New chair named to Israel studies
Saposnik
Chair, Israel Studies
By Sarah Ravani
Feb. 15, 2010 10:35 p.m.
Months after he arrived at UCLA in fall 2009, Arieh Saposnik has been named to the Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation Chair in Israel Studies a position he hopes to use to teach students about Israeli politics, culture, daily life and Jewish sovereignty.
An associate professor of the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, Saposnik received a $1 million endowment from the Gilbert Foundation. Much of the money will be used to create scholarships for research into the history, politics and society of modern Israel, Saposnik said.
Saposnik began teaching courses on Israel and Zionism this quarter, and he is also working to create courses that focus on different aspects of Israeli nationalism and diplomacy in the Middle East.
“It’s no secret that Israel is in the newspaper daily,” he said. “It’s helpful to have a broader view of what Israel actually is in its context. The way it appears in newspapers lacks in historical depth, almost exclusively focusing on conflict issues.”
Saposnik said he hopes to create a center that would translate Israeli works from Hebrew to English. The center would also bring international scholars to UCLA for one-year periods to work on individual projects centered around an Israeli theme, Saposnik said.
Although Saposnik was born in Oakland, Calif., he grew up in Haifa, Israel, and spent most of his adult life in Jerusalem. He did his doctoral work at New York University in history and Jewish studies and later taught at the University of Wisconsin.
“Moving back and forth from Israel is a big factor that played into my interests,” Saposnik said.
Saposnik specialized in Zionism, Israeli culture, and Jewish nationalism, and how people devoted themselves to searching territory for Jewish settlement and sainthood elsewhere in the world.
He began his teaching career at the Schechter Institute for Jewish Studies in Israel while he was finishing his doctoral work. In 2002, he began teaching primarily at Arizona State University and also taught for a year at the University of Florida.
In addition to furthering his studies of Israeli culture, Saposnik published, “Becoming Hebrew: The Creation of a Jewish National Culture in Ottomon Palestine,” in 2008. He is currently working on two more books about Zionist and Israeli cultures.
“He is extremely knowledgeable, and I like that he doesn’t infuse his lectures with any bias,” said Alisa Abecassis, a returning political science student who will graduate in spring. “He makes himself very accessible and really makes students feel comfortable about asking questions and opening dialogue.”
Saposnik was selected to hold the Gilbert Foundation chair after an international search of scholars was conducted by a UCLA-appointed committee, said Neil Netanel, director of the Israel Studies program and professor at the UCLA school of law.
“Saposnik is one of the leading young scholars of cultural history of Zionism in Israel,” Netanel said.
Saposnik will likely take over Netanel’s position as director of the Israeli Studies program next year and will be collaborating with other faculty members at UCLA to organize events relating to Israel, Netanel said.
Although the Israel Studies program has been active for five years, this is the first time the chair position has been funded by the Gilbert Foundation endowment.
The Gilbert Foundation supports economic development and education in Israel and Jewish organizations, as well as a variety of other programs including stem cell research and Alzheimer’s disease research.
