University of San Francisco Swig Program in Jewish Studies and Social Justice Adds Two New Award-Winning Faculty
SAN FRANCISCO (PRWEB) August 14, 2018 -- Following the 40th Anniversary celebration of the University of San Francisco (USF) Swig Program in Jewish Studies and Social Justice, where CNN Anchor and Chief Washington Correspondent Jake Tapper discussed “Speaking Truth to Power” at Congregation Emanu-El, this week the program added two award-winning faculty to its ranks.
Rabbi Lee Bycel, who has taught at USF since 2013, was named the new Sinton Visiting Professor in Holocaust, Genocide, and Refugee Studies.
Bycel, who was appointed to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council by President Obama in 2014, has held numerous positions in the fields of social justice and education, including at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, where he served as Dean for 15 years, and the International Medical Corps. His book on Refugees in America will be published by Rutgers University Press in 2019.
In addition to serving the program and the campus community as an expert on Holocaust, genocide, and refugees, Bycel will continue to teach two noteworthy courses, “Holocaust and Genocide” and “Refugees and Justice,” classes that utilize Jewish historical experiences as a touchstone to examine global issues and develop ways to end such twentieth- and twenty-first-century plagues as genocide and mass displacement.
Dr. Oren Kroll-Zeldin, who has taught at USF since 2012, will be the new Assistant Director of the Swig Program in Jewish Studies and Social Justice as well as term assistant professor in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies. A widely published author, in 2017 Kroll-Zeldin won the USF Distinguished Adjunct Teaching Award.
In addition to teaching courses on Jewish identity and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Kroll-Zeldin will lead the program’s three-week Hebrew language summer intensive, Hebrew San Francisco: Ulpan, and the new Mapping Jewish San Francisco project.
Both Bycel and Kroll-Zeldin will be jointly affiliated with the Swig Program in Jewish Studies and Social Justice and the Department of Theology and Religious Studies.
“We are incredibly excited for these two individuals to take on these new roles,” said Aaron J. Hahn Tapper, Mae and Benjamin Swig Professor of Jewish Studies and Founding Director of the Swig Program in Jewish Studies and Social Justice.
“Adding these long-time educators to our program in this new capacity ensures our continuing plan to grow the Jewish Studies and Social Justice program at USF into a robust academic program with national renown.”
About the University of San Francisco:
The University of San Francisco is located in the heart of one of the world’s most innovative and diverse cities and is home to a vibrant academic community of students and faculty who achieve excellence in their fields. Its diverse student body enjoys direct access to faculty, small classes, and outstanding opportunities in the city itself. USF is San Francisco’s first university, and its Jesuit Catholic mission helps ignite a student’s passion for social justice and a desire to “Change the World From Here.” For more information, visit usfca.edu.
About the Swig Program in Jewish Studies and Social Justice:
In 1977, USF established the first Jewish Studies program and endowed faculty appointment in Jewish Studies at a Catholic school worldwide. In 2008, the program broke ground once again, becoming the world’s first academic program to formally link Jewish Studies with Social Justice.
Including a minor in this leading-edge field, in the classroom the program offers a wide range of significant Jewish Studies courses not found in other educational settings, as well as an annual intensive Hebrew language summer program, Hebrew San Francisco: Ulpan. Over the past 40 years, tens of thousands of students have taken our Jewish Studies courses; in 2017–18 alone more than 1,000 students took Jewish Studies classes.
Beyond the classroom, the program offers extraordinary events that are free and open to the public, which thousands of people have attended in the past decade, including an Annual Human Rights Lecture, Social Justice Lecture, Speaker Series on Diversity of Jewish Identities, Social Justice Passover Seder, and more. For more information, visit usfca.edu/artsci/jssj.
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Kellie Samson, University of San Francisco, https://www.usfca.edu/, 415-422-2697, [email protected]
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