2015 Jewish Studies Undergraduate Research Awards

JSUGRA photoIt is with great enthusiasm that the Center for Jewish Studies announces that the following undergraduates have received Jewish Studies Undergraduate Research Awards for the 2014-2015 year:

Noah Barerra-Stanford, “Jewish Folk Medicine from the Baal Shem Tov to An-sky and Beyond”—drawing on primary sources in Yiddish, this paper demonstrated that the Hasidic movement, from its origins in the eighteenth century, was deeply involved with the practice of folk medicine; that women healers played a crucial role in the movement; and that many of the rituals and remedies the Hasidic folk healers practiced persisted long into the twentieth century.

Amanda Botfeld, “Head Over Heart” (on how the findings of psychology can illuminate the mentality of the perpetrators of genocide)—reported findings from the field of experimental social psychology that shed fresh light on the mentality of the perpetrators of genocide.

Elizabeth Ho, “Assimilation and Identity Preservation: The Paradox of the Kaifeng Jews”—showed how a community of Jews in China survived over many centuries not in spite of, but rather because of its high degree of assimilation into Chinese society and culture, thereby departing from the pattern of assimilation among Jews in Western societies.

Ariel Wexler, “The Jewish Food Movement”—explored the convergence between the biblical prohibition against the wasteful destruction of God’s creation (bal tashchit) and the modern commitment to environmental sustainability.

Sophie Cox, “Jewish Ambivalence in Larry David’s ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm'”—demonstrated how the great comedian generates comedy of a particularly edgy and hilarious kind by fusing his neuroticism (obsession with minutiae, borderline paranoia) with the classic Jewish conundrum of identity in the modern secular world.

Please join us in extending our hearty congratulations to these students.

Posted in Jewish Studies Undergraduate Research Awards, News.