Center for Judaic, Holocaust and Peace Studies

Thomas Pegelow Kaplan, Director of the Center for Center for Judaic, Holocaust, and Peace Studies

The Center for Judaic, Holocaust, and Peace Studies coordinates a broad array of educational and research opportunities for students, teachers, faculty members, and the community at large.

The Center fosters the interdisciplinary study of the Holocaust and other modern genocides. In order to comprehend practices of systematic mass murder and genocidal societies, it is pivotal to draw on a variety of fields from sociology, anthropology, and history to political science, philosophy, and religious studies and scrutinize a multilayered source base, ranging from film and photography to literary, diplomatic, and government sources. The study of the Holocaust and modern genocides provides insights into the preconditions and unfolding of systematic mass murder, how ordinary men and women come to participate in these crimes and the responses, “choiceless choices” (Lawrence L. Langer), and acts of contestation by victimized populations. These explorations also center on possible forms of intervention and problematize silence in the face of genocide, always combining analysis with reflections on social and civic responsibilities.

The study of the Holocaust is combined with a multi-layered examination of Judaism and histories of Jewish populations worldwide that cannot be reduced to ongoing episodes of violence. Over the centuries, Jewish communities developed a complex theology, laws, and cultural traditions. Many of these traditions also inform practices of waging peace, which is at the core of the Center’s third focus. Combined with a knowledge of Jewish cultures and histories and meanings of the Holocaust, the exploration of theories and languages of peace studies underpin the search for human improvement and a world increasingly free of violence and genocide.

Courses

Judaic, Holocaust, & Peace Studies