Overview

The Jewish Studies program of Northwestern University is open to students of all backgrounds. While some of the students who take our classes are Jewish, many are not. We offer a major and a minor for anyone looking to go deeper into the study of Jewish experience. On the other hand, if you’re just looking for something a little different from what you usually study, you’ll be glad to know that many of our courses satisfy Weinberg distribution requirements.

Program highlights

The program is an interdisciplinary enterprise catering to anybody interested in a minority culture broadly conceived. It is a conversation about Jewish thinkers, leaders, artists, and Jewish life from ancient to modern times with a focus on the interaction between the Jewish people and the world. It studies Judaism as a religion and Jews as a civilization in its own right, but also contemplates Jews as an ethnic group that has made significant contributions to Western thought. It considers cultures and civilizations, texts and languages, philosophy and literature, religion and history, majority and minority groups, universally shared and particular values. Courses in Jewish Studies help develop critical skills, hone comparative approaches, and build bridges between the universal and the particular.