The Study of Judaism: Authenticity, Identity, Scholarship

Chapter Five: Private Foundations Encounter Judaism

101 5 Private Foundations Encounter Judaism As witnessed in chapter 2, the academic study of Judaism began in earnest in Germany during the second half of the nineteenth century. There, a group of young Jews, influenced by the intellectual environment of an academy from which they were ultimately denied teaching positions, began for the first time to apply historical methods to Jewish civilization. Under the guise of historical objectivity and scientific disinterest, they sought to locate Judaism’s essence. Despite claims to the contrary, their motivations and objectives were not solely scholarly . Their construction of Judaism was filtered through the prism of rationality and their own desire for political emancipation. They scoured traditional and other sources for that which fit well with their vision: All that coincided with it was signified as “good” and included (e.g., Maimonides and the medieval rationalist tradition), and that which did not was deemed “bad” and excluded (e.g., kabbalah). The result was a highly ideological presentation of what Judaism was and ought to be. Jewish studies has been wrestling with the legacy of these early scholars ever since.1 This ideological-charged construction of Judaism, however, is not confined solely to the origins of the field in the nineteenth century . Like any other area or ethnic studies, Jewish studies remains embroiled in issues of representation and authenticity that revolve around issues of identity politics. My concern in this chapter is not the past, but the present. Recent years have witnessed the rise of various private foundations that have the potential to threaten the long-term viability of the academic study of Judaism. These foundations seek inroads into the academy—and presumably the intellectual legitimation that this provides—by establishing various programs, professorships, and conferences in both Jewish studies and Israel studies at North American and Israeli universities.2 I refer specifically 102 The Study of Judaism to ­ foundations such as Schusterman, Tikvah, and Posen. All three of these organizations, in their various ways, seek to transform the academic study of Judaism, and all three desire to do so in ways that, perhaps not surprisingly, reflect their own ideological agendas. The unfortunate result is that Jewish studies, rather than liberating itself from its ideological heritage, actually risks reembracing it. This chapter examines what I consider to be the major dilemma currently facing the modern academic encounter with Judaism. What happens to an academic field once an influx of money with ideological strings attached enters it? Certainly hiring and growth in Jewish studies in this country has always involved the financial support of individual donors. Indeed, as witnessed in chapter 3, Jewish studies would not be where it is today without such munificence. But the rise in recent years of “mega” foundations, such as the aforementioned , is something new and dangerous. These foundations do not simply want to support Jewish studies or Israel studies; they want to transform them and change them from within based on their own understanding of what Judaism is or should be. If previous chapters have focused on the role of identity and authenticity in scholarship about Judaism over the past century and a half, the present chapter shows how this intersection still operates in the present. As we have seen time and again in this study, the major way that the study of Jewish topics—other than the Old Testament—entered the American university curriculum was through community largesse. This support was never completely disinterested, but—as we have seen—a reflection of community concerns at particular times in the latter’s development and functioned as a response to exclusion and anti-Semitism. This has meant that identity politics has always played a role in Jewish studies, as revealed in the controversy that erupted at Queens College when Thomas Bird, a non-Jew, was appointed director of the Jewish Studies Program. Jewish studies, in other words, has a history of wealthy benefactors who endow professorships or even entire programs. This still goes on in the present, but my concern is less with the generosity of private individuals than with multimillion-dollar agencies or foundations that have now begun to fund the academic study of Judaism. These foundations, unlike individuals , have both the organizational and the political wherewithal to translate their vision into action because of both their hands-on approach and the sheer extent of their financial support. In the past such foundations have largely remained on the sidelines—funding and publishing their own journals, engaging in political lobbying, and...