Department of Humanities and Social Sciences in the Professions

Education and Jewish Studies

Faculty & Staff

 

 

 

Professor Harold Wechsler
Harold Wechsler

Phone: 212 992 9423 
E-mail: hw29@nyu.edu

 

A professor of Jewish Education and Educational History, Harold Wechsler co-directs NYU's Graduate Programs in Education and Jewish Studies at NYU Steinhardt. He has published widely on access, governance, business education, and the formation of curriculum and disciplines in American higher education. His books include: Jewish Learning in American Universities: The First Century (with Paul Ritterband), Access to Success in the Urban High School: The Middle College Movement, The Transfer Challenge, and The Qualified Student: A History of Selective College Admission in America, 1870-1970. He also edits the annual Almanac of Higher Education for the National Education Association and coedits the ASHE Reader on the History of Higher Education (with Linda Eisenmann and Lester Goodchild).

Professor Wechsler formerly chaired the higher education programs at the University of Chicago and Northwestern University. He was also editor of higher education publications for the National Education Association. Sponsored by a major Spencer Foundation grant, Wechsler currently studies the history of minority access to American higher education. The Ford Foundation and Littauer Foundation sponsored previous projects.

He is the president of the History of Education Society, a member of the executive committee of the Academic Council of the American Jewish Historical Society, and the winner of the Greatest Mets Fan competition (1969).

Areas of Research, Interest

Degrees

Publications

Courses

E55.2067.001 - History of Higher Education

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Professor Robert Chazan
Bob

Phone: 212 998 8976
E-mail: rc2@nyu.edu

 

Dr. Robert Chazan is currently S. H. and Helen R. Scheuer Professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies in the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University and Co-Director of the Programs in Education and Jewish Studies.  Professor Chazan's research focus is Jewish life in medieval Europe.  His three most recent books are: God, Humanity, and History: The Hebrew First-Crusade Narratives (Berkeley, 2000), Fashioning Jewish Identity in Medieval Western Christendom (Cambridge,2004), and The Jews of Medieval Western Christendom (Cambridge, 2006). 

Professor Chazan has served as Founding Chair of the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies, as President of the Association for Jewish Studies, and as President of the American Academy for Jewish Research.  He also currently serves as Co-Director of the Wagner-Skirball Double Masters Program in Jewish Professional Leadership and as Co-Director of Re/Presenting the Jewish Past, a program designed for improving the teaching of Jewish history in Jewish day schools.       

 

Area of Research, Interest

 • Medieval Jewish History

Degrees

• B.H.L. Jewish Theological Seminary, New York City, 1958 
• B.A. Columbia College, New York City, 1958
• M.H.L. Jewish Theological Seminary, New York City, 1962
• M.A. Columbia University, New York City, 1963
• Ph.D. Columbia University, New York City, 1967

Select Publications

  • Medieval Jewry in Northern France (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974)
  • Church, State, and Jew in the Middle Ages (New York: Behrman House, 1980)
  • European Jewry and the First Crusade (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1987)
  • Daggers of Faith: Thirteenth-Century Christian Missionizing and Jewish Response (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1989)
  • Barcelona and Beyond: The Disputation of 1263 and Its Aftermath (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press,1992)
  • In the Year 1096: The Jews and the First Crusade (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1996)
  • Medieval Stereotypes and Modern Antisemitism (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1997)
  • God, Humanity, and History: The Hebrew First-Crusade Narratives (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of CaliforniaPress, 2000)
  • Fashioning Jewish Identity in Medieval Western Christendom (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004)
  • The Jews of Medieval Western Christendom (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006; Cambridge Medieval Textbooks)

Courses

G78.1005.002 - Recent Developments in Judaic Studies

G78.2455 - The Medieval Church and the Jews

G78.3224 - The Jewish Community: Classical Institutions and Perspectives

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Professor Bethamie Horowitz

Senior Research Scientist
Phone: 212 864 3529
E-mail: bh64@nyu.edu

 

Socio-psychologist Bethamie Horowitz has conducted research about major issues and problems facing the Jewish people for more than two decades. She has an active research and consulting practice, working with a wide range of audiences: decision-makers, organizational and communal leaders, strategic planners, and the scholarly community.

She began her professional career studying "images in conflict" in the Middle East. As research director at New York UJA-Federation in the 1990s she designed and conducted the 1991 NY Jewish Population Study, and subsequently developed the groundbreaking Connections and Journeys Study documenting patterns of Jewish engagement among baby boomer and younger American Jews. She served as Research Director of the Mandel Foundation Israel from 2000 to 2006. Her "Trend Spotting" columns about noteworthy developments affecting American Jewry appeared monthly in The Forward from 2003-2007.

She teaches the core doctoral seminar in the Education and Jewish Studies at NYU's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development.

She received her AB from Harvard University in anthropology and her Ph.D. from The Graduate Center, CUNY in socio-psychology.

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Professor David Bryfman 

Adjunct Assistant Professor
E-mail: bryfman@nyu.edu

 

David completed his PhD in Education and Jewish Studies at NYU in 2009. His dissertation focused on the role of the peer group in the identity development of Jewish teenagers in the United States. David is also an alumni of the Wexner Graduate Fellowship Program. David has worked in formal and informal Jewish educational institutions in Australia, Israel, and America. He completed his undergraduate and Masters degrees in education in Melbourne, where he was also active in youth movement and Jewish student life. He has lived and studied in Israel, participating in the Institute for Youth Leaders from Abroad, the Melton Senior Educators Program at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and at Pardes. In Australia he was the Director of Informal Jewish Education at a large Jewish day school, a Hillel Director, and the Director of Birthright Israel in Australia. David lived in St. Louis for two years where he was the Director of the Central Agency's Community Supplementary High School and Teen Initiative Programs. David is also a graduate of Brandeis University's Informal Jewish Education Leadership Seminar. David is currently the Director of the New Center for Collaborative Leadership at the Board of Jewish Education of Greater New York. 

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Wendy Paler

Assistant Director of Administration
E-mail: steinhardt.skirball@nyu.edu

 

Wendy Paler began her role as the Assistant Director of Administration for the Programs in Education and Jewish Studies in the Summer of 2009.  Prior to this position, she worked most recently for the NYU Wagner/Skirball Program in Nonprofit Management and Judaic Studies as Student Coordinator, Congregation B'nai Jeshurun as a consultant, JESNA as Institutional Advancement Intern, and BBYO as Assistant Director of Wisconsin Region.  Prior to working in the Jewish professional sphere, Wendy worked at JPMorgan.  As a lay leader, she serves on the UJA-Federation of New York's Commission on Jewish Identity and Renewal Gen i Task Force and was a member of the inaugural cohort of the Shapiro Family Fellowship.  A Wexner Fellow/Davidson Scholar as well as a Wagner Public Service Scholar, Wendy is finishing her MPA and MA in the NYU Wagner/Skirball Program and expects to graduate in May of 2010.

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