One year in, Dal’s Centre for Jewish Studies looks to the future

Dalhousie University’s Centre for Jewish Studies is expanding its academic and community programs into its second year of operations.  

Led by founding director Eva Mroczek, the centre is Atlantic Canada’s only academic unit dedicated to studying Jews and Judaism. Since opening last year the centre has grown in scope, hosting events, developing new student programs and working with organizations across the province. 

“It’s really become very vibrant and bigger than expected,” Mroczek says.

The centre aims to highlight those already researching and teaching Jewish topics and to connect with other institutions. It currently offers a certificate in Jewish studies which is open to all undergraduate students.

The centre connects over 30 scholars across the Maritimes. It employs two full-time staff members and offers two student internships.

Next year, the centre is hiring four students to interview community members for an oral history project documenting Halifax’s Jewish community..  

This year, students and staff at the centre built a sukkah — a temporary wooden structure built for the Sukkot holiday — on a deck in the Marion McCain Arts and Social Sciences Building, where they hosted classes, teach-ins and other events.

Next year the centre will host the Association for Canadian Jewish Studies’ annual conference. It will be the first time the event has come to the Maritimes in 15 years.

“This is a real sign that things are happening in Halifax,” says Mroczek. “We’re not Toronto and we’re not Montreal, so we’re never going to be the biggest, but I think we’re going to be the coolest. I love it.”

Mroczek says the centre’s programming is part of a broader effort to further establish Jewish studies in Atlantic Canada. They aim to give students opportunities to engage with Jewish history and culture regardless of their own religious affiliation.

The centre also runs the course Muslims and Jews: Cultures in Co-existence at Dalhousie, which is co-taught by Mroczek and Syed Adnan Hussain, who is the chair of Saint Mary’s University’s religious department.

Hussain, the chair of religious studies at SMU, says he’s proud of the course and hopes it can be a model for future courses.

“We had to be together in space. We had to be challenging each other and create a kind of environment in which we could model centuries of Muslim and Jewish coexistence.” says Hussain.

Mrozcek says part of the centre’s focus is to emphasize the diverse range of opinions and viewpoints in Jewish and Judaism studies. She says more than half the students pursuing the certificate are not Jewish.

Rosa Storch and Mia Collett are students pursuing a certificate in Jewish studies with the centre. They both say they’re happy to see Judaism and Jewish studies being expanded on campus, and that other humanities programs have felt too Christian-oriented. 

“We were lacking the Jewish perspective on what was happening in certain times. So for us this last year going to [Jewish Studies Centre] talks added that extra bit of academia,” says Storch.

Mroczek hopes to expand the centre through scholarships, internships and even an in-artist residence. She hopes to establish a permanent office for the centre and to secure funding and staff as it grows.

“I want people of every background to come to our classes, come to our events and learn about all of these strange and wonderful and little known aspects of Jewish history and culture,” she says.