USF to offer first graduate program in Jewish studies and social justice

EMMA GOSS | J. STAFF

Published May 31, 2023

In 2009, Erin-Kate Escobar was one of the first students to graduate from the University of San Francisco with a minor in Jewish studies and social justice. USF, a Jesuit university, had introduced the minor just a year earlier.

Now Escobar is helping to develop a new graduate-level certificate program through the Swig Program in Jewish Studies and Social Justice. Called Justice, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion + Jewish Studies and Social Justice (JEDI + JSSJ), it will be the only graduate-level program of its kind in the country, according to its website.

Anyone working in a Jewish organization — synagogues, Jewish nonprofits, Jewish day schools, Hillels — can apply to the program, which can be completed in one to two years. It launches in August 2023.

“This is an opportunity for folks to dive into some professional development that is really going to help them implement those systemic changes within their organizations,” Escobar said.

Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) education on college campuses has become a political flashpoint across the country. In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill on May 15 to prohibit public colleges and universities from spending state or federal funds on DEI efforts. And the Texas Senate has approved a bill that will require public universities in the state to close their DEI offices, and to eliminate programs and training on campus that promote diversity.

Aaron Hahn Tapper, the director of the Swig Program, denounced these moves in an email to J. as “efforts to exclude marginalized voices from educational environments in the U.S.”

The JEDI + JSSJ program is emerging now, he said, because “there is a recent movement among Jewish Americans, especially Jewish American institutions, to integrate JEDI and social justice values into their work in systematic ways.” Yet many of these institutions lack the “skill set” to make the necessary changes. “Our program is fulfilling a need in the Jewish American milieu,” he added.

Students enrolled in JEDI + JSSJ will get training on how to confront issues related to racial, gender and disability equity in Jewish workplaces, and on how to implement systemic changes, such as using diverse and equitable hiring practices, and more immediate changes, such as stating preferred gender pronouns in workplace communications and educating colleagues about why that matters.

The certificate program, which costs $7,500, can be done at any pace that suits a working professional, according to the website. There are upcoming informational webinars and USF accepts rolling admissions.

Once a week beginning in August and continuing through the academic year, the group of up to 25 students will meet either virtually or in a hybrid classroom, depending on the seminar.

“My goal is to build an intergenerational cohort from different Jewish denominational backgrounds,” said program manager Chel Mandell, who is co-developing the program with Escobar. “Ideally, people take this back to their Jewish institutions and think about the systemic, deeper roots.”

The seminars will explore questions of Jewish identity, antisemitism, diversity and intersectionality. “How do we get out of that fixed mindset of whatever it means to me [to be Jewish] and applying that to everyone around me?” Escobar said. “There’s so much depth and breadth to this identity. How do we make room for that to flourish everywhere?” continued on page 69

The seminar instructors will include Joy Ladin, who became the first openly transgender employee at an Orthodox Jewish institution when she worked as an English professor at Yeshiva University’s Stern College. Yavilah McCoy, CEO and founder of the diversity, equity and inclusion nonprofit Dimensions Educational Consulting, will teach a seminar on anti-racism and social justice.

Other Jewish professionals on the roster include Rabbi Camille Shira Angel, rabbi in residence at USF and the former spiritual leader of Congregation Sha’ar Zahav in San Francisco, and Rabbi Julia Watts Belser, a professor of Jewish studies at Georgetown University who earned her doctorate from UC Berkeley and the Graduate Theological Union.