Graduate Level Certificate in Jewish Studies and Social Justice

Meet the Moment – Israel/Palestine and American Jewish Life: Generational Divides and Future Directions
Oren Kroll-Zeldin
Mondays, 4-7pm Pacific Time (hyflex)
August 26 | September 16, 30 | October 14, 28 | November 11, 25 | December 9

Israel/Palestine has been a central topic of concern in American Jewish life since before the State of Israel was established. Though there has never been a consensus among American Jews about Israel, American Jews, and their institutions have largely expressed support for Zionism and the State of Israel for more than half a century. Since October 7, 2023, American Jews have grappled with the role of Israel/Palestine in their communities and institutions in new and intense ways, particularly as dissenting Jewish voices against Israel and Zionism have become much more pronounced, especially amongst younger American Jews.

Our fall 2024 “Meet the Moment” course — Israel/Palestine and American Jewish Life — examines American Jewish perspectives on Israel during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Topics will include histories of Anti-Zionism and Zionism; generational trends, especially among today’s younger American Jewish Palestine solidarity activists; teaching multiple narratives on Israel/Palestine; Jewish responses to trauma since October 7; and how to have hard conversations inside and outside of Jewish institutions regarding this potentially volatile topic. This course is especially relevant for people working in Jewish institutions looking for meaningful ways to engage with Israel/Palestine in their communities.

Meet the Moment - Fighting Antisemitism and Building a Just World
Ben Lorber
Wednesdays 4:00pm-7:00pm PST
Jan. 22, Feb 5, 19, March 5, 19 and April 2, 16, 30

For many Jews, antisemitism feels omnipresent these days. Yet understanding and confronting it is more challenging than ever. Since October 7, 2023, longstanding fault lines in American political discourse around the question of antisemitism have only deepened; the Jewish community, too, remains more divided than ever. All too often, establishment leaders wield charges of antisemitism as a cudgel to stifle progressive voices. Social justice movements, for their part, often lack a textured analysis of antisemitism and its relation to other forms of oppression, allowing the Right to drive the conversation.

This course offers an intersectional, justice-driven analysis of antisemitism, tracing its deep history and contemporary manifestations in order to develop fresh strategies for combating its rise. Utilizing critical analysis and social and political frameworks to situate antisemitism alongside racial capitalism, xenophobia, anti-LGBTQ bigotry, and other systems of injustice, we will examine contemporary debates around antisemitism and Israel/Palestine, free speech, rising authoritarianism, and other timely topics, while drawing upon practical insights from on-the-ground social movements dedicated to confronting these issues. Informed by an ethos of humility and care, we will explore each participant’s personal stake in these questions, learning how a solidarity approach can carve new pathways toward collective flourishing for Jews and all people.

Disability and Jewish Social Justice
Rabbi Julia Watts Belser
9am-1pm PST (remote synchronous)
June 9-13, 22

This course aims to help students deepen their capacity to create cultures of accessibility within Jewish social justice practice. We’ll bring classical Jewish texts into conversation with the lived experiences of contemporary disability activists to grapple with spiritual and political questions about access and equity, invisibility and shame, as well as practices for transforming social inequality. We’ll hone skills for recognizing and resisting ableism, as well as for understanding the way ableism intersects with racism, antisemitism, misogyny, queer, trans, fat hatred, and more. We’ll also examine the contours of hegemonic norms around decorum and behavior, pace and time, and physical and sensory access—and consider ways to transform our religious communities and cultural spaces so that they more fully welcome the vivid, complex diversity of all our bodies and minds.

Arab Jews: Histories, Politics, and Identity
Hadar Cohen
Sundays 10am-1pm PST (remote synchronous)
August 24 | September 7, 21 | October 5, 19 | November 2, 16 | December 7

Join this course to explore the complex and vital identity of Arab Jews and what it means to understand them as an integral part of the broader Jewish world. We will delve into their rich cultural traditions, art, and religious practices while examining the political forces that have shaped their experiences, including Zionism, colonialism, and Arab nationalism.

Through this study, we will challenge the Ashkenormative frameworks that erase Arab Jewish identities. We will address the significance of terms like Sephardi and Mizrahi in understanding these communities, and examine the role of Arab Jews in shaping Jewish culture and politics. We will also explore how their history continues to influence the present and how their unique contributions have been celebrated and suppressed within the larger Jewish and Arab worlds.

This course will critically engage with the political erasure of Arab Jews, exploring how their displacement, cultural assimilation, and marginalization have been intertwined with the politics of Zionism, colonialism, and broader societal dynamics. Ultimately, we will consider what it means to move beyond these labels to pursue a more inclusive, diverse, and just Jewish world.

All students need to apply to the Certificate program in order to take any of the JSSJ Graduate Level Certificate program courses, whether they are interested in completing the certificate in full or only in taking a single course.

This entire program, including the per course tuition rates, is already subsidized through generous scholarships. This is why we are able to offer the per course rate at such a low price. We have a limited number of scholarships available. If you are in need of financial assistance and identify as BIPOC and/or LGBTQ+ please inquire with mjabrams@usfca.edu to see if we have available funds at this time.

In order to participate in this graduate level certificate program, students need to have already received an undergraduate degree (i.e., B.A. or B.S.) or the equivalent. This aside, there is no age requirement. For any specific questions please be in touch with mjabrams@usfca.edu.

Designed to support teachers of early childhood through college, as well as rabbinical students and educators working in non-formal settings, such as community organizations, participants are trained to tackle and teach about inequities based around race, ethnicity, culture, language, gender, sexual identity, and disability, among other social identities, as well as the intersectionality of these distinct spheres, and ways to integrate these ideas pedagogically into Jewish-identified settings. Grounded in critical thinking and positive action, this certificate program sets social justice values as both the framework and core end goals of the educational process.

This certificate program’s courses examine justice, equity, diversity, inclusion, and how these topics intersect with Jewish studies and Jewish communities. While the program addresses the realities of such subtopics as race, comparative conflict analysis, disability, environment, gender, genocide studies, human rights, indigeneity, queer and trans studies and more. Transformation, an essential element of the certificate program, occurs through a process of education that empowers people to make changes in their own lives, as well as in their families, communities, and Jewish-affiliated institutions.

A student needs to complete five graduate level courses in Jewish Studies and Social Justice to complete this certificate. The specific program requirements are as follows:

One required foundation course:

• Antisemitism and Intersectionality
• Fighting Antisemitism and Building a Just World

One of the following courses:

• Binaries and Beyond: Justice, Gender, and the Future of Jewish Traditions
• Disability and Jewish Social Justice
• Environmental Justice and Jewish perspectives: Land, People, and Power
• Race, Racism, and Jews

Three of the following courses:

• Binaries and Beyond: Justice, Gender, and the Future of Jewish Traditions
• Disability and Jewish Social Justice
• Environmental Justice and Jewish perspectives: Land, People, and Power
• Israel/Palestine and American Jewish Life: Generational Divides and Future Directions
• Dismantling Racism from the Inside Out

Matriculating "Jewish Studies and Social Justice" Graduate Level Professional Certificate students will receive certificate units upon completing a course. Certificate units are distinct from academic credits, which can be applied toward a degree (e.g., MA, EdD). Certificate-seeking students and degree-seeking students enrolled in the same courses are in distinct programs with different course requirements. Certificate-seeking students will not be able to convert certificate units into academic credits retroactively. Certificate-seeking students can only apply certificate units toward the Graduate Level Certificate in Jewish Studies and Social Justice.

After completing five courses (see "What are the program's course offerings"), students are awarded a professional certificate in Jewish Studies and Social Justice. No academic credit is given.

Classes will be held online (via Zoom) and hyflex (simultaneously online and in-person). This will ensure that students residing outside the San Francisco Bay Area will be able to fully participate in the certificate program regardless of not being able to do so in-person. All in-person courses will take place on USF's main campus. Registered students will be notified of the exact on-campus location prior to beginning a course.

Most courses are offered in the late afternoon and evening during the week and/or during the day on weekends. This allows students to maintain a full-time job while concurrently earning this graduate-level certification.

Class days/times

Like most institutions of higher learning, all of the certificate program courses will be offered intermittently. The courses will be offered in the following sequence:

Spring 2025

Comparative Conflict Analysis: International Conflicts, Genocide, and Jews

Spring 2025

HDismantling Racism from the Inside Out

Summer 2025

Disability and Jewish Social Justice

A course requires a minimum of 5 registered students in order to run. If this requirement is not met, students will receive a full refund for the course.

A student who withdraws from a course after having already made payment is entitled to a 25% refund of their tuition if their request is made at least 30 days prior to the first class session. Thereafter, all course payments are non-refundable nor can such tuition be applied to a future course. 

Please take the following steps to prevent a situation involving such requests:

1. Carefully review the course offerings to ensure the class is the right fit for you.
2. Carefully review the calendar and ensure you can attend all of the class dates and times. 
3. Email us so that we may answer any questions about the specifics of a class before completing registration and payment.

We are a small educational program, and we rely on the registration and payment of each student. Thank you for your understanding.

The University of San Francisco is committed to being an inclusive and welcoming community. Student Disability Services (SDS) recognizes disability as a valued aspect of diversity and works to facilitate equal access and an inclusive environment for students with disabilities. Regarding digital content in particular, we have a legal obligation to make it WCAG 2.0 AA Accessibility Guidelines compliant.

Founded in 1855 as the first university in San Francisco, in 2022 U.S. News & World Report ranked USF as having the #1 most racially and ethnically diverse student body in the country. One-third of all undergraduates are the first in their families to attend a post-secondary school. USF’s College of Arts & Sciences alone has more than 100 major and minor subject areas of study, many with specialized concentrations. On the graduate degree level, the university offers over 60 master’s, doctoral, and credential programs. With an overall student body of approximately 10,000 students—6,000 undergraduates and 4,000 graduates—approximately 10% of USF’s students identify as Jewish (see below). More information about USF's history can be found here.

The Swig Program in Jewish Studies and Social Justice is the oldest Jewish studies university program at any Bay Area institution of higher learning; the first endowed Jewish studies program at a Catholic school, Jesuit or otherwise, in the world; the first academic program formally linking Jewish studies and social justice in the world; and the first Catholic school to create a full-time Rabbi-in-Residence for a queer-identified individual, a position established in fall 2019. More information about our program’s history, can be found here.

Fall 2023 was the first semester of the Graduate Level Certificate in Jewish Studies and Social Justice.

The Swig Program in Jewish Studies and Social Justice estimates that 10% of USF students are Jewish, with a disproportionate number of Jews in our graduate programs (e.g., School of Education, School of Law, School of Management). Some students identify as strongly Jewish, some identify as nominally Jewish, and some have a family member who is Jewish and feel a familial connection to the Jewish community, however distant (i.e., Jew-ish).

The twenty-first-century Jewish American world is confronting issues emanating from an entirely new terrain. The nature and number of Jewish identities are changing. In recent years there have been major communal shifts related to:

• the growing diversity of Jews in terms of social identities, such as those related to race, gender, sexual orientation, and disability;
• an increase of families comprised of Jews and non-Jews;
• generational changes about political issues both in the U.S. and abroad.

There are unprecedented understandings and formations of what it means to be a member of the Jewish community today, patterns that were not existent previously. 

The American Jewish communities need a new cadre of professionals trained to meet the twenty-first-century demands of being Jewish in the United States, a landscape where Jewish identities and the ways people are learning to be Jewish are constantly evolving.

This moment requires an innovative paradigm of education that is uniquely relevant: one that centers social justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion (or JEDI), principles that must be integrated into the core fabric of pedagogies and approaches rather than exist as “add-ons.” It is essential to have a program that underscores the global and systemic nature of our world, including the fact that 99.8% of the world is not Jewish. 

Whether the environment is a Jewish day school, Hebrew school, Jewish summer camp, Jewish NGO, another Jewish-identified context altogether, or any other professional setting, the Jewish community has a duty to offer a compelling and effective way to teach about Jews and Jewish identities, one that is intersectional within and between intra-communal Jewish and non-Jewish communities, and one that explicitly confronts issues related to racial, gender, queer, and disability equity.

Although social justice values—embodied in terms such as tikkun olam, bitzelem Elohim, tzedek, and tzedakah—continue to strike a chord in Jewish-identified settings, the American milieu needs a cohesive educational program that centers these Jewish values. Our Certificate Program teaches professionals how to operationalize ideas around anti-oppression, social justice, and human rights as applicable to and within Jewish-identified contexts. We maximize JEDI values using an educational framework rooted in Jewish terms and ideas, proverbially translating these ancient Jewish words and concepts so they can be applied to today’s Jewish-affiliated spaces.