“ I remain most grateful to the Centre for the very high level of multi-disciplinary education it provided me, for broadening my intellectual and humanitarian horizons, for equipping me with sophisticated and exacting research methodologies and for exposing me to some of the outstanding intellects found among members of its teaching staff. ”
“ It would not be an exaggeration to say that the year in Yarnton changed my life. ”
“ The prestige and the quality of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies are universally recognized. The scholars and the students I had the opportunity to meet in Oxford contributed to building an enduring network which enriched greatly my personal and scholarly experience. ”
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About the Centre
The Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies is a Recognized Independent Centre of the University of Oxford. Its mission is to provide an outstanding curriculum of Hebrew and Jewish studies at one of the world’s leading universities and to promote knowledge and understanding about Jewish history, religion, and culture, as well as about Jewish interactions with and contributions to other cultures.
The Centre was founded in 1972 to help restore Jewish studies in Europe in the aftermath of the Holocaust. Today, it is the leading academic Jewish studies centre in Europe. Its 12 Fellows and 9 lecturers provide courses in Hebrew and Jewish studies for undergraduates and postgraduates up to the doctoral level in many faculties within the University. The Centre also promotes Jewish studies based on the Bodleian Library’s Hebrew and Jewish collections by supporting research, by development projects, and by shared staffing with the Centre’s Leopold Muller Memorial Library.
Yarnton Manor, a unique academic destination four miles from the centre of Oxford is home to the Centre’s international students, visiting fellows, and Muller Library. The Muller Library includes several unique collections of materials relating to European Jewry. The Centre also hosts the European Association of Jewish Studies and the Journal of Jewish Studies.
The Centre has a significant academic impact on the University of Oxford. The Centre’s Fellows currently teach 30 undergraduates, 15 Master of Studies and MPhil students, and 20 DPhil students. Several hundred other students attend lecture courses. Since 1985, Yarnton Manor has been home to 368 students and 450 visiting fellows.
Students taught by the Centre’s Fellows have gone on to academic positions in Hebrew and Jewish studies, or in related fields such as history, religious studies, and cultural studies at leading universities in the United Kingdom, North America, Europe, and Asia. The Centre has thus influenced Jewish studies in many settings, including China, Estonia, Germany, Japan, Korea, Netherlands, Romania, and Switzerland. Students come from a variety of backgrounds- Jewish, Christian, Muslim, and other – and from more than 40 countries, including Israel, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, and the former Soviet Union.
The University of Oxford can claim one of the longest institutional histories of teaching Hebrew studies in the world, since the establishment of the Regius Professorship of Hebrew in 1546. The Bodleian Library, whose Jewish collections were founded in 1600, is the world’s richest treasury of manuscripts and books related to medieval European Jewish civilization. Its holdings include the entire canon of Hebrew and Aramaic literature; records of Jewish-Christian collaboration around biblical interpretation; documents of medieval Jewish and Muslim cooperation in science and philosophy; and the world’s finest assemblage of early printed Yiddish books, showing the unique role and literary activity of Jewish women in Eastern European society. The Muller Library is an incomparable scholarly resource for understanding modern European Jewish civilization. In other words, to know European Jewish civilization, one must go- actually or virtually- to Oxford.
The Centre’s teaching and research efforts, based on the unique resources of the University of Oxford and the Bodleian Library, also serve to advance knowledge about the complex history of Jewish interaction with other religions and cultures and help to provide an alternative narrative to the prevailing message of inter-religious conflict.
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