March 11, 2014
We are pleased to announce that we have recruited a group of 15 CSUN students for our 2-week educational trip to Poland and Lithuania this summer. They are a diverse mix of undergraduate and graduate students. Many of them have taken courses in History, Religious Studies, and Jewish Studies. On this trip they will continue to study European history, the Holocaust, and the memorialization of Polish and Lithuanian World War II events; to experience life in contemporary Eastern Europe; and to engage with Polish and Lithuanian students and adults. It is our fourth trip (2010-2012 trips each had a different regional focus) providing an intellectual and reflective learning that integrates course work with first-hand experience and intercultural exchange. Plus, they will have the pleasure of traveling and exploration with other students. Scholarships for students have been provided by CSUN Instructionally-Related Activities Fund, the Jewish Studies Program, and the History Department.
See the exciting new website at http://mappingthejewishvalley.com/ developed by Jennifer Thompson, her students, and College of Humanities web developer Judith Spiegel. As part of Professor Thompson's American Jewish Experience, Introduction to Judaism, and Jewish Ethics and Society courses at CSUN, students conducted research on Jewish sites in the San Fernando and Conejo Valleys. The student projects involved historical research on the sites as well as in-person visits that allowed students to experience the sites first-hand. Besides the sources students discovered on their own, they consulted the chapter on Judaism from How to be a Perfect Stranger, and Bruce A. Phillips's 2007 article "Faultlines: The Seven Socio-Ecologies of Jewish Los Angeles" in The Jewish Role in American Life: An Annual Review (vol. 5).