2006 - Rothberg International School

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Prof. Amitai Takes Pride in Graduate Program
Prof. Reuven Amitai
Portrait
of an M.A.
Student
When Professor Reuven Amitai made aliyah from Philadelphia in 1976,
his plans were to live and work on a kibbutz, and in his spare time
topursue his interest in Middle Eastern Studies. He spent six years on
Kibbutz Harel working as a welder, but life in a small collective village proved to
be too quiet for him.
“Did I want to be a kibbutznik with a hobby or a scholar with kibbutz memories?” he
asked himself before enrolling in the Hebrew University to pursue a Master's degree
in Middle Eastern Studies. Prof. Amitai was impressed with the level of Arabic studip
ies at the University and, in general, with the academic level. Although he had been
engrossed by the modern Middle East while studying for his B.A. at the University
of Pennsylvania, his interests changed when he came to Jerusalem. He decided to
focus on a much earlier period in the history of Islam, namely: the time of the Crusp
sades, the Mamluks and the Mongols (roughly 1,000 c.e.through 1,500 c.e.).
After finishing his Ph.D. at the Hebrew University in 1990, and spending a year at
Princeton University doing post-doc research, he came back to teach at the Hebrew
University, and soon after at the new RIS graduate program in Islamic and Middle
Eastern Studies.
As he took on increasingly senior administrative positions at the Hebrew University,
first as chairman of the Department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies (from
1997) and then as director of the Institute of Asian and African Studies (2001-03),
Prof. Amitai also became more interested and more involved in the Division of
Graduate Studies at the RIS. “One of the first things I did was to help get appointed
an advisor from the Department – Dr. Roni Shaham – to act as a coordinator in the
graduate program. I wanted to have a contact person who would know what was
going on with the classes and with the students but also knew what the Departmp
ment was about,” explains Prof. Amitai. “Because I had been teaching in the program
and was from abroad, I had an interest in seeing the program develop.” Prof. Amitai,
together with colleagues, also engaged in a creative marketing strategy to attract
more international students. Instead of working through campus Hillel offices or
the Friends of the Hebrew University, they directed their recruitment efforts to the
Middle Eastern Studies departments at different universities abroad.
To his satisfaction, Prof. Amitai feels that the RIS program has gradually developed
from the inside with a stronger caliber of students attending and a higher level and
Maya Kroitoru, 24, had wanted to study in Israel since her undergraduate
years at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where she majored in internp
national affairs and economics. When she received a scholarship through
the National Security for Education Program, intended for study abroad in world
areas critical to U.S. National Security, she thought that she had literally found her
ticket. Unfortunately, the program would not allow her to study in Israel because of
security restrictions at the time. Instead she went to Prague, where she enrolled in a
Jewish Studies program, and from there she traveled to Morocco, where she enrolled
in an Arab Studies program. “When I was in Morocco, I became convinced that my
next step was to come to Israel,” she says. In addition to her academic interest in the
country, Kroitoru has a personal interest: Her father is Israeli.
After graduating college, she applied for and was granted an Anna Sobol Levy Fellp
lowship to study the RIS Division of Graduate Studies. Kroitoru began her studies last
wider variety of classes being taught. “The internal dynamic in the program has
improved. We are attracting students with a proper background in Middle Eastern
Studies,” he maintains. “This year we have 40 applicants. I understand that it is the
most popular program in the Division.” In addition to the quality of the teachers,
Prof. Amitai is certain that the location is a draw for students. “Jerusalem has a very
good reputation for providing a world class university (certainly in Middle Eastern
Studies) that physically neighbors the Arab world. As students take classes in the
Middle East, they can hear the muezzin calling Muslims to prayer. The program has
definitely become a flagship for the School,” he says.
Prof. Amitai enjoys teaching at the RIS. “The students are interested in scholarship.
They generally do the reading – and in my class,” he admits, “there is a lot of reading!
It is a lively crowd and discussions are on a high level.” Prof. Amitai promotes the
involvement of RIS students in his Department’s activities, encouraging those with
a good command of Hebrew to attend lectures or seminars. He would like to see
more graduates of the School’s M.A. program continuing to pursue a doctorate at
the Hebrew University.
Recently, Prof. Amitai was appointed director of the Nehemia Levtzion Center for
Islamic Studies, which opened less than two years ago. The goal of the Center is to
encourage research and public activity, related to Islamic studies. “We have great
departments at the University [e.g. Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies and Arabic
Language and Literature], but this is going beyond teaching,” he says.
Activities have included a one- day conference with Yad Ben Zvi on the formation
of Islamic society in the Land of Israel, a conference in conjunction with Mishkenot
Sha’ananim on contemporary Islam, an ongoing discussion group about religious
experience in its social context, and a new lecture series in conjunction with the
Forum for European Studies on Islam in Europe.
“In general, we try not to be either polemical or apologetic at the Center,” explains
Prof. Amitai. “I believe there needs to be dialogue between scholars studying the
pre-modern and modern Middle East and Islam. The modernists sometimes have a
certain lack of regard for scholarship on the 'medieval' period and vice versa, but it is
only while working together that we can present a complete picture of the Muslim
world to the public. Our Center is trying to bridge that gap.”
year, but after four months she realized one year would not be enough to accomp
plish her goal of becoming proficient in both Hebrew and Arabic. She requested to
extend her fellowship for a second year in order to finish her M.A. degree in Islamic
and Middle Eastern Studies. She then plans to return to the U.S. to pursue a career in
international relations, ideally in some sort of analyst position at a research institute in
Washington, D.C. “I decided on this career after reading Thomas Friedman’s The Lexus
and the Olive Tree,” she says. “I am mostly interested in American-Israeli relations and
ethnic conflict .” Given her professional interests, she was very pleased to be one of
the RIS students chosen to meet with U.S. Ambassador to Israel Richard H. Jones (see
page 16). “We held a fairly serious discussion about cross-cultural experiences,” she
says. “He talked to us about his diplomatic career, and he inspired us to get further
involved in policy making and in learning languages.” Thanks to her studies in Israel,
she has mastered the Hebrew language.
”This year we have
40 applicants.
I understand that
Middle Eastern
Studies is the most
Newsletter of the
Rothberg International School
popular program in
the Division.”
Maya Kroitoru