Recent Senior Theses

2023

Charlotte Cooper

I Hope Hagar Goes Far, Far Away: A Case Study of Student Sex Educators' Uses of Feminist Ideology in Response to Genesis 16

2021

Leah Trachtenberg

Bunnies and Nachashim:  Jews in Playboy Magazine

Joint with WGS and NEJS.

2018

Ezra Cohen

Rofei l'Shvurei Leiv: The Contemporary Jewish Legal Treatment of Depressive Disorders in Conflict with Halakha

Yael Jaffe
“Shuley, Shulie, Shulamith:  The Evolution of Shulamit Firestone”

Recipient of the 2018 Doris Brewer Cohen Prize for best senior thesis submitted in the Humanities Division, 2018 Brandeis University Commencement

2017

Gabrielle Hersch

“Moroccan Jewish Onomastics in Casablanca: Lessons on Moroccan Jewish Identification and Positionality”

Benjamin Notis

“Thunder’s Relationship to Immanence and Transcendence: From Rabbinic Text to Hasidic Thought”

2016

Eliezer Buechler

“The Innovation of Isaac Luria to Cover One’s Eyes with One’s Right Hand During Qeri’at Shema”

Noam Cohen

“And a Fire Came Down from Before the Lord: Examining the Relationship Between Leviticus 10 and Numbers 16-18”

Gregory Fain

“Omnipotence in the Shadow of Aristotle”

Hannah Kober

“The Motivations and Experiences of Jewish Students of Arabic at Israeli Universities”

Samuel Marlowe

“Christianity and Antisemitism: An Evaluation of Rosemary Ruether’s Faith and Fratricide”

2015

Sara Fried

“‘I will demand of you, and you will answer me.’ Arguing Effectively with God”

2014

Lauren Cimbol

“How 1950s Suburban Synagogue Architecture Reflects Changing Attitudes within American Judaism”

Dahlia Herzog

“Adam’s Sin as a Model for Human Nature and the Redemption of Israel: The Interpretations of Genesis Chapter 3 in Avot D’Rabbi Natan and Genesis Rabbah”

2013

Eitan Cooper

“Milah Confronts Modernity: Analyzing Debates Over Circumcision Technique”

Sarah Geller

“Hezbollah’s Lebanonization and its Effects on the Israel-Lebanon Relationship from 2004-2008”

Emma Green

“Judaism in the Buckle of the Bible Belt: The Oklahoma City Jewish Community”

Erica Shaps

“Living Stones in the 21st Century: The Complicated Identity of Christian Arabs in Israel”

Schneck Tamar

“The Mellah: Exploring Jewish and Muslim Narratives on Urban Spaces”

2012

Brian Blumenthal

“InTension: PresenTense and the Reinvention of the Next Generation Jew”

Hillel Buechler

“Uvah Teheze: Biblical Criticism and Halakhah in Modern Jewish Thought”

Ethan Goldberg

“In the Shadow of Sulzer: The Mixed Legacy of Cantor Alois Kaiser”

Ilana Sidorsky

“Hamakom Yinachem Etchem: Understanding the Impact of Jewish Mourning Rituals Within Developing Jewish Identity”

2011

Emily Jaeger

“Differences Within: Gender and Gender-Bending in Ugaritic Mythological, Epistolary, Legal and Administrative Texts”

Joshua Jerusalmi

“A Monumental Statement: Placement and Meaning in the Shaw and New England Holocaust Memorial”

Madeline Mayer

“Service Learning Programs in Jewish Day School”

Hannah Perlman

“The Language and Legacy of Violence in the Akedah”

2010

Marnina Cowan

“The Position of the Hebrew Language among Arab Citizens of Israel - In Hebrew, יחסם של ערבים אזרחי ישראל לשפה ”העברית

Talia Graff

“From Ideology to the Classroom: Israel Education in the Religious Schools of a Reform and a Conservative Congregation”

Zach Margulies

“Upon the Shoulders of the Seaward Philistines: Philistine Governance in the Iron Age I and IIA”

Garrett Nada

“The Self-Identity of the Naqab-Bedouin Students of Ben-Gurion University”

Emily Watkins

“On the Border of Fire: Origins of the National Religious Settler Movement in Israel”

2009

Elizabeth Imber

“Scottish Missionary Work among Jews in the 19th Century”

Yael Rooks-Rapport

“Post-Jewish Art”

Sara Smith

“Imahot Liturgy: A Study of the Historic Development of the Insertion of the Imahot into the Amidah”