faculty and "became a celebrity overnight" for her Holocaust scholarship,
Blumenthal says.
The Temple's Rabbi Alvin Sugarman, who earned his undergraduate and doctorat
e degrees at Emory, was named to the university's Board of Trustees last
year. The Institute for the Study of Modern Israel was unveiled last year,
and in February, Emory announced the Jewish Studies Institute.
Its creation means that for the first time, Emory undergraduates can easily
major or minor in Jewish studies, and professors in a variety of
departments will have an easier time coordinating courses with connections
in Jewish history, Middle Eastern studies, Hebrew, Arabic and Islam, among
others.
The new institute "really fits our commitment to excellence" by creating "a
conversation among the disciplines," says Rebecca S. Chopp, Emory's provost
and executive vice president for academic affairs. She credits its
existence to the "heroic efforts" of Blumenthal, Lipstadt and Stein.
Faculty members are enthusiastic about the new institute. "In practical
ways, they're going to be making new appointments," says Shalom Goldstein,
an assistant professor of Middle Eastern studies. "For any program or
department, that's a major coup, to get a department to hire new faculty."
New faculty and more courses will lead to more students taking
interdisciplinary courses with Jewish content, Chopp says.
Many of the students who are enrolled in those types of courses are
studying other fields but want to squeeze some Jewish learning into the
secular education. "The second semester of their senior year, I'd find them
in my modern Israel class," Stein says.
Stein's modern Israel course has 58 students, a third of them non-Jews, he
says, and his Arab-Israeli conflict course is "packed to the walls" each
fall with nearly 100 students.


Participating
Are Jewish students flocking to Emory for its Jewish courses, or did the
educational offerings spring from a growing Jewish student population?
They're intertwined, faculty members and students say.
Emory's sizable Jewish student body and strong academic reputation lured
Rachel Berger, a sophomore from Bridgewater, N.J. Berger, 20, says she made
sure to attend campus Shabbat services when she toured the campus.
Now a Middle Eastern Studies major who's planning a semester of study in
Israel, Berger says she's "very impressed" with her professors. She is one
of the directors of a youth group affiliated with Congregation Shearith
Israel.
She says she still attends campus Shabbat services, which attract about 70
students. As many as 110 will attend a Friday night dinner, Feldstein says.
Why not more? parents ask, and Feldstein, YAD's director for seven years,
has a ready explanation. "I say this often to Jewish parents: "Did your kid
go [to services] in high school?' They say, 'No.' I say, 'Why should they
go in college?' "
Feldstein, who answers to "Rabbi Lou," says he and his YAD staff can't
reach everyone. But with a $700,000 budget and a growing staff - soon to
have 12 employees, including a full-time campus rabbi - they're doing their
best to connect with as many young Jews as possible.
Feldstein, 41, has been splitting his time between duties as rabbi and
executive director, a squeeze that prompts him to quip: "I no longer have
the availability to hang out at 'South Park and Spaghetti' dinners."
Some Jewish Emory students may want their religious affiliation to end at
YAD's video library, where they can borrow a Woody Allen film. Others may
come to hear a Jewish guest speaker, such as sexuality maven Dr. Ruth
Westheimer. Like Berger, some meet up at the student union building on
Friday evening to sing together before splitting up for Reform,
Conservative or Orthodox services.
As many as 1,600 students attended Conservative Kol Nidre services. About
20 Orthodox students attended another service, while a Reform service drew
400 to 600, YAD's Feldstein says.
He says he'd prefer Emory to cancel on Yom Kippur but respects how students
accommodate the dual demands of religion and education. "I love the
students who show up in backpacks [with] nice ties or dresses," he says.
"... That's vibrant. That's exciting. I'll call that kid up for an aliyah
... because you don't have to wear a tie."
The new Jewish Life Center will be a headquarters for Jewish campus life,
but activities shouldn't be isolated there, Feldstein says. "The challenge
of the Jewish Life Center is you don't get locked in the Jewish Life
Center," he says. "We will constantly have to balance programming on campus
with programming off campus."
Professors who teach Middle Eastern studies are seeking a similar
equilibrium, citing concerns about balancing the university's mission of
providing a broad education with scholarship of special interest to Jews.
"We don't want to separate it, to make it something 'just Jewish,' " says
Goldstein, the assistant professor. "We don't want to ghetto-ize it." n

Duke Goes Kosher
Kosher dining and a mikveh are coming to the Durham, N.C., campus as part
of a new Center for Jewish Life.
June D. Bell Senior Staff Writer

Emory's new Institute for Jewish Studies and its Jewish Life Center may
appeal to prospective Jewish students' minds and hearts, but Duke
University is going for the gut. The Durham, N.C., school will court them
with food.
When Duke's Center for Jewish Life opens on campus this spring, it will
boast a kosher meal plan coordinated with the university's dining service,
says Gretchen Cooley, the center's program director.
It's unclear how great the demand is for kosher food in Blue Devil
territory. Jewish students account for no more than 15 percent of Duke's
student body, according to Cooley's estimates. Between 1,000 and 1,500
students are Jewish, and the total undergraduate and graduate enrollment is
about 11,000, she says.
Emory's Jewish population is estimated at 25 to 30 percent, but the Atlanta
university has no kosher dining options, much to the dismay of students
like sophomore Aaron D. Stein. "Kosher food has been my biggest issue with
life on campus," the dorm resident says.
He eats only pasta, bread and vegetables in the campus dining hall. Stein
supplements his diet with kosher goods he buys at supermarkets, Shabbat
lunches at the homes of Congregation Beth Jacob members and a steady diet
of Chinese food from Chai Peking, a kosher restaurant.
Stein, 19, says he's been working with Emory's student government to
establish a kosher dining option, but efforts remain stalled.
"Emory has stated consistently over the years that there is neither the
need nor the financial wherewithal for it on our campus," says Rabbi Louis
Feldstein, executive director of Atlanta YAD, the umbrella group for Jewish
student life.
Emory's new Jewish Life Center, which will be constructed this year, will
have a small kitchen that won't be equipped for serving meals. "We won't
get into the restaurant business," he says.
A kosher meal plan would attract more observant Jewish students, say
Feldstein and Stein as well as Jewish professors, who say it's only a
matter of time before Emory's food service contractor begins to offer a
kosher meal plan.
Duke's Cooley says she expects the university's kosher food service and new
19,000-square-foot Jewish center - complete with the area's only mikveh
(ritual bath) - to catch the eye of Jewish students who would have never
given it a second glance otherwise. Duke also has a department of Judaic
studies with about five professors.
The Jewish center is being built with donations from alumni, parents and
Durham's small Jewish community, and Jewish student enrollment has been
slowly climbing, she says.
"A couple years ago, if a Jewish family came to the admissions office to
have a tour, they'd be lucky if they got a scrap of paper with the address
of Hillel, which is still in the basement of the chapel," Cooley says.
Hillel will move into the new Jewish center when it opens around graduation
time.