Research council honors Hadassah-Brandeis Institute

Founder Shulamit Reinharz called a trailblazer in work on Jews and gender

Hadassah-Brandeis Institute founder Shulamit Reinharz

The National Council for Research on Women (NCRW) has given its Research and Scholarship Award for 2013 to the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute.

The award recognizes recent outstanding research and the production of knowledge built on theoretical perspectives that advance understanding of the experiences of women and/or girls in society. 

The council also recognized HBI founder and co-director Shulamit Reinharz, the Jacob S. Potofsky Professor of Sociology, as a trailblazer in research on women. 

The purpose of the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute is to develop fresh ways of thinking about Jews and gender worldwide by producing and promoting scholarly research, artistic projects and public engagement.

Among activities for which the HBI was recognized by the NCRW are:

  • A scholar-in-residence program that enables scholars from around the world to spend a semester or a year at the center on stipend pursuing their research interests. The scholars are obligated to give a public talk and HBI has the right of refusal to publish resulting books. To date, the HBI has hosted 40 scholars from 10 countries, many of whose books were published in the HBI Series with Brandeis University Press.

  • A research associates’ program to mentor new scholars in the field of Jewish women’s studies. Currently there are 17 HBI research associates, working on topics ranging from a multi-generational history of fertility among Jews in Curacao, to a memoir of a Jewish woman in Lvov who fought the Nazis and who is now being maligned by her fellow countrymen, to a study of the use of family-based photography on kibbutzim.

  • A translation program in which scholars writing in any language can compete to have their work translated into another language of their choice. Working with the Brandeis Libraries, these books will be made available through the Brandeis Institutional Repository.

  • A summer internship program that has admitted male and female college students from countries around the world. A researcher at the HBI mentors each student. Every student learns how to do research in their area of study and presents the work at an annual research event at the HBI.

  • Two ongoing research projects, the HBI Project on Gender, Culture, Religion and the Law and the HBI Project on Children, Families and the Holocaust. 

Reinharz said she was delighted that a research center focusing on Jews and gender would be of such interest to the National Council for Research on Women. 

“Being part of Brandeis means that the HBI researchers have a lot of support from our superb library collections to all the departments and other research institutes and centers,” Reinharz said. “This award reflects very well not only on the HBI but on the university."

Categories: Humanities and Social Sciences, Research

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