Incoming JTS chancellor to enhance institution’s ‘moral voice’

JTS chancellor-elect Dr. Shuly Rubin Schwartz decried the slaying of George Floyd in Minneapolis, and said racism was ‘endemic’ to the US and part of the fabric of the republic.

By JEREMY SHARON
Dr. Shuly Rubin Schwartz (photo credit: ELLEN DUBIN PHOTOGRAPHY)
Dr. Shuly Rubin Schwartz
(photo credit: ELLEN DUBIN PHOTOGRAPHY)
Dr. Shuly Rubin Schwartz, the chancellor-elect of the prestigious and venerable Jewish Theological Seminary, has said she will seek to advance the institution’s moral voice in the world against the background of the severe race riots in the US over the last two weeks.
Speaking to The Jerusalem Post, Schwartz decried the recent killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis, and said that racism is “endemic” to the US and part of the fabric of the republic.
Schwartz, who has served as provost of JTS since 2018, was announced earlier this week as its eighth chancellor and will be the institution’s first woman chancellor, with outgoing chancellor Arnold Eisen stepping down at the end of June.
The incoming chancellor said that one of her central objectives would be to further strengthen JTS’s academic Jewish learning programs, and bring that out into the wider Jewish community which she said had demonstrated a hunger for Jewish knowledge during the COVID-19 lockdown.
And with the ongoing demonstrations and riots in the US following the slaying by police of George Floyd, Schwartz said that another of her major goals was to “enhance JTS role as a moral voice in this world.”
She noted that the institution has for many years been involved in social activism, through internships, fellowships and inter-communal dialogue, but said there was much more work to be done, as recent events have shown.
“It’s heartbreaking, it is devastating” Schwartz said of Floyd’s killing.
“The US sadly has a long history of racism, it is endemic to our country, as a historian I can say that it is built into the fabric of our republic,” adding that there is much work to be done to redress these problems.
“As a Jew, we are all created in the image of God, we are all God’s children and this kind of death is just a very, very low point in our country and we must do better.”
Moving onto the challenges facing JTS as a place of academic and religious learning, Schwartz said that the first and immediate issue to be dealt with was the format for study in the coming Fall semester, given the restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Following the outbreak of the disease in the US, JTS moved all of its courses and programs for its approximately 375 students onto online forums, where they have remained due to the ongoing shutdown in New York.
JTS summer programming will also be conducted online as the effects of the pandemic continue to be deeply felt, but Schwartz says she is hopeful that in the Fall semester some kind of hybrid system including both virtual learning and studies on campus with appropriate social-distancing can take place.
Asked about the challenges to the Jewish identity of US Jews, Schwartz said that “interest in Judaism, engagement with Judaism, and the different forms of engagement with Judaism, shift over time, ebb and flow,” and added that she was “not so concerned” about concerns of a diminution in the Jewish identity of young US Jews.
“The young generation are young, they haven’t lived so long. I can’t imagine that this generation won’t come out of this pandemic thinking much more seriously about what matters in life, and that that won’t remind them of the importance of Judaism in their lives,” said Schwartz.
Referencing again the current global health crisis that has changed Jewish life so much during the resultant lockdowns, Schwartz said that during this time Jews of all ages could have decided they had no time for Judaism given all the other complications in their daily lives.
“But that’s not what’s happened,” she said, noting the many ways Jews engaged with Judaism online, whether virtually flocking in large numbers to lessons, finding ways to digitally work around the social-distancing restrictions over Passover and other ways of engaging in Jewish life.
“This is the marvel of the Jewish people in modernity. They could say I don’t care about Judaism any more, I don’t need it, I could just be an American. But over and over again, Jews are saying no, I care about Judaism and I have to figure out how,” said Schwartz, noting that 700 people signed up for an online class which in the analogue world used to attract 40 participants.
“It was very moving, it shows the hunger out there for the kind of learning JTS offers, and to engage with Judaism.”
And talking about the historic nature of her appointment as the first woman to serve as JTS chancellor, Schwartz said it was “thrilling to be the first woman in this role,” adding however that she believed she was offered the role because she was the most qualified and suitable candidate for the position.
“As a historian and a scholar of gender. I know the symbolic significance of having this role, and I feel very proud.”
Alan Levine, Chair of the JTS Board of Trustees, said that the board was “thrilled” to welcome Schwartz as the new chancellor.
“Schwartz’s academic stature is matched by her administrative achievements as dean of List College, dean of the Kekst Graduate School, and as provost. Dr. Schwartz has played a major role in creating the special academic community that is JTS, and we are confident that her vision and unique skills will ensure JTS’s continued stature as a leading academic institution of the American Jewish world,” said Levine.


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