Oxford Summer Institute on Modern and Contemporary Judaism
The Oxford Summer Institute on Modern and Contemporary Judaism (OSI-MCJ) was founded in 2014 under the auspices of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies by Dr Miri Freud-Kandel of the University of Oxford and Professor Adam Ferziger of Bar-Ilan University. In 2015, Professor Hartley Lachter, director of Lehigh University’s Berman Center for Jewish Studies, joined them as co-convener. The OSI-MCJ is an advanced workshop in which outstanding scholars of Jewish religion and culture from around the globe join European Jewish studies scholars for a week of intensive study and intellectual exchange. It is intended to facilitate rigorous academic engagement regarding key themes in the Jewish religion, raising innovative and challenging perspectives from a broad range of disciplines, with potential to provide novel insights into contemporary Judaism.
The 6th Annual Oxford Summer Institute on Modern and Contemporary Judaism will focus on the theme of “Jerusalem and Babylon – Past and Present”. Participants will explore this concept as it has evolved in the course of Jewish history, thought, and culture throughout the globe – including comparisons with the rich Christian articulations on the topic. A focus of the discussion will be on the ways in-depth analysis of this notion offers tools for examining the burgeoning contemporary dynamic in which new parallel centres of Jewish civilisation have arisen as original, powerful, yet highly distinctive models.
Read more about the OSI-MCJ 2019 and how to apply here.