Stanford University’s Jewish studies program is beginning this fall with an additional $5 million, thanks to the Taube Family Foundation and the Hewlett Foundation.
The $2.5 million from the Taube foundation comes in addition to the substantial gifts the Taube family has made over the years, both to the Jewish studies program at Stanford and to the university as a whole.
The $2.5 million grant from the Taube Foundation and the matching $2.5 million grant from the Hewlett Foundation will allow the Jewish studies program at Stanford to be upgraded to a center.
“The transformation from a program to a center is, in effect, truth in advertising,” said Steven J. Zipperstein, the Daniel E. Koshland professor in Jewish culture and history at Stanford. Although founded as a program in the 1980s, it’s “been a center for a long time,” he noted.
Nevertheless, he added, the distinction is an important one to make: While a program’s emphasis is on undergraduate education, centers tend to focus on both undergraduates and graduate students.
Stanford’s Jewish studies program has been doing that since its inception, Zipperstein said, and “it also is a first-rate research facility in that it has supported research, facilitated graduate research and sponsored a whole range of periodicals.”
Zipperstein, who is also the Taube director of Jewish studies, will co-chair the newly established center with Aron Rodrigue, who is the Eva Chernov Lokey professor in Jewish studies and a professor of history.
The grant will not go specifically toward hiring new faculty but will help the Jewish studies program by providing a “permanent foundation,” Zipperstein said. “It allows us to think more expansively about creative things we can do.”
Even with the upgrade in title, the new center will not need to be renewed and reviewed by the administration, he added. “It means it’s there to stay indefinitely, and in that respect, it’s an important development.”
The new center will bear the Taube family name.
“We’ve set out to be the best, and I believe that Stanford Jewish studies is now the best nationally and internationally,” said Tad Taube. “We want to give it solid financial footing so that it will continue to excel in an area that is important to the world as a whole and certainly the Jewish people.”
While Taube is the president of the Koret Foundation, which has also given gifts to Stanford and Jewish programs throughout the Bay Area as well as in Israel, this gift is from his personal family foundation.
The Jewish studies program at Stanford is an interdisciplinary one and currently has 10 faculty members, who were appointed by their various departments.
“We have appointments in history, religious studies, English, Slavic and Germanic languages and what’s called the language division,” said Zipperstein.
Thirty courses are offered at any given time, with 800 undergraduate students taking them throughout the year. There is an average of 20 graduate students, with one or two new ones entering the program each year.
The change in status will allow the program, which Zipperstein described as “an appendage of the humanities department,” to have more autonomy in hiring faculty, facilitating international exchange programs, and developing key relationships with other universities. Overall, it “will give a lot more prestige to the written work published by our scholars,” he said.
Stanford Jewish studies aims to reach three constituencies, according to Zipperstein. In addition to undergraduates and graduate students, it strives to reach the general public as well.
“What we’ve sought to do is to serve overlapping constituencies in the most creative and thoughtful of ways,” he said. “When we have public lectures, hopefully we can speak to a large audience, to both specialists and lay people, satisfying a larger public all at the same time.”
For the general public, “we’ve worked hard to offer a wide range of public programs that are intellectually taxing and innovative approaches to Jewish study,” said Zipperstein.
Taube said he made the donation mainly because the program has proven its excellence.
“I’ve been working with the Jewish studies group at Stanford for 15 years, starting from scratch, to arrive at a situation today where I think it is preeminent worldwide.” Noting that its writings and research and students are among the best in the field, Taube continued, “We’re building on the excellence we established.”
Taube drew an analogy to his decision to support a new tennis stadium at Stanford, which also bears his family name.
“The tennis stadium was given when the tennis program became the finest intercollegiate program in the world,” he said. “So it’s very easy for me to be associated with something outstanding and hopefully make it better.”