The Center for Jewish Civilization invites you to register for the following special event, co-sponsored by the BMW Center for German and European Studies and the Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding.

RSVP HERE

Thursday, September 21st 12:30pm-1:30pm EST

ICC 270, Georgetown University

In this book, Dr. Steven Kramer explores the complex, triangular relationship between the French Republic, Jews, and Muslims. It is the first book to compare the experience of French Jews and Muslims over the longue durée, tracing their experiences and interactions in both metropolitan France and the colonies under the evolving regime of laïcité. This historical and comparative approach does more than illuminate past and current tensions, it suggests how they may be resolved.

Speaker:

Moderator:

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion: 120 years of Antisemitic Propaganda

Panel Summary – What is to be Done, Part 2: The Challenge and Promise of Technology

The last panel of the symposium considered the double-edged sword of networked communication technology, where powerful platforms enabled and inspired communication, collaboration, and creation unimaginable just a decade ago and today face a new threat landscape that benefits from its connective tissues. Daniel Byman of Georgetown University moderated a conversation between Justin Erlich, Elizabeth Neumann, and Cynthia Miller-Idriss as they discussed the current threats and what we must do about them. Our panelists established that antisemitism is not just an isolated threat or restricted to a defined community but is instead a deep-seated virus that is a starting and end point to all forms of radicalized hate online in the ‘propaganda train:’ misogyny, homophobia, xenophobia, among others. Next, panelists discussed ways to stop the spread of hateful ideologies online and prevent youth from becoming radicalized, discussing solutions from short-form ‘pre-bunking’ videos that teach people how to recognize when they are being manipulated to on-the-ground initiatives with parents, coaches, teachers, faith leaders, and other communities to create behavioral change. Tech companies like TikTok also seek to address harmful content online through five vectors – policies, enforcement, empowerment, education, and partnerships – and to strike a balance between empowering users and institutionally removing content. Community solutions were designated as some of the most foundational and impactful aspects of CVE/CT work, supplementing online tools and education. As the threat landscape has changed since 9/11, government structures to fight dangerous content have failed to update, and the focus of advocates has thus shifted to grassroots initiatives and education. Furthermore, technology has made CT harder, as our society faces increased exposure to online content available at all times. The politicization of content and words like ‘disinformation’ have also complicated the panelists’ and other advocates’ work as they navigate learning curves in publicizing and advertising information about combating harmful online content to the public. A further complicating factor is the lack of government investment in community-based solutions, with panelists noting that questions about long-term projects like building community trust and reducing recidivism rates for radicalization remain unasked and unanswered.

Notable Quotes

Justin Erlich – “Coded words are one of the great challenges here. We’re constantly trying to keep up without overkilling content that may be used in counterspeech or that may have some sort of neutral context. So this is some kind of the ongoing work that we (TikTok) rely on our partners – trusted NGOs and civil servant groups – to help us with.”

Elizabeth Neumann – “Most companies trying to police their terms of service are limited by usually leveraging government designations of what a terrorist group is – and it’s not necessarily focused on movements. And so, Seamus (Hughes), in the previous panel, talked about how there is this artificiality in the way that the government functions: we designate terrorist organizations, we don’t designate terrorist movements. And the law is structured around organizations, not movements. So a lot of the tools, both in the federal government and the tools that the tech companies rely on, are not there to address antisemitism as a movement or as a type of content that we want to prohibit. So we have to get more creative.”

Cynthia Miller-Idriss – “One of the things that strike me is that we are often talking about antisemitism, or antisemites, or even ‘The Antisemite’ as if it’s some kind of bounded or very recognizable and identifiable thing. I think that one of the things that we find in the (Polarization and Extremism Research & Innovation) lab is that antisemitism tends to be not just a starting point for the propaganda that we see online but it’s also the endpoint as well. It doesn’t matter where you get on the ‘propaganda train,’ whether it’s antisemitism or anti-immigration or male supremacism, it always ends up on antisemitism. You go far enough down the rabbit hole, and you get there.”

Speaker Biographies

Daniel Byman, Georgetown University

Daniel Byman is a professor in the School of Foreign Service with a concurrent appointment with the Department of Government. He is an editor at Lawfare and a member of the Department of State’s International Security Advisory Board. He served as Vice Dean of the SFS undergraduate program from 2015 until 2020 and before that as director of Georgetown’s Security Studies Program and Center for Security Studies from 2005 until 2010. He also led a Georgetown team in teaching a “Massive Open Online Course” (MOOC) on terrorism and counterterrorism for EdX. Professor Byman is also a part-time Senior Fellow at the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. From 2002 to 2004 he served as a Professional Staff Member with the 9/11 Commission and with the Joint 9/11 Inquiry Staff of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees. Before joining the Inquiry Staff he was the Research Director of the Center for Middle East Public Policy at the RAND Corporation. Previous to this, Professor Byman worked as an analyst on the Middle East for the U.S. government.

Justin Erlich, TikTok

Justin is the Global Head of Issue Policy and Outreach & Partnerships for the Trust & Safety team at TikTok. He leads teams that develop global policy framework, engage with civil society and communities, and incubate Responsible Innovation practices. He also regularly teaches courses on Disruptive Technology & Regulation at the UC Berkeley Law School. Harnessing his strategic and policy background, he focuses on building organizations that operate in highly-regulated environments. He combines big-picture thinking with executive leadership to deliver tangible impact. He is driven by a passion to ensure tech platforms bring us together rather than drive us apart. Prior to joining TikTok, Justin worked in the urban mobility tech sector at Uber as Global Head of Policy for Autonomous Vehicles & Urban Aviation and the V.P. of Strategy, Policy & Legal at Voyage. He served as the Principal Tech Advisor for the former California Attorney General and current Vice President Kamala Harris, overseeing the Department’s work on privacy, data, tech platforms, and the regulation of emerging technologies. He also spent 5 years at McKinsey & Co. as a consultant, with a focus on cities and the social sector. He has a degree in Government with related fields in economics and behavioral psychology from Harvard University, and holds a J.D. from New York University School of Law. He is a member of the California State bar.

Elizabeth Neumann, Moonshot

Elizabeth Neumann is the Chief Strategy Officer for Moonshot, a tech-driven solutions provider harnessing the power of the internet for good. We develop new technology and methodologies to expose threats, disrupt malicious actors and protect vulnerable audiences online. We work to end online harms – such as violent extremism, disinformation, child sexual exploitation, gender-based violence, and human trafficking – making communities, governments, and businesses safer, both online and off, around the world. Previously, Ms. Neumann served as the Assistant Secretary for Counterterrorism and Threat Prevention at DHS where she led eight program and policy teams addressing a range of issues including domestic violent extremism, screening and vetting, countering terrorism and transnational criminal organizations, countering hostile UAS (drones), and human trafficking. Over the past two decades, Ms. Neumann created and implemented multiple government-wide reforms, primarily in the areas of security and public safety. Ms. Neumann began her homeland security work in the aftermath of 9/11, serving on the inaugural staff of the White House Homeland Security Council (now part of the National Security Council). Ms. Neumann is a Board Member of the National Immigration Forum, founder and member of the Council on National Security and Immigration, and a National Security Contributor at ABC News.

Cynthia Miller-Idriss, Polarization and Extremism Research & Innovation Lab (PERIL), American University

Dr. Cynthia Miller-Idriss is a Professor in the School of Public Affairs and in the School of Education at the American University in Washington, DC, where she is also the founding director of the Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab (PERIL). She is a Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation Entrepreneur and recently served as the inaugural creative lead for the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation’s residency program on social cohesion in Berlin, Germany. Dr. Miller-Idriss regularly testifies before the U.S. Congress and briefs policy, security, education and intelligence agencies in the U.S., the United Nations, and other countries on trends in domestic violent extremism and strategies for prevention and disengagement. She is the author, co-author, or co-editor of six books, including her most recent book, Hate in the Homeland: The New Global Far Right (Princeton University Press, 2022). She is currently at work on a new book on the gendered dimensions of violent extremism. Dr. Miller-Idriss writes frequently for mainstream audiences, as an opinion columnist for MSNBC and in other recent by-lines in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Foreign Affairs, The Washington Post, Politico, USA Today, The Boston Globe, and more

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion: 120 years of Antisemitic Propaganda

Panel Summary – Overcoming Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism: The Abraham Accords

The symposium’s lunch roundtable in the second half of the conference analyzed how historic accords between Israel and Arab states served to help combat antisemitism worldwide. The panelists, Ambassador Dennis Ross, Ed Husain, and Michael Doran, participated in a conversation led by the Director of the Center for Jewish Civilization, Dr. Bruce Hoffman. An underlying current of the panelists’ opening presentations was that the regional shift to see Israel as a contributor to the shared Abrahamic and Quranic heritage of the Middle East did not happen in a vacuum; rather, it was a process over the last seven years primarily led by Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. From a 2015 celebration of Hanukkah between King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa of Bahrain and a rabbi from New York to the thriving Jewish communities living and practicing their faith in the UAE, there are many cultural- and faith-based narratives that laid the foundation for the Abraham Accords, despite the extremist messaging from Iran and al-Qaeda claiming that Jews and Christians don’t belong in the Arabian Peninsula. Our panelists noted that establishing normal relations with Israel from the ground up, rather than the bureaucratic top-down ‘normalization’ of relations, is opening the door for Saudi Arabia to gradually publicize its relationship with Israel – in pursuit of its broader attempts to increase tourism and influence – thus opening the door for other states like Jordan and Egypt to follow suit. However, the US is seemingly missing an opportunity to use the Abraham Accords as a springboard for creating a new security dynamic in the Middle East, with its allies – Israel in particular – stepping up to combat Iranian influence through regional cooperation. This is key to countering the Iranian critique of Israel as an illegitimate state, especially as the US’s own conception that progress cannot be made in the Middle East until the Israeli-Palestinian problem is resolved additionally hinders regional cooperation. Yet it is important to note that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict undoubtedly amplifies tension, China is inserting its influence in the region, and the Biden Administration must weigh its choices with the risk of consequences related to Iranian oil or military escalation if they take a more aggressive policy stance. Our panelists sought to balance sobering reality, driven by recent headlines, with hope for the future, leaning on the shared heritage and historic tolerance and diversity of the Middle Eastern region.

Notable Quotes

Dennis Ross – “I get asked the question, ‘How are the Abraham Accords changing the region?’ And what I say is that it’s a good question but not the right one. The right question is, ‘How did the region change to make the Abraham Accords possible?’ And what we know, what we see, is that increasingly, especially among the Gulf States but not exclusively there, you have more and more Arab States come to the realization that they have their own interests that they need to pursue, and they looked at Israel as actually being a country that could contribute greatly to that.”

Ed Husain – “The Abraham Accords was called a word called Abraham for a reason: and that is because there is a common inheritance across the Middle East that celebrates our fathers – Ishmael and Isaac. Both lines, as the Bible says, will produce great civilizations and great nations. And we see that Biblical and Quranic inheritance at play here.”

Michael Doran – “There is an opportunity that’s being missed by the Biden Administration right now with regard to the Abraham Accords. When they came into power, they didn’t even want to acknowledge the Abraham Accords; they downplayed it because it was an achievement of the other team, an achievement that they had always said was impossible without an advance on the Palestinian track. And they’ve come around on that, which is all for the better, and they now are embracing normalization. But what’s missing from their approach is the security dimension, a full development in the security dimension. They don’t want to actually aggressively contain Iran. So the Abraham Accords is there as an integration of Israel into the region – especially an economic integration, but it’s only partially there with regard to missile defense. We can now see the foundation being laid for a region-wide missile defense network, but you can’t have a real containment of Iran without aggressive countermeasures. And I think that this is hindering the development of the Abraham Accords as the nucleus of a really serious defense relationship.”

Speaker Biographies

Dr. Bruce Hoffman, Georgetown University

Bruce Hoffman is the Shelby Cullom and Kathryn W. Davis senior fellow for counterterrorism and homeland security at the Council on Foreign Relations. He has been studying terrorism and insurgency for four decades. He is a tenured professor at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, where he is the director of the Center for Jewish Civilization. Hoffman was previously director of both the Center for Security Studies and the Security Studies program from 2010-2017.

Ambassador Dennis Ross, Georgetown University

Ambassador Dennis Ross is Counselor and Ziegler Distinguished Fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Ambassador Ross played a leading role in shaping U.S. involvement in the Middle East peace process within the H.W. Bush and Clinton administrations. He was instrumental in assisting Israelis and Palestinians to reach the 1995 Interim Agreement, successfully brokering the 1997 Hebron Accord, and facilitating the 1994 Israel-Jordan peace treaty. Ambassador Ross has worked closely with Secretaries of State James Baker, Warren Christopher, and Madeleine Albright. He was awarded the Presidential Medal for Distinguished Federal Civilian Service by President Clinton.

Ed Husain, Georgetown University

Ed Husain is a British writer and political advisor who has worked with leaders and governments across the world. He has held senior fellowships at think tanks in London and New York, including at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) at the height of the Arab uprisings (2010-2015). While at CFR, his policy innovation memo led to the US-led creation of a Geneva-based global fund to help counter terrorism. Husain was a senior advisor to former British Prime Minister Tony Blair (2015-2018). From 2018-2021 he completed his doctoral studies on Western philosophy and Islam under the direction of the English philosopher Sir Roger Scruton. He is the author of The Islamist (Penguin, 2007), The House of Islam: A Global History (Bloomsbury, 2018), and Among the Mosques (Bloomsbury, 2021). His writing has been shortlisted for the George Orwell Prize. A regular contributor to the Spectator magazine, he has appeared on the BBC and CNN and has written for the Telegraph, The Times, the New York Times, the Guardian, and other publications. He has traveled to more than forty countries.

Michael Doran, Hudson Institute

Michael Doran is a senior fellow and director of the Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East at Hudson Institute. He specializes in Middle East security issues and co-hosts the Counterbalance podcast. In the administration of President George W. Bush, Doran served in the White House as a senior director in the National Security Council, where he was responsible for helping to devise and coordinate United States strategies on a variety of Middle East issues, including Arab-Israeli relations and US efforts to contain Iran and Syria. He also served in the Bush administration as a senior advisor in the State Department and a deputy assistant secretary of defense in the Pentagon. Born in Kokomo, Indiana, Doran went to elementary school in Carmel, outside of Indianapolis, before his family moved to Fullerton, California, where he graduated from Sunny Hills High School. He received a BA from Stanford University and an MA and PhD in Near Eastern studies from Princeton University. Before coming to Hudson, Doran was a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. He has also held teaching positions at New York University, Princeton University, and the University of Central Florida. His latest book, Ike’s Gamble, was published by Free Press in 2016. He appears frequently on television, and has published extensively in Foreign Affairs, the American Interest, Commentary, Mosaic, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and the New York Times.

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion: 120 years of Antisemitic Propaganda

Panel Summary – Why the Jews?

The first panel of day one of the symposium on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, moderated by Dr. Bruce Hoffman, Director of the Center for Jewish Civilization, and featuring Aaron Keyak, Ira Forman, Pamela Nadell, and Izabella Tabarovsky, asked and answered: “Why the Jews?” Panelists traced the deep tradition of antisemitism in the American and global consciousness and unpacked its prejudices, ranging from Jews as scapegoats to the notion of antisemites’ punching up’ in the fight against the dominant, corrupt power of the Jews. Antisemitism has always simmered under the surface and has surfaced through new media innovations: Henry Ford with non-copyrighted printed material, Father Coughlin with a radio audience a fourth the size of the U.S. population, and antisemites now, emboldened through the amplifying power of social media. Yet the recent normalization of antisemitism – such as the 2017 Unite the Right rally or Kanye West’s Twitter rants – is a worrying trend. The panelists also sought to define what antisemitism is, examining it through its different manifestations: fears over Jewish world control from the Protocols, racial antisemitism from Nazi Germany, and Christian antisemitism from the New Testament. But does it matter? Our panelists wrestled with the complexity of the topic and the difficulty of defining ‘the Jews’ as a singular entity, noting that antisemites often engage in larger-scale attacks against vague groups of targets. Disagreements over the definition of antisemitism can also get in the way of combating it: our panelists discussed how an antisemitic action is an antisemitic action, whether committed by Jews in Israel or by a hate group standing over Interstate 405 in Los Angeles. Keyak, Forman, Nadell, and Tabarovsky also discussed how to move forward, starting with addressing the false conflation between antisemitism and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – an end to conflict in the region will not lead to the end of antisemitism or terrorism, as added by Hoffman. Perhaps we can impose a social cost on antisemitism, making it no longer acceptable to express such hate; perhaps we are in a better position to fight against it with dedicated government support, resources, and access.

Notable Quotes

Aaron Keyak – “Antisemitism is the canary in the coal mine in the fight for democracy. What happens when the antisemite think that the Jew is behind the media, behind our banks, behind our government – that these actors, these leaders in the political realm or the financial realm or in media – are being controlled by the Jew, it’s destabilizing to a society. You don’t think that the leaders are accountable to you or to anyone else and are simply being controlled by this nefarious’ other,” the Jew. And once you believe that these leaders can be held accountable to the voters or other modes of accountability, you don’t believe in your democracy anymore. the antisemite, fundamentally, in the way that they see the world, does not have confidence in the way that normal people would look at democracy.”

Ira Forman – “As we think about combating antisemitism, we should understand we are not n the business of ending antisemitism. It has been around for thousands of years, and it’s going to be around well after I’m gone, well after my grandchildren are gone, and well after my great-great-great-grandchildren are gone. This isn’t rocket science. This is just experience, and it’s not pessimistic either because if it is impossible for us to eradicate, then I think there’s a good metaphor. It’s a faucet. The faucet has been turned on, and what we can do is turn it down to a drip. And that is our job and our mission.”

Pamela Nadell – “Does it really matter that we define the Jews? I don’t see any reason – first, it’s impossible to define Jews, but most importantly, it doesn’t really matter to the antisemites. They don’t define the Jews; they use it as a broad category as a way of attacking all sorts of other things and attacking civilization.”

Izabella Tabarovsky – “We often hear that antisemitism and anti-Zionism are not the same. In principle, they don’t have to be. But in practice, and this is what history teaches us, most of the time, they are. They are the same in the most critical way possible because both lead to antisemitic outcomes for Jews. There is a reason for that, and the reason is that the kind of anti-Zionism that we hear today that dominates the discourse today on the left very much relies on the tropes and ideas of antisemitic conspiracy theory as laid out in the Protocols of Zion.”

Speaker Biographies

Dr. Bruce Hoffman, Georgetown University

Bruce Hoffman is the Shelby Cullom and Kathryn W. Davis senior fellow for counterterrorism and homeland security at the Council on Foreign Relations. He has been studying terrorism and insurgency for four decades. He is a tenured professor at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, where he is the director of the Center for Jewish Civilization. Hoffman was previously director of both the Center for Security Studies and the Security Studies program from 2010-2017.

Aaron Keyak, U.S. Department of State

Aaron Keyak currently serves as the Deputy Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism at the U.S. Department of State. In helping lead this office, he works to advance U.S. foreign policy to counter antisemitism throughout the world. Deputy Special Envoy Keyak is an experienced leader and interfaith coalition builder who has previously held senior roles advising members of Congress, the Obama Administration, and the Biden-Harris Administration transition team.

Ira Forman, Georgetown University

Ira Forman is a Senior Fellow on Antisemitism at the Center for Jewish Civilization and a Senior Fellow at the Moment Institute. In the fall of 2018, he was appointed Senior Advisor on Antisemitism at Human Rights First. Mr. Forman served as the State Department’s Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism from 2013-2017. From 2011-2012 he served as the Jewish Outreach Director for the Obama for America campaign. He also served for nearly 15 years as the Executive Director of the National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC).

Pamela Nadell, American University

Pamela S. Nadell holds the Patrick Clendenen Chair in Women’s and Gender History and is Director of the Jewish Studies Program. A specialist in American Jewish history and women’s history, she teaches a variety of courses in Jewish civilization. Her awards include A.U.’s highest faculty award, Scholar/Teacher of the Year (2007). Pamela Nadell’s books include America’s Jewish Women: A History from Colonial Times to Today (W.W. Norton, 2019), named Jewish Book of the Year by the Jewish Book Council. Past president of the Association for Jewish Studies, Nadell’s other titles include Women Who Would Be Rabbis: A History of Women’s Ordination, 1889–1985 (Beacon Press, 1998).

Izabella Tabarovsky, Wilson Center

Izabella Tabarovsky is the Kennan Institute Senior Advisor on Regional Partnerships and Programming. She oversees the Institute’s regional partnerships and programming, its independent journalism initiatives, and its Historical Memory initiative. She manages the Kennan Institute’s Russia File, Focus Ukraine, and In Other Words blogs, and co-hosts its Russia File podcast. She has coordinated Kennan’s U.S.-Israel working group on Russia in the Middle East, Kennan’s alumni conferences, and other initiatives and events. Her research expertise includes politics of historical memory, Russia’s independent media, the Holocaust, Stalin’s repressions, and Soviet and contemporary left antisemitism.

The Center for Jewish Civilization is pleased to announce its lineup of Fall 2023 courses!

1-Credit Courses

• The Text is Personal: Writing My Story Through the Jewish Story | Rabbi Schaefer | JCIV-1014 
  • The Text is Personal: Writing My Story Through the Jewish Story. What does it mean to be in relationship with Jewish texts? How do these texts help us understand and tell our story? In this course, we’ll read both short and long form writing by rabbis and authors who use the Torah, Talmud, and other Jewish texts, as a mirror, prism, and filter for how they understand their lives and journeys. Over five sessions we’ll study Ilana Kurshan’s All the Seas are Ink, Aviya Kushner’s The Grammar of God, and sermons from modern rabbis, while writing their own reflections and personal essays using text to tell their story.
• German Catholics in Hitler’s Army | Prof. Suzanne Brown-Fleming | JCIV-1031 
  • In 1933 when Adolf Hitler was elected Chancellor of Germany, the German population was overwhelmingly Christian. In 1933 there were 40 million Protestants, 20 million Catholics, and small numbers of people adhering to other Christian traditions. Germany’s territorial expansion that began in the 1930’s meant millions of people, Christian and Jewish, came to be under the control of the Nazi state. The German Army, or Wehrmacht (1935-1945) became a tool for vast territorial expansion, and, in some cases, for war crimes and murder of civilians and Jews. How did Catholics in the Wehrmacht see and understand their role? Why did some participate while others refused to do so, even at the cost of their own lives? This course will examine the role of Catholics in the Wehrmacht, including its crimes against Jews and other civilians. We will examine photographs, diary excerpts and film to come to a closer understanding of the inner lives and decisions of Catholic soldiers.

Core Courses

• Intro to Jewish Civilization | Prof. Meital Orr (point of contact) and CJC Faculty | JCIV-1990 
  • This course will provide a holistic, multi-disciplinary approach to understanding Jewish Civilization, and will be taught by a different faculty member from the Center for Jewish Civilization (CJC) every week, each of whom will teach the area of their expertise. Students will learn the history of the Jewish people from ancient times to modern-day Israel, including in-depth coverage of the Holocaust and the development of Zionism. Students will learn about Judaism through major Jewish texts, denominations, holidays and life-cycle events – and about Jewish culture, through a global lens on Jewish literature, film and music. Students will learn about historic relations between Islam and Judaism, the Arab world and Israel, as well as how to think about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Students will also learn about Jewish engagement with American democracy, and global Jewish realities impacted by increasing antisemitism and white Supremacism in the 20th and 21st centuries. Having learned about the many foundational aspects of Jewish civilization, students will then have the opportunity to pursue further knowledge in any area of the course, through thematically based classes at the CJC by any of the experts from whom they have learned in this course.
• Jewish Civilization Senior Colloquium | Prof. Anna Sommer | JCIV-4960 
  • As part of the Minor and Certificate in Jewish Civilization students complete a capstone experience: either a traditional research thesis or a project with a creative component. The capstone project will be a topic related to Jewish civilization, prepared under the supervision of a faculty member associated with the Center for Jewish Civilization, the Visiting Professor of Jewish Civilization, Goldman Visiting Israeli Professor, or if appropriate special permission may be granted by the program director for another Georgetown faculty member to serve as essay advisor. Upon completion, seniors make a presentation of their research at the annual senior thesis colloquium held during commencement week, where a prize is awarded to the outstanding paper.

Hebrew Courses

• Intensive Beginning Modern Hebrew I | Prof. Sara Grayson | HEBR-1001 
  • This course focuses on expanding useful vocabulary, topics and usage of grammatical knowledge in a gradual sequence. It provides a thorough grounding in reading, writing, grammar, oral comprehension, and speaking. It is an interactive program and uses a variety of methods both for teaching and learning. No prior knowledge of the language is required.
• Intermediate Modern Hebrew I | Prof. Meital Orr | HEBR-2001 
  • This course advances students’ knowledge of Modern Israeli Hebrew by developing the skills acquired during the first two semesters of Intensive Beginning Modern Hebrew. Among the many grammar concepts covered are: verb structures in the future tense, impersonal sentences in all tenses, nominal and possessive sentences in the future, the conditional and the subjunctive. The course will enrich student knowledge through textbook lessons, student and teacher conversations, the listening and analysis of textbook readings and newspaper articles, oral presentations, and a variety of audiovisual activities including Israeli songs and films. The course covers the first eight chapters of Hebrew from Scratch, Volume 2. Prerequisite: two semesters of Intensive Beginning Modern Hebrew at Georgetown, or the equivalent on the placement exam.
• Advanced Modern Hebrew I | Prof. Sara Grayson | HEBR-3001 
  • Pre-requisite: HEBR-2002 or permission of instructor. This advanced level course is designed for students who have completed two years of Hebrew study. It will include advanced grammar exercises in the different verb paradigms. Students read and analyze newspaper articles and works by authors and will be engaged in writing exercises. . Students will watch and give a review on movies and Israeli TV programs. Fluency in speaking will be the main goal of the conversational drills included in the course.

Holocaust and Genocide Studies

• Theological Implications of the Holocaust | Prof. Ori Soltes | JCIV-1761 
  • The Holocaust is recognized as one of the traumatic moments in human history. The uniquely systematic depths of human-human interaction it revealed, paired with daring acts of heroism which the period yielded, have raised a range of questions which challenge long-held assumptions about what humanity is, if and what God is, and how to understand the concepts of good and evil. This course will have as its goal to assess the Holocaust as it has been approached by a range of thinkers, and to place it within the larger context of theology, history, art and thought. While our primary backdrop will be theological questions provoked by its narrative — from both Jewish and Christian perspectives — we will inevitably encompass the larger historical picture of Jewish-Christian, Jewish-Jewish, Christian-Christian and human-divine relations. We will also consider the importance, in the later part of the twentieth century, of visual (and other) art as a means of response — both in the expression of anger and in seeking healing –to this trauma.
• Holocaust By Bullets | Fr. Patrick Desbois and Prof. Andrej Umansky | JCIV-2766 
  • While many students are familiar with the main lines of the Nazi extermination of Jews in Western Europe during World War II, few know that a parallel effort was waged in the East. There, Nazis killed Jews methodically, but not in mass camps built for extermination. Instead, the Nazis conceived of mobile killing units which wiped out the Jewish population of small villages, resulting in more than a million and a half more Jewish deaths than is commonly realized. Fr. Patrick Desbois, a forensic anthropologist and author of “Holocaust by Bullets,” will team teach a course that examines the Holocaust in general and this little known chapter in particular.
• Forgotten Women: Victims of Violence in Mass Crimes and the Holocaust | Fr. Patrick Desbois and Prof. Andrej Umansky | JCIV-4500 
  • Why is violence against women and girls are so frequently forgotten or “silenced” in mass crimes and genocide? Why are acts of violence against women and girls so frequently obliterated from the Holocaust narrative? From the Roma genocide narrative? From Guatemala’s mass violence history? From ISIS’ terrorist narrative before the courts of law? From news emerging from Ukraine? Do ground investigations have the capacity to reveal the crimes against women, or are they choosing not to? This course will investigate these questions, especially taking into account the field investigations of Fr. Patrick Desbois and his team. Students will learn how to conduct forensic investigations of violence against women in the scope of genocide and mass crimes.The course is co-taught by Fr. Desbois, a forensic anthropologist and author of The Holocaust by Bullets and The Terrorist Factory and Dr. Andrej Umansky, a historian and lawyer will teach during this class.

Humanities and Literature

• Fiction Writing Workshop: What is a Story? | Prof. David Ebenbach | JCIV-1758 
  • In this class, you’ll answer the question “What Is a Story?” To do that, you’ll immerse yourselves in the art and discipline of story writing. Partly this means acquiring a writer’s critical eye for fiction, so you’ll study the basic elements of successful fiction (character, plot, description, etc.) and use these tools to read and analyze stories. Specifically, we’ll be considering the example of Jewish fiction, surveying the short story tradition in Jewish literature. Because the writer above all learns through doing, you’ll write a great deal of your own fiction (which does not need to be Jewish, of course)—regular exercises as well as more fully developed and revised work. Much of this development will happen as a result of the workshop process, where you’ll give one another extensive feedback on work submitted to the class as a whole.
• Interfaith Marriage in Lit & Film | Prof. Meital Orr | JCIV-1766 
  • This course will examine works of literature and film, from the early 20th century to the present day, which focus on the controversial subject and increasingly prevalent reality of interfaith and intercultural relationships and marriages. The course will begin with a view toward the Jewish perspective on this issue (from Biblical to Israeli) covered in the first three weeks, with the remainder of the semester devoted to the navigation of this complex terrain by different religious and national groups in international literature and film, among them: Christians and Muslims, Arabs, Africans and African-Americans, Asians and Asian-Americans, Indians and Pakistanis, Hispanics and Latinx, the LGBTQ community, and Native Americans. Texts will include primary works of fiction and cinema, and secondary works by literature and film critics, sociologists and anthropologists. Inquiry will focus on ways in which the concerns of each group have intersected, reflecting communal pressures as well as changing realities and norms. The multiplicity of perspectives across all groups, bely both the need to marry within the fold to preserve communal, religious-cultural values, along with a growing admission of the reality of increasing diversity in modern, pluralistic societies and the benefits these bring.
• Magic and Religion | Prof. Ori Soltes | JCIV-1890 
  • The world of the Greeks and Roman was one of endlessly multi-aspected paganism, with its consciousness of a range of gods and goddesses, daimons and spirits moving between their realm and ours. It was also one in which the Hebrew-Israelite-Judaean competed with paganism and continued to struggle to define itself—and ultimately split into what became Judaism and Christianity. This course will focus on the times, places and literatures that reflect the interface between paganism as it has evolved within the Greco-Roman world and nascent Judaism and Christianity. It pushes toward an understanding of how Judaism and Christianity emerged out of the Hebrew-Israelite-Judaean tradition as two forms of faith each claiming to be the proper continuation of that tradition. It considers how their theological relationship—their competition regarding the Truth regarding divinity and its relationship to humanity—is not only affected by their mutual interface and their theological relationships with paganism but by the political context of the pagan Roman Imperium in which they both develop. This is a world of meeting, divergence, convergence, synthesis, embrace and rejection of religious principles and ideas. It is a world in which verbal distinctions that we take for granted—such as those between magic and religion, myth and theology, superstition and true belief, astronomy and astrology—have not yet assumed the place to which they arrived within our vocabulary, over time. Our goal is largely to come to understand what comprises the key elements that distinguish and join these traditions, why and how this vocabulary emerges and evolves, and how the shaping of that vocabulary has affected and continues to affect our sense of what Judaism and Christianity are.
• History of Antisemitism | Prof. Jonathan Ray | JCIV-2103 
  • Antisemitism has been a persistent phenomenon in Western (and other) cultures for over two thousand years. This course will examine the nature and historical development of anti-Jewish sentiment and Antisemitic theories, from their roots in the ancient pagan world to their current political and social expressions. We will discuss the texts and ideas that shaped attitudes toward the Jews throughout history, giving special attention to the ways in which they intersected with politics, literature, religion, and popular culture. Finally, we will consider the different ways in which both Jews and non-Jews have responded to Antisemitic behavior and beliefs.
• Jews on Trial | Prof. Ori Soltes | JCIV-2751 
  • This course begins by asking when and how law became separate from religion in the Israelite-Judaean world. It moves on to consider how we might evaluate and understand the narrative of Jesus’ trial and demise in the Gospels in light of information outside those accounts within Judaean, pagan Roman and early Jewish literature. Noting that, regardless of the details that favor or disfavor the Gospel account, many generations of Christians have accept it as unequivocally true, the book goes on with a review that is both concise and extensive of the history of Christian-Jewish relations, examining that relationship through a legal and quasi-legal lens. From medieval Blood Libels to the notorious Dreyfus Affair and from the story of Leo Frank’s trial and eventual murder to that of Adolph Eichmann’s trial and execution to that of Jonathan Pollard’s trial behind closed doors and ongoing incarceration, the narrative suggests that the Jew seems always to be on trial in the courtroom of journalistic and historiographic examination, whether as the accused, the accuser, the jury or the judge.
• Arguing with God: The Bible as Literature | Prof. Meital Orr | JCIV-2761 
  • The Bible is the bestselling book of all time and for millions the word of God, yet its main heroes have no qualms about arguing with their Creator, and they’ve inspired a worldwide artistic and philosophical tradition of doing the same. Profoundly inspired by the narratives of the Bible, some of the greatest artists and thinkers in history have responded by appropriating Biblical stories to their unique places and times, producing enduring works of literature, philosophy, visual art, music and film. In the process, they reveal the universal beauty, power and wisdom of the Bible – its profound insight into the human condition, and the eternal human struggle to understand and accept some of its most difficult messages. This course will explore how different interpreters from various faith traditions, from classical to modern times – and in multiple genres – “argue” or converse with and challenge, the Biblical text, and by extension, God who wrote it. Each week, we will focus on interpretations of a different Biblical text by artists and thinkers such as: John Steinbeck, Herman Melville, Emily Dickinson, Thomas Mann, Soren Kierkegaard, Vladimir Jabotinsky, Joseph Roth, Yehuda Amichai, Elie Wiesel, Geraldine Brooks, Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Marc Chagall and Sigmund Freud. No previous knowledge of the Bible is required. Course also listed as INAF 2761.

International Affairs and Diplomacy

• Congress & Making Middle East Foreign Policy | Prof. Danielle Pletka | JCIV-2758 
  • Congress & the Making of Middle East Foreign Policy – taught by Danielle Pletka, Senior Vice President of Foreign and Defense Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). While foreign policy is the constitutional prerogative of the president, for much of recent history, it has been the Congress that has led the way in shaping US foreign policy toward the Middle East. From aid to Israel and sanctions against Iran to the war on terror, the legislative branch has influenced America’s role in the world in ways that few appreciate. Beginning with a detailed overview of the legislative process, this course will explore how Congress has shaped the modern Middle East, looking at key pieces of legislation and historical and contemporary case studies.
• The Weaponization of Hate: Antisemitism, Racism, Islamophobia, and Xenophobia in the COVID-19 Pandemic era | Prof. Jacob Ware | JCIV-2768 
  • The Weaponization of Hate: Antisemitism, Racism, Islamophobia, and Xenophobia in the COVID-19 Pandemic era. Over the past several years, the Western world has suffered a dangerous rise in far-right extremism, providing an imminent terrorism and hate crime threat to Jewish communities, as well as Muslims, African Americans, and, in some cases, women. This class will assess the ideological underpinnings of the anti-Semitic far-right, trace the movement’s rise in the Obama and Trump years, analyze the current movement’s tactical and communications preferences, and evaluate ongoing and future counterterrorism and countering violent extremism measures. The aim is to provide an extensive and objective assessment of the current threat to Jewish communities and beyond, and to offer students an introduction to the counterterrorism world and to underscore the importance of understanding and fighting hate in all its forms.
• The Societal, Political and Security Implications of Israel’s Relations with the Arab and Muslim World | Prof. Jonathan Lincoln | JCIV-2970 
  • The Societal, Political and Security Implications of Israel’s Relations with the Arab and Muslim World. This course will undertake a broad review of Israel’s relations with the Arab and Muslim World in four modules. The first will review the development of Israel’s relations with Arab and Muslim majority countries in the Middle East and North Africa, from the pre-state period through the major military confrontations of 1948, 1957, 1967 and 1973. It will then look the implications of the peace treaty with Egypt as well as Israel’s wars in Lebanon and confrontation with the PLO. The second will look more internally at the implications of Jewish immigration from the Middle East and North Africa on the state formation process, the state’s approaches to its non-Jewish minority populations as well as the Palestinian population in the occupied territories (Gaza and the West Bank). The third module will take a closer look at the development of relations between Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, and Iran. During the last module, students will study the impact of recent political changes in the Middle East. Specifically, they will evaluate what the end of the Cold War, the Arab Spring, and the Abraham Accords have meant for both Israel’s diplomatic relations in the region and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
• History of Peace-Making in the Middle East | Amb. Dennis Ross | JCIV-3751 
  • This course will deal with the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the efforts to resolve it. One basic point to understand about the conflict is that it is not a morality play. One side is not all right and the other all wrong. That is not to say that they are equally responsible for what has happened, but it is to say that both have suffered and both would benefit enormously from ending the conflict and its animating grievances. We will explore why each side tends to see the world the way it does, and why mythologies have taken hold of all sides and made reality hard to grasp. We will examine narratives of the Israelis, the Palestinians, and the Arabs more generally. Mindsets must be understood in any negotiation, and we will look at what shaped each side’s approach to the conflict historically as well as its approach to conflict resolution over the periods of the most intensive diplomacy. We will analyze how close the efforts in the year 2000 came to ending the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians and Israelis and Syrian, and will discuss what lessons must be learned from the past in order to shape a different future. We will also consider the American role as well as that of outside parties in trying to resolve the conflict. Ultimately, the purpose of the course is to provide insight into why it has been so difficult to settle this conflict, and what, if anything can be done to settle it in the future.
• Islam, Judaism and Western Civilization | Prof. Ed Husain | JCIV-3890 
  • Governments and non-state actors are fomenting conflicts and wars by perverting religion, history and identity. This course investigates Jewish and Islamic influences that form today’s Western civilisation. It has been designed to equip students with a deeper understanding of the modern West, evaluate the narrative of clash of civilisations, and explore a synthesis of civilisations. With extremism and anti-Americanism on the rise in the Muslim world, and anti-Semitism and anti-Muslim sentiment increasing in the West, this course excavates the intellectual roots of the threats ripping apart modern civilisation.
• Jewish-Muslim Coexistence in the Middle East and North Africa | Prof. Ed Husain | JCIV-4447
  • This course will analyze the past, present and future(s) of Jewish-Muslim social, political, and religious relations from the beginnings of Islam until the Abraham Accords. We will traverse through Arabia, Morocco, Turkey, Israel, Egypt, Syria, Iran and Arabia. Drawing on a depth of history and culture, we will study policy implications for the U.S. government, its allies, and the directions to be taken at the contemporary crossroads of Jewish-Muslim relations in the Middle East.
• Memory Wars: Ukraine, Russia & Eastern Europe | Prof. Diana Dumitru | JCIV-4630 
  • What is the context of Putin’s bewildering claim of “de-Nazifying” Ukraine in his current war? Why are the European celebrations of May 8 and May 9 – the end of WWII – a constant source of conflict inside societies in Eastern Europe? Why does the history of WWII create tensions in the post-Soviet space, leading to jailed historians, protest movements, and diplomatic expulsions? Why has 20th century history remained such a gripping topic in peoples’ minds today, and how has it shaped contemporary relations between countries in the region? This course will help students to find answers to these and other challenging questions related to the unprecedented weaponization of history and memory in the region.

The Center for Jewish Civilization is pleased to announce its lineup of Fall 2022 courses!

Holocaust Courses

• “Holocaust: Unique or Universal?,” Prof. Anna Sommer, JCIV-120
  • The Holocaust is a case study through which to understand societal behaviors and the communal impact of hatred and prejudice. It provides a universal lesson on community responses to hatred and intolerance. Additionally, it demonstrates how modern nation states can wield accomplishments of modernity to implement destructive policies, ranging from social engineering to mass murder. This class will problematize the notion of the Holocaust’s “uniqueness.” Throughout this course, students will examine this genocidal event within the context of its universality. Students will look at the origins of authoritarian and totalitarian regimes and the role of “masses” in societies. They will also analyze the use of propaganda and terror to sustain power and social compliancy. Through an in-depth study of power, powerlessness, indifference and complicity, students will ultimately interpret and contrast the responses of so-called “ordinary people” vs. political leaders to state-sponsored mass murder.
• “Theological Implications of the Holocaust,” Prof. Ori Soltes, JCIV-138
  • The Holocaust is recognized as one of the traumatic moments in human history. The uniquely systematic depths of human-human interaction it revealed, paired with daring acts of heroism which the period yielded, have raised a range of questions which challenge long-held assumptions about what humanity is, if and what God is, and how to understand the concepts of good and evil. This course will have as its goal to assess the Holocaust as it has been approached by a range of thinkers, and to place it within the larger context of theology, history, art and thought. While our primary backdrop will be theological questions provoked by its narrative — from both Jewish and Christian perspectives — we will inevitably encompass the larger historical picture of Jewish-Christian, Jewish-Jewish, Christian-Christian and human-divine relations. We will also consider the importance, in the later part of the twentieth century, of visual (and other) art as a means of response — both in the expression of anger and in seeking healing — to this trauma.
• “Nazi Policies and Practices Regarding Disability,” Father Patrick Desbois & Andrej Umansky, JCIV-218
  • This course will examine both the philosophy and the practice of the Nazis against those who were disabled, whether German, Roma or Jewish. Emphasis will be placed in two areas: (1) the roots of the concept of “disability” in Nazi thinking and medical policy and (2) the application of this policy by medical and social service personnel throughout Nazi-occupied territory. A close look at the role of eugenics, social Darwinism and “race and blood” hygiene laws will also be included as contributing to the notion of “disability.” Various figures in implementing these policies will also be studied, such as Hans Asperger, a pioneer researcher in Autism, whose own discoveries encouraged the elimination of disabled children at killing centers such as Spiegelgrund.
• “Holocaust by Bullets,” Father Patrick Desbois & Andrej Umansky, JCIV-276
  • While many students are familiar with the main lines of the Nazi extermination of Jews in Western Europe during World War II, few know that a parallel effort was waged in the East. There, Nazis killed Jews methodically, but not in mass camps built for extermination. Instead, the Nazis conceived of mobile killing units which wiped out the Jewish population of small villages, resulting in more than a million and a half more Jewish deaths than is commonly realized. Fr. Patrick Desbois, a forensic anthropologist and author of “Holocaust by Bullets,” will team teach a course that examines the Holocaust in general and this little known chapter in particular. Mid-term and final exams. Class participation and preparation essential.
• “American Catholics, the Hitler Regime, and the Holocaust,” Dr. Suzanne Brown-Fleming, JCIV-028
  • How did American Catholics respond to the rise of Nazism (1933-1945) and the Holocaust, the systematic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its allies and collaborators? Catholics were among those the Germans persecuted, incarcerated in concentration camps, and killed – and also part of a tradition in which antisemitism was not rejected as a sin until the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). What messages came from American Catholic leaders and prelates during this era? This course will focus on several episodes and figures in particular: the 1938 radio address on so-called Night of Broken Glass, broadcast from The Catholic University of America; the threat of the far right Christian Front movement, led by Father Charles Coughlin; and the so-called “Hidden Encyclical” authored in part by Father John La Farge, long-time editor of America magazine. During the course, students will be exposed to recently released films, key readings, and the papers of Father La Farge, held at Georgetown University. This course meets on August 31, September 14, September 21, October 5, and October 19.

International Affairs and Diplomacy Courses

• “Congress and the Making of Middle East Foreign Policy,” Ms. Danielle Pletka, JCIV-235
  • While foreign policy is the constitutional prerogative of the president, for much of recent history, it has been the Congress that has led the way in shaping US foreign policy toward the Middle East. From aid to Israel and sanctions against Iran to the war on terror, the legislative branch has influenced America’s role in the world in ways that few appreciate. Beginning with a detailed overview of the legislative process, this course will explore how Congress has shaped the modern Middle East, looking at key pieces of legislation and historical and contemporary case studies.
• “Jews and Muslims: Rethinking Narratives,” Prof. Jessica Roda, JCIV-271
  • This course explores the modern history of Jewish-Muslim relations beyond conflict. By examining the Jewish experience in the Islamic world from the 7th century until today, students will discover the interconnected and entangled religious worlds of Jews and Muslims (from Morocco to Iran). Through active learning methods, they will learn about the two religious groups that participated in the production of a heritage that resonates today. During this course, students will investigate a subject pertaining to the Muslim-Jewish relationship (historical or contemporary perspectives) of their choice. They will present their research in a creative format of their choice (podcast, video, writing, art project), in addition to learning the tools to create a one-episode podcast.
• “The Weaponization of Hate: Antisemitism, Racism, Islamophobia, and Xenophobia in the Covid-19 Pandemic Era,” Mr. Jacob Ware, JCIV-281
  • The Weaponization of Hate: Antisemitism, Racism, Islamophobia, and Xenophobia in the COVID-19 Pandemic era. Over the past several years, the Western world has suffered a dangerous rise in far-right extremism, providing an imminent terrorism and hate crime threat to Jewish communities, as well as Muslims, African Americans, and, in some cases, women. This class will assess the ideological underpinnings of the anti-Semitic far-right, trace the movement’s rise in the Obama and Trump years, analyze the current movement’s tactical and communications preferences, and evaluate ongoing and future counterterrorism and countering violent extremism measures. The aim is to provide an extensive and objective assessment of the current threat to Jewish communities and beyond, and to offer students an introduction to the counterterrorism world and to underscore the importance of understanding and fighting hate in all its forms.
• “The Societal, Political and Security Implications of Israel’s Relations with the Arab and Muslim World,” Mr. Jonathan Lincoln, JCIV-297
  • The Societal, Political and Security Implications of Israel’s Relations with the Arab and Muslim World. This course will review the Zionist Movement’s and the State of Israel’s relations with the Arab and Muslim World throughout four modules. The first will examine the implications of Jewish immigration from the Middle East and North Africa for the state formation process. Students will also assess Israel’s approaches to Arab and Palestinian minorities. The second module will review the development of Israel’s relations with Arab and Muslim majority countries in the Middle East and North Africa, from the pre-state period through the major military confrontations of 1948, 1967 and 1973. It will also survey the Camp David Accords with Egypt, as well as Israel’s wars in Lebanon and their effect on Palestinians. The third module will take a closer look at the development of relations between Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, and Iran. During the last module, students will study the impact of recent political changes in the Middle East. Specifically, they will evaluate what the end of the Cold War, the Arab Spring, and the Abraham Accords have meant for both Israel’s diplomatic relations in the region and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
• “The History of Peacemaking in the Middle East,” Amb. Dennis Ross, JCIV-321
  • This course will deal with the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the efforts to resolve it. One basic point to understand about the conflict is that it is not a morality play. One side is not all right and the other all wrong. That is not to say that they are equally responsible for what has happened, but it is to say that both have suffered and both would benefit enormously from ending the conflict and its animating grievances. We will explore why each side tends to see the world the way it does, and why mythologies have taken hold of all sides and made reality hard to grasp. We will examine narratives of the Israelis, the Palestinians, and the Arabs more generally. Mindsets must be understood in any negotiation, and we will look at what shaped each side’s approach to the conflict historically as well as its approach to conflict resolution over the periods of the most intensive diplomacy. We will analyze how close the efforts in the year 2000 came to ending the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians and Israelis and Syrians, and will discuss the lessons from the past. But we will also explore what has emerged more recently and explain what produced the Abraham Accords and peace agreements with four different Arab countries and Israel. Understanding the normalization process and how to build on it is essential not only for grasping the new realities in the region but also for promoting peace. Ultimately, the purpose of the course is to provide insight into why it has been so difficult to settle this conflict, and what can be done to settle it in the future.
• “Terrorism: Middle East and North Africa,” Prof. and CJC Dir. Bruce Hoffman, JCIV-341
  • Terrorism has long been a means of political expression in the Middle East and has flourished throughout the region from antiquity to the present. This seminar surveys the arc and evolution of terrorism from the Sicarii and the assassins through the violence and rebellions in Egypt and Palestine of the 1920s through the end of World War II; The anti-colonial campaigns in both those places as well as in Algeria and Yemen; The persistence of both Palestinian and Jewish extremist violence; The emergence of Hezbollah in Lebanon; Salience of state-sponsored terrorism across the region, the insurgencies in Iraq; The rise of Al Qaeda and ISIS; And the ongoing upheavals in Syria, Libya, the Sinai, and Yemen. Students who do not attend the first class will be dropped. Class restricted to JCIV minor/certificate and SFS students only. Sophomores, Juniors, and Seniors only.
• “Islam, Judaism and Western Civilization,” Prof. Ed Husain, JCIV-447
  • Governments and non-state actors are fomenting conflicts and wars by perverting religion, history and identity. This course investigates Jewish and Islamic influences that form today’s Western civilization. It has been designed to equip students with a deeper understanding of the modern West, evaluate the narrative of clash of civilizations, and explore a synthesis of civilizations. With extremism and anti-Americanism on the rise in the Muslim world, and anti-Semitism and anti-Muslim sentiment increasing in the West, this course excavates the intellectual roots of the threats ripping apart modern civilization.

Humanities, Culture & Jewish Studies Courses

• “Interfaith Marriage in Literature and Film,” Prof. Meital Orr, JCIV-183
  • This course will examine works of literature and film, from the early 20th century to the present day, which focus on the controversial subject and increasingly prevalent reality of interfaith and intercultural relationships and marriages. The course will begin with a view toward the Jewish perspective on this issue (from Biblical to Israeli) covered in the first three weeks, with the remainder of the semester devoted to the navigation of this complex terrain by different religious and national groups in international literature and film, among them: Christians and Muslims, Arabs, Africans and African-Americans, Asians and Asian-Americans, Indians and Pakistanis, Hispanics and Latinx, the LGBTQ community, and Native Americans. Texts will include primary works of fiction and cinema, and secondary works by literature and film critics, sociologists and anthropologists. Inquiry will focus on ways in which the concerns of each group have intersected, reflecting communal pressures as well as changing realities and norms. The multiplicity of perspectives across all groups, bely both the need to marry within the fold to preserve communal, religious-cultural values, along with a growing admission of the reality of increasing diversity in modern, pluralistic societies and the benefits these bring.
• “Jewish Literature in the Global South,” Prof. David Ebenbach, JCIV-220
  • From Bombay to Buenos Aires: Jewish Literature of the Global South What did “Brazil’s greatest modern writer,” “The Father of Contemporary Indian English Poetry,” and “the doyenne of South African English letters” have in common? These writers (Clarice Lispector, Nissim Ezekiel, and Nadine Gordimer) were all Jewish—and they were far from alone. The nations of Asia, South America, and Africa have produced a variety of remarkable Jewish writers of fiction and poetry who belong in any canon of Jewish literature. In this course we’ll deeply engage a diverse sample of that literature, and in ways (discussion, creative writing, interactive projects) that take us beyond the borders of the standard analytical essay.
• “Symbols of Faith,” Prof. Ori Soltes, JCIV-224
  • This course will consider the common origins and divergent and often convergent directions of the three Abraham faiths; and how those origins and directions affect their respective visual vocabularies. How have all three traditions adopted and adapted visual ideas from pagan art that predates all of them as well as from each other? How have they transformed or reinterpreted the meanings of common symbols in order to express their distinct sense of God and of the relationship between divinity and humanity? How have Judaism and Islam visually expressed God without the possibility of figurative imaging and how has Christianity gone beyond the limits of figurative expression in visually articulating God? How is the legacy of antiquity and the medieval period still palpable in the era of both modern and contemporary art?
• “Jews on Trial,” Prof. Ori Soltes, JCIV-225
  • This course begins by asking when and how law became separate from religion in the Israelite-Judaean world. It moves on to consider how we might evaluate and understand the narrative of Jesus’ trial and demise in the Gospels in light of information outside those accounts within Judaean, pagan Roman and early Jewish literature. Noting that, regardless of the details that favor or disfavor the Gospel account, many generations of Christians have accept it as unequivocally true, the book goes on with a review that is both concise and extensive of the history of Christian-Jewish relations, examining that relationship through a legal and quasi-legal lens. From medieval Blood Libels to the notorious Dreyfus Affair and from the story of Leo Frank’s trial and eventual murder to that of Adolph Eichmann’s trial and execution to that of Jonathan Pollard’s trial behind closed doors and ongoing incarceration, the narrative suggests that the Jew seems always to be on trial in the courtroom of journalistic and historiographic examination, whether as the accused, the accuser, the jury or the judge.
• “Arguing with God: The Bible as Literature,” Prof. Meital Orr, JCIV-254
  • In a somewhat idiosyncratic essay, the literary critic George Steiner made the intriguing observation that the true homeland of the Jewish people was not necessarily Zion, the synagogue, or some other space, be it physical or meta-physical. Rather, Steiner insisted that the true Jewish homeland was the text. In this course, we will introduce you to a wide variety of classic (Biblical) and less than classic Jewish texts which interpret them. We will argue that for Jews the process of interpreting those texts is every bit as important—if not more so—than understanding the intentions of those who authored them. This then is a class about the interpretive injunction inherent in Jewish tradition, or its unique and relatively liberal propensity for discussing, interpreting, questioning, and even arguing – not only with the text but with G-d Himself. We will understand Jewish texts from a historical, literary and above all, comparative perspective, and examine all the many ways in which Jews read their texts. It will be our working hypothesis that it is this very interpretive, or hermeneutical, process that lies at the core of Jewish identity. Our inquiry is beholden to certain classic Jewish forms of argumentation and disputation. As such this class will be taught in a manner that replicates many classic Jewish learning styles, so the student should be prepared to speak up and out, all the while listening very carefully to the thoughts of their colleagues. No previous knowledge of the Hebrew Bible, Jewish history, literature or culture is assumed. Class performance is entirely based on analytical investment.
• “Jews and the Making of Modernity,” Prof. Ed Husain, JCIV-304
  • Jewish artists, writers, musicians, thinkers and politicians have shaped our shared world. This course examines some of those luminaries and their contributions to our way of life. For example, the Statue of Liberty is adorned with the words ‘Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,’ — penned by a proudly Jewish poet, Emma Lazarus. But is freedom enough? Hannah Arendt wryly observed that ‘The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolution.’ This course will explore paradoxes and paradigms that have moulded modernity. To advance our grasp of the ideas underpinning our 21st-century inheritance, we will study the abiding works of Jewish influencers, including Marx, Disraeli, Herzl, Proust, Kafka, Modigliani, Mahler, Freud, Popper, Wittgenstein, Simone Weil and others.
• “Jews in 20th Century American Pop Culture,” Prof. Lauren Strauss, JCIV-029
  • The plethora of Jews in America’s theater, movie, music, comics, and television industries has attracted a great deal of notice from observers and from Jews themselves. But Jewish involvement in the development of American popular culture is about much more than religious identification or ethnic jokes. In this course, we explore questions of Jewish identity and social change, as well as the influence of politics, gender, race, and sexual identity on the production of culture. From earlier twentieth century entertainers like Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, and Sophie Tucker to later legends such as Stephen Sondheim, Barbra Streisand, Lenny Bruce and Superman, and on to contemporary figures like Sarah Silverman and Jerry Seinfeld, the study of Jews in American popular culture invites us to reflect on what it means to live as a minority in society, as a Jew in a democracy, and as an American in the modern world. Course meets for five Tuesdays: September 6, 13, 20, October 4, 11.

Required Certificate / Minor Courses

• “Introduction to JCIV,” Prof. Meital Orr (point of contact) and CJC Faculty, JCIV-199
  • This course will provide a holistic, multi-disciplinary approach to understanding Jewish Civilization, and will be taught by a different faculty member from the Center for Jewish Civilization (CJC) every week, each of whom will teach the area of their expertise. Students will learn the history of the Jewish people from ancient times to modern-day Israel, including in-depth coverage of the Holocaust and the development of Zionism. Students will learn about Judaism through major Jewish texts, denominations, holidays and life-cycle events – and about Jewish culture, through a global lens on Jewish literature, film and music. Students will learn about historic relations between Islam and Judaism, the Arab world and Israel, as well as how to think about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Students will also learn about Jewish engagement with American democracy, and global Jewish realities impacted by increasing anti-Semitism and white Supremacism in the 20th and 21th centuries. Having learned about the many foundational aspects of Jewish civilization, students will then have the opportunity to pursue further knowledge in any area of the course, through thematically-based classes at the CJC by any of the experts from whom they have learned in this course. Professor Orr will be the point of contact for students in the class, and help guide them through this multi-disciplinary journey.
• “Jewish Civilization Senior Colloquium,” Prof. Anna Sommer, JCIV-443
  • As part of the Minor in Jewish Civilization students complete a capstone experience: either a traditional research thesis or a project with a creative component. The capstone project will be a topic related to Jewish civilization, prepared under the supervision of a faculty member associated with the Center for Jewish Civilization, the Visiting Professor of Jewish Civilization, Goldman Visiting Israeli Professor, or if appropriate special permission may be granted by the program director for another Georgetown faculty member to serve as essay advisor. Upon completion, seniors make a presentation of their research at the annual senior thesis colloquium held during commencement week.

Hebrew Courses

• “Intensive Beginning Modern Hebrew I,” Prof. Sara Grayson, HEBR-101
• “Intermediate Modern Hebrew I,” Prof. Meital Orr, HEBR-201
• “Advanced Modern Hebrew I,” Prof. Sara Grayson, HEBR-300

Happy April! To usher in the Spring, CJC student Talia Fogelman sat down with us for our latest CJC Student Spotlight. Fogelman is a study abroad student from London. Previously, she studied at the University of Sussex and currently majors in both English and American Studies at Georgetown. Read our interview with her below! 

Q: Hi, Talia! Can you briefly tell our audience about yourself?

A: This is my final year of my undergraduate education! When not studying, you can find me with my sorority Kappa Alpha Theta, where I sit on the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee, or organizing with Federal Relations Society. In the U.K. I spend most of my free time organizing. I am particularly passionate about mental health services reform, as well as LGBTQI+ rights and inclusion.

Q: And what are some of your favorite hobbies?

A: I really love musical theatre. At the University of Sussex, I was involved in a musical production every year that I was on campus. The last production I worked on was Chicago in 2019. I was the prop designer, which was a huge step up from being a stagehand. I love being involved in shows. I love the music, excitement and levels of details that go into it, especially in a large-scale production. I also love reading! Recently, I had Covid and read a different book every day of my isolation period. I covered Queer Theory, true crime, and classic journalism. Because schoolwork keeps me so busy, I haven’t had as much time to read as I would like, so reading for pleasure became the silver lining of a terrible experience.

Q: Happy you could find a silver lining! Can you tell us a bit more about your transfer experience?

A: I am incredibly passionate about enacting political change and have a particular interest in the American political landscape. This meant that when I was looking at colleges, I knew I wanted to be in D.C. When I was on vacation two years ago, I came to look at Georgetown’s campus to get a sense of the atmosphere. Everyone was so friendly, and the campus was so beautiful. I then looked further into the classes offered and there were so many great options for my major. I also wanted to live in a city where I would feel safe and comfortable as both a Queer and Jewish person, and D.C. ticked both those boxes. Additionally, I wanted to be challenged academically and I felt that Georgetown would be more than challenging. This, and the opportunity to build relationships with practitioners and students in the city through the various initiatives offered by the university. In short, I felt as though Georgetown would meet my professional and personal needs. 

My transfer experience was quite turbulent. Due to the pandemic, I did not know for certain whether I would be coming until about six weeks before I moved. I was meant to come to Georgetown the year before, but online teaching made this impossible. This made the build up quite stressful, and meant that I was not convinced I was coming to Georgetown until I was on the plane! Once I arrived and settled into my apartment, everything else was quite simple. It turned out getting here was the hardest part.

Q: We’re so happy you got here! How were you introduced to the CJC? How has it impacted your time at Georgetown?

A: I was introduced by Professor and CJC Director Bruce Hoffman. I was riding in an elevator with him during my first week at Georgetown. He noticed my Magen David necklace and introduced himself as the Center’s Director. He told me to stop by the and a few days later, even had Jocelyn email me, inviting me to a mixer. I was so shocked that he had remembered me and gone out of his way like that. I now know this act of kindness is completely in character for Professor Hoffman, but as a new student it blew me away.

The CJC has been one of the strongest sources of community, support, and comfort at Georgetown. I met some of my closest friends sitting in the lounge, and my favorite classes have all been CJC ones. I even work at the Center! My time at Georgetown has been infinitely better because of it and all the people who work here. 

Q: What has been your favorite CJC class thus far?

A: I would have to say “The Weaponization of Hate” with Professor Jacob Ware. I became interested in domestic terrorism last semester in my “Post 9/11 Culture” class. I appreciate the opportunity to think in greater detail about operating terrorist organizations, as well as the history of domestic terrorism. I am really looking forward to learning more about their methodologies in the coming weeks.

Q: What are some of your additional academic interests? Has being in the Center allowed you to further explore them? 

A: When I arrived at Georgetown, my main academic focus was Queer political history. I decided to use my time here to explore other topics that I had not covered as much previously. One of those blind spots was foreign relations and the policymaking process. I discovered a real passion for this area of study thanks to Professor Danielle Pletka. This led to me taking Professor Hoffman’s “Insurgency and Counterinsurgency” class this semester. I hoped to have a better understanding of both military and insurgent strategy to improve my appreciation of issues impacting legislators. I found that these classes complimented each other in surprising ways, and are each fascinating in their own rights.

Q: How have you furthered your learning experience outside of Georgetown? This can be through internships, or other extracurricular activities.

A:  I am currently applying for summer internships and am hoping to spend this summer in D.C. interning somewhere where I can expand my understanding of politics. The main learning experiences I have had involved attending talks held by various schools in the area, which I highly recommend to current and incoming students! Queuing from 7:30 in the morning to hear former United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speak and attending CJC talks have been such highlights of my time at Georgetown. 

Q: What have been some of your other favorite moments while a student here? 

A: The CJC gets the best speakers and I get to transcribe their lectures for my work as a student assistant. This is honestly the best perk of my job. I also really enjoy listening to the other students and faculty members at the CJC lounge talk about foreign relations and politics. I have learned so much from them in such a short period of time. I also love being part of my sorority. When I first joined, everyone said that you will probably have at least one Theta in your classes. I have loved turning around and spotting another Theta in a class; it gives you a basis for a bond. Federal Relations Society is also such a bright spot in my time at Georgetown. Working with such passionate students on initiatives like voter registration drives has been so wonderful and affirming. I have been so lucky to find such great communities in such a short period of time.

Q: Could you tell us how your on-campus club, research, or work commitments supplement your learning?

A: Earlier, I mentioned that I am part of the Federal Relations Society. This is a non-partisan action society. We seek to effect non-partisan political change, both on campus and in the wider D.C. community. This semester I am working on voter registration and information initiatives with them. We are currently working on a collaboration with GU Votes for the end of the month. I am so excited about what we have planned and cannot wait for our actual event. This allows me to put my political learning into action. My focus in my degree has been US political history. Working on initiatives like this allows me to take all that passion and learning and make a positive impact with it. 

Q: What are you most looking forward to as you close out your time on the Hilltop? Do you have any advice to students on how they can make the most of their time here?

A: I am looking forward to finishing my undergraduate education and moving onto the next phase of my academic career. Getting to graduate with an actual ceremony is so exciting, especially after COVID. While my time at Georgetown has been short, I would suggest that students say yes to every opportunity that comes their way. Saying yes has led me to some of the best people and the most amazing experiences. There is always something to do and good trouble to be made at Georgetown, I would tell students to keep their eyes peeled and use their power to effect positive change using resources available to them.

Q: Tell us about your plans after Georgetown! What are you most looking forward to?

A: After Georgetown I am moving back to London. In September, I will be starting a Masters in American Politics and History. I could not be more excited to see my family and friends in the UK and for this next learning opportunity. I am going to miss D.C. and everyone I have met here, but I plan to visit!

Thank you so much for sharing with us, Talia! Stay tuned for our next student spotlight.

The CJC invites you to our annual Yom HaShoah lecture. This year, Professor Alvin H. Rosenfeld will discuss offer his lecture, “Remembering and Dismembering the Holocaust: Implications for Today.” RSVP is required. Only those who register will receive the Zoom link to access the lecture. 

Alvin H. Rosenfeld is a Professor of English and Jewish Studies at Indiana University, Bloomington. He received his Ph.D. from Brown University in 1967 and has taught at Indiana University since 1968. He holds the Irving M. Glazer Chair in Jewish Studies and is Director of the university’s Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism. He founded Indiana University’s well-regarded Borns Jewish Studies Program and served as its director for 30 years. He has been honored with Indiana University Distinguished Service Award, as well as the Provost’s Medal “in recognition of sustained academic excellence, vision, and leadership resulting in lasting and widespread impact.” In 2019, he received the President’s Medal, Indiana University’s highest award, “in recognition of sustained excellence in service, achievement, and leadership.”

The editor of William Blake: Essays (1969) and the Collected Poetry of John Wheelwright (1972), he is also the author of numerous scholarly and critical articles on American poetry, Jewish writers, and the literature of the Holocaust. Indiana University Press published his Confronting the Holocaust: The Impact of Elie Wiesel (co-edited with Irving Greenberg) in 1979 and, in 1980, published his A Double Dying: Reflections on Holocaust Literature (the book has since appeared in German, Polish, and Hungarian translations). With his wife, Erna Rosenfeld, he translated Gunther Schwarberg’s The Murders at Bullenhuser Damm, a book on Nazi medical atrocities published by the Indiana University Press in 1984. His Imagining Hitler was published by Indiana University Press in 1985. Professor Rosenfeld edited Thinking About the Holocaust: After Half a Century (Indiana University Press, 1997), a collection of articles by 13 scholars, which includes his essay, “The Americanization of the Holocaust.” His The Writer Uprooted: Contemporary Jewish Exile Literature appeared with Indiana University Press in 2009. His most recent study of Holocaust literature and memory, The End of the Holocaust, was published in April 2011 with Indiana University Press. The book has been published in German, Hebrew, Hungarian, and Polish translations.

The Center for Jewish Civilization is pleased to invite you to our hybrid lecture, “Balancing Counterterrorism and Interstate Competition: Implications for U.S. Interests in the Middle East.” RSVP to our online event here!

About the Event

The Andrew H. Siegal Memorial Lectureship is an annual lecture delivered on the topic of American Middle Eastern foreign policy. We are excited to welcome Dr. Matthew Levitt, who holds the 2021-2022 Andrew H. Siegal Professorship, to deliver a talk titled, “Balancing Counterterrorism and Interstate Competition: Implications for U.S. Interests in the Middle East.”

The 2022 Siegal Lecture will be a hybrid event, taking place in person (location: Georgetown University’s Main Campus) and via Zoom. In adherence to Georgetown’s current Covid-19 guidelines and restrictions, only a limited number of “in person” tickets are available. In order to attend the event in person, please (a) present your “in person admission” ticket upon arrival, (b) follow the University’s protocol for verifying your vaccination status, and (c) complete a health attestation on the morning of their visit to attest that they are symptom-free.

More information regarding this process will be emailed to those who RSVP and present their “in person admission” tickets upon arrival. “Zoom admission” tickets will not be accepted.

Any person with an accommodation request is welcome to email us at cjcinfo@georgetown.edu.

About the Speaker

Dr. Matthew Levitt is the Fromer-Wexler Fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy where he directs the Institute’s Reinhard Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence. Previously, Levitt served in the senior executive service as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Intelligence and Analysis at the U.S. Department of the Treasury and before that as an FBI counterterrorism analyst, including work on the Millennial and September 11th plots. He also served as a State Department counterterrorism advisor to Gen James L. Jones, the special envoy for Middle East regional security (SEMERS).

Levitt has taught at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service and Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, he has held fellowships with the Combating Terrorism Center at the U.S. Military Academy (West Point) and the Homeland Security Policy Institute at George Washington University, and he has sat on the advisory boards of think tanks in Washington, London, Singapore, Israel and the UAE.

Widely published, Dr. Levitt is the author of many articles and studies. His most recent book is Hezbollah: The Global Footprint of Lebanon’s Party of God (Georgetown University Press/Hurst Publishers, 2013) and his latest monograph is Rethinking U.S. Efforts on Counterterrorism: Toward a Sustainable Plan Two Decades after 9/11 (The Washington Institute, 2021).

Happy February! Our latest CJC Student Spotlight is Michelle Fan, a sophomore in the School of Foreign Service studying International Politics with a concentration in International Security. Fan is from San Diego, California. In addition to minoring in Jewish Civilization, she is pursuing a minor in Linguistics. Read our interview with her below! 

Q: Hi, Michelle! Can you briefly tell our audience about yourself?

A: Hi everyone! My name is Michelle and I was born and raised in sunny San Diego. I am the youngest of three children (and a Golden Retriever). In high school, I played field hockey and lacrosse, and volunteered as a café barista for five years (pre-COVID).

Q: What are some of your favorite hobbies, Michelle?

A: Crocheting is hands-down my favorite hobby (specifically amigurumi), but anything related to handcrafts is up there. I would also say I am quite the puzzle nerd. Jigsaw puzzles, crosswords, sudoku, KenKen, you name it!

Q: Was there a professor or class that introduced you to the CJC? How has our Center altered your Georgetown experience?

A: I discovered the CJC through my Hebrew professor, Meital Orr, during my freshman year. Speaking with Assistant Director, Brittany Fried, affirmed that I couldn’t miss out on being a part of this community. Nowadays, when I am not in class or in my dorm, you can probably find me in the CJC lounge. Whether they’re helping me out with school and applications, looking after me when I am sick, or just hanging out with me, people at the Center are always there.

Q: We are so happy you’re a part of our community! What has been your favorite CJC class thus far?

A: My favorite CJC class so far has been Director Bruce Hoffman’s “Terrorism in the Middle East and North Africa” course, but I am also partial to my Hebrew classes.

Q: What are some of your academic interests? Has being a CJC student allowed you to further explore them? 

A: I slowly converted to IPOL during the Spring semester of my Freshman year. Since then, the CJC’s myriad of Security Studies courses have only encouraged me to continue this path. I would also say that Hebrew courses at Georgetown have also been enjoyable, as someone who is interested in foreign language and linguistics.

Q: What have been some of your favorite moments while a Georgetown student? 

A: While this has nothing to do with academics per se, one highlight of my year on campus was being able to experience snowfall last January. This was substantial for a San Diegan!

Q: What clubs, research, or work opportunities do you engage in on campus? How do they supplement your learning?

A: Throughout this past year, I have been working with Professor Moran Stern on his research regarding rebel group fragmentation. The material is intriguing in itself, but this experience has also exposed me to the process behind scholarly research, analysis, editing, and publication. I am also a member of Georgetown’s Club Badminton, and plan on joining Hoyas Inspire Language Learners (HILL) this semester as a Mandarin tutor. My studies generally do not focus on China or the Chinese language, so I hope to maintain my Chinese proficiency and engage with the local community as a part of HILL.

Q: Professor Moran Stern won the University of Maryland’s 2021-2022 Don C. Piper Award for the best journal article by a graduate student. How did you assist Professor Stern with his award-winning article?

A: The CJC referred me to Professor Stern, and the staff have always been there to assist me with my work. I helped him acquire source material, perform coding work, and proofread. I also provided Professor Stern with editorial suggestions on various sections of his article, “Factionalisation From Below: The Case of Palestinian Fatah.”

Q: Can you tell us what the article was about? Was it the first time being exposed to this subject, or did you draw on your previous academic knowledge? 

A: The Civil Wars article was about Palestinian Fatah and bottom-group factionalization within the group. I have taken some security studies courses on similar topics, but I had never delved specifically into rebel group fragmentation and cohesion before working with Professor Stern.

Q: What did you learn throughout your time as a Research Assistant (RA) during the writing process?

A: I realized how much time and effort actually goes into the entire writing and publication process. I was able to build off the good work done by some of Professor Stern’s previous RAs for this particular article, but even the final phase of editing required numerous iterations.

Q: Do you still work as Professor Stern’s RA? 

A: Yes, I am! I am currently helping him with a project about how foreign fighters impact rebel group fragmentation.

Q: What are you most looking forward to this Spring? Do you have any advice to students on how they can make the most of their time here?

A: I am really just looking forward to being able to take classes and spend time with my classmates and friends. And of course, I can’t wait to get back to the CJC lounge.

If I could offer any advice, it would be not to be afraid to ask for advice! Being in a virtual mode of instruction was disorienting, especially on top of transitioning from high school to college and from San Diego to D.C. Connecting with alumni and upperclassmen gave me a better sense of direction when it came to my studies and overall Georgetown experience. The CJC and wider Georgetown community are always so welcoming and understanding. It never hurts to just ask!