Edmond J. Safra Foundation Pledges $1.1 Million for Development of Sephardic Studies Fellowships at Brandeis University
This generous gift underscores the university’s ongoing commitment to Sephardic Studies and will enable four PhD students to be supported by one of the strongest and broadest Jewish Studies graduate programs in the United States
The Edmond J. Safra Foundation has committed to support the development of Sephardic Studies PhD fellowships at Brandeis University with a generous gift of $1.1 million.
This cements a commitment by the foundation to Brandeis, building on its support for Sephardic Studies. It follows the foundation's previous endowment of the Edmond J. Safra Chair in Sephardic Studies at Brandeis, which is occupied by Professor Jonathan Decter.
“This gift from the Edmond J. Safra Foundation is deeply meaningful to Brandeis,” said President Arthur Levine. “It speaks volumes that one of the most significant Jewish family foundations in the world continues to support the only nonsectarian university founded by the American Jewish community.”
The grant will support four PhD students in Sephardic Studies to be admitted over a six-year period. The Edmond J. Safra Doctoral Fellows will be supported by one of the strongest and broadest Jewish Studies graduate programs in the United States, with vibrant programs in Hebrew and Arabic language, and three outstanding research centers, the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies, the Crown Center for Middle East Studies, and the Tauber Institute for the Study of European Jewry. These five-year fellowships will attract and generate an excellent cohort of new scholars, building the field in the United States and beyond.
“Sephardic” refers to the Jews who resided in Islamic or Christian Spain during the Middle Ages and migrated to the Middle East, the Ottoman Empire, and elsewhere after Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492. Brandeis hopes to attract doctoral candidates intending to study the Jews of medieval Spain, the medieval Middle East, or the Ottoman Empire/Middle East through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
The gift significantly expands Brandeis’ ability to attract qualified PhD applicants who study this area of Jewish and Middle Eastern studies, according to Decter.
“We believe that offering a prestigious named fellowship in Sephardic Studies that covers the PhD stipend with additional funds for research-related travel will help us recruit the very best doctoral candidates, with the ultimate goal of training the next generation of leaders in our field,” Decter said.
Since its founding in 1953, Brandeis’ Near Eastern and Judaic Studies department (NEJS) has played a crucial role in establishing Jewish and Near Eastern Studies as a field of academic inquiry across American higher education by promoting a research and teaching profile that combines Jewish Studies with Bible and Ancient Near East and Arabic and Islamic Civilizations.
No other university in the United States so fully covers the Jewish experience, with expert faculty in Bible, early post-biblical Judaism, Rabbinics, medieval Judaism, European Jewish intellectual history, Jews in Eastern Europe and Russia, Sephardic studies, Israel studies, Hebrew literature, Holocaust studies, American Jewish history, Yiddish literature, contemporary Jewish life, and Jewish education. This gives NEJS an overarching structure that embeds Jewish history and culture in broader conversation with other religious, cultural, and national traditions.
The Edmond J. Safra Foundation was established by international banker and philanthropist Edmond J. Safra. The Foundation has supported hundreds of organizations in over forty countries around the world. Its work encompasses four diverse areas: education; science and medicine; religion; and humanitarian assistance, culture, and social welfare. It has supported scholars, hospitals and the rebuilding of synagogues; museums and those facing war and natural disasters, and health research, particularly into Parkinson’s disease. Mrs. Lily Safra, who chaired the Foundation for more than 20 years after her husband’s passing in 1999, received an honorary degree from Brandeis in 2005. In addition to its support for Sephardic Studies at Brandeis, the Foundation provided multi-year funding for the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute, as well as $3 million for the construction of the Edmond J. Safra Research Laboratories in the Shapiro Science Center.
“Mr. Edmond J. Safra placed great importance on the study and preservation of Sephardic Jewish history and culture,” said Max Coslov, director of the Edmond J. Safra Foundation. “We are proud to deepen our commitment to this work at Brandeis by providing opportunities for the next generation of scholars to thrive.”