Dr. Victoria Harrison hopes to make the Jewish studies program at San Jose State University a vibrant minor program for students, and plans to represent a Jewish and Zionist voice on campus.
It’s something this university was missing, said history dean Dr. Jonathan Roth, who created and filled the Jewish studies coordinator position. Harrison, who was a part-time lecturer at SJSU, fills that void, Roth said.
English professor David Mesher previously ran the program in his spare time, but couldn’t dedicate enough time to expand and improve the course list. Mesher is not a Zionist and is a self-described atheist.
Roth hired Harrison, a former Kehillah High School teacher, in late August after securing funding for the program from the university. Harrison previously headed the high school’s English department for four years. Her involvement in both the Jewish community and the university made her a prime candidate for the position.
Harrison has only been at her new post for three months, but she has already worked with departments and organizations to plan new Jewish classes and activities on campus.
“It’s a ‘build as you go’ kind of job,” said Roth, who is working with Harrison to get a feel for what students want from the program.
“My real goal is to figure out where the Jewish students are and what they want to learn about,” Harrison said. She is also working on increasing enrollment in Jewish courses by coordinating with general education requirements and offering scholarships worth $500 for students pursuing a Jewish Studies minor.
In the spring semester, there are currently seven Jewish studies classes, covering a range of topics such as the history of the Jews, ancient Near East, Holocaust literature, media coverage of World War II and three levels of Modern Hebrew.
Harrison wants to create a fall Jewish film class that would be taught in conjunction with the annual Jewish film festival and fulfill a university-wide arts requirement. She envisions a collaborative effort with the Muslim Student Association to co-sponsor campus events.
Harrison will also focus on working with South Bay organizations such as Hillel of Silicon Valley and the Jewish Federation of Silicon Valley.
Courses that attract less than 15 students — Modern Hebrew, for instance, rarely attracts more than 10 students — rely on supplemental funding from private donations and community grants.
However, Roth is hopeful that the program will make a comeback and will be successful enough to hold its own. The established history and English courses on Jewish themes consistently fill up, he said.
Classes to be offered this spring — all pre-existing ones so far — cover a variety of Jewish issues.
History of the Jews is taught for the last time by history professor Aaron Goldman, but will be picked up by another professor in the future. The class focuses on Eastern European Jewry, but the curriculum will broaden to include global Jewry next year.
Ancient Near East is taught by Dr. Roth and covers the civilizations of the Hittites, Assyrians, Persians and Hebrews, up until the Roman conquest.
Dr. Harvey Gotliffe examines media coverage of the Holocaust in “World War II and the Press,” which is offered jointly with the journalism and mass communications department.
The Holocaust literature course, taught by Dr. Harrison, reviews memoirs, poetry and other works about the Holocaust by survivors and second and third generation Jews.
Three Hebrew courses, taught by Rina Katzen, are offered at the elementary, intermediate and advanced level, but are second-semester classes and require the instructor’s permission to enter.
For more information, go online, or contact Dr. Victoria Harrison at 408.924.5547 or victoria.harrison@sjsu.edu.

Adamai will perform tonight at San Jose State University at 7:30 p.m. in the student union ballroom. Tickets are $25 and $5 for SJSU students.
Adamai is a musical ensemble started in November 2000 by Shlomo Gronich, an Israeli Jew, and Lubna Salame, an Israeli Christian Arab. Gronich and Salame first met while recording “We Brought Peace Upon Us� for Peace Child Israel, a project that started at the beginning of the Second Intifiada to promote peace.
The group members use their music as a way to encourage coexistence in Israel, using Hebrew, Arabic and English lyrics. They play Jewish and Arabic folk music, along with cover songs from Eric Clapton and Bob Dylan.
The group is on tour in the United States, and has performed in northern California at the University of California-Berkeley and San Francisco State University.

Regina Waldman and her family hid inside their Tripoli home while a kind neighbor convinced an angry mob that no Jews were inside. Then, when they were finally allowed to leave the country on the condition of surrendering their possessions and money to the government, the family boarded a bus to the airport, but they weren’t safe, yet. The bus driver attempted to set it ablaze with the family inside, and they were again rescued, this time by British soldiers.
“My story is only one out of close to one million people who were expelled from nine Arab countries,â€? Waldman told Professor Dona Nichols’ Diversity in the Media class on October 11th. The “grossly distorted viewâ€? that only one group of refugees — Palestinians — exist in the Middle East is something Waldman said she is fighting to correct.
She calls the thousands like her, expelled from Arab countries, the “forgotten refugees.�
“We don’t want our heritage, which is 3,000 years old, which is rich, to be forgotten,� Waldman said.
Waldman is part of Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa, a group that dedicated itself to telling these untold tales.
Before Waldman spoke, students watched The Forgotten Refugees, a video produced by The David Project in which Mizrahim, or Eastern Jews, showed the now-deserted synagogues and Jewish quarters of cities like Tripoli and Cairo. When Muslim rule dominated the Arab lands, the video said, the Jews and Christians were called dhimmi and given an inferior status in society, denied basic rights and made to pay special taxes in order to stay alive. Houses of Jews and synagogues were restricted in height so they didn’t tower over Muslim homes or mosques, and they were often chased and taunted in the streets, according to the video.
It continued, asserting that Arab nationalism at the time fueled anti-Semitic sentiment, which was heightened by the rise of the Palestinian mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husseini.
“Kill the Jews wherever you find them,� the mufti commanded on the radio in 1944, adding “this pleases God, history, and religion.�
Libyan Muslims took heed to the mufti’s words, and in 1945, a riot in Tripoli and the countryside resulted in the deaths of 135 Jews and the desecration of nine synagogues.
Jews who had once been thriving members of society and even government members in some countries were categorized as “enemies of the state� and stripped of possessions and assets. Jews started to leave Arab lands in masses. In Baghdad in 1969, Saddam Hussein sent a chilling message to the world by publicly hanging nine Jews, in an event attended by a half-million onlookers.
Back in Tripoli, Waldman spoke of being denied basic human rights such as citizenship, the freedom to travel, and freedom to communicate with relatives in other cities. Finally, her family joined many others in leaving their homes and businesses behind to head for relative safety. She had learned “what it meant to live as an oppressed person in my own society.�
Waldman told the class that she hopes the rich history of the Jews in the Middle East isn’t learned through its “warped” presentation in the media and in textbooks. She expressed hope that the world will come to understand that nearly half of the population of Israel is Mizrahi, and that Middle Eastern and North African Jews are allowed to stay in their indigenous countries, along with other minority groups such as Christians.
“Sadly, these communities are slowly becoming extinct as a result of this intolerance,�
Waldman said.

South Bay Jewish organizations are offering students free accomodations for the High Holidays. During the Sept. 17 “To Life” Jewish street festival in Palo Alto, South Bay and Peninsula synagogues and community groups handed out fliers and advertised free Rosh Hashsanah and Yom Kippur services.
Hillel of Silicon Valley doesn’t offer any services, but will help students find holiday accommodations with Bay Area families, synagogues and community groups for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Some students will head north to Palo Alto to attend Erev Rosh Hashanah services and enjoy dinner with fellow students at local synagogues, Stanford Hillel or Chabad.
Erev Rosh Hashanah is on Sept. 22 at sundown, and the first day is on Sept. 23. Some synagogues will also host a second day Rosh Hashanah service on Sept. 24.
The Hillel at Stanford will hold an array of services. Reform/Reconstructionist Erev Rosh Hashanah services will be held in the Dinkelspiel Auditorium at 7 p.m., and morning services are at 9 a.m.
Congregation Beth David in Saratoga will open its doors for students for Erev Rosh Hashanah services at 8 p.m. and the following day, morning services begin at 8:30 a.m. Evening services on Sept. 23 will begin at 8 p.m. Second day services will be held at 8:30 a.m.
Congregation Shir Hadash will hold Erev Rosh Hashanah services at 8 p.m. and first day services will be held Saturday morning at 10 a.m. at 20 Cherry Blossom Lane in Los Gatos.
Conservative services at Stanford will be held in the Kresge Auditorium at 7 p.m., and morning services will be held at 9 a.m., and on Sunday, Sept. 24 at 9 a.m. Tashlich will be held after services.
Congregation Sinai will hold conservative services for Erev Rosh Hashanah at 7 p.m. at 1532 Willowbrae Ave. in San Jose. First Day Rosh Hashanah begins at 8 a.m. for the traditional minyan and 8:30 for the egalitarian minyan. Saturday evening service begins at 7:45 p.m. Second Day Rosh Hashanah services begin at 8 a.m. for the traditional minyan and 8:30 for the egalitarian minyan.
More traditional students can attend Orthodox services with Chabad in Sunnyvale or Palo Alto.
Chabad of Sunnyvale will hold services on Friday at 7 p.m. and on Saturday at 9:30 a.m.at Nimitz Elementary School at 545 E. Cheyenne Dr. in Sunnyvale. Sunday morning services will be held at 9:30 a.m. at Chabad of Sunnyvale, 1110 Sunnyvale-Saratoga Rd. in Sunnyvale.
Stanford Chabad services start at 7 p.m., followed by Shabbat dinner. Morning services will be held at 9:30 a.m. at the Rohr Chabad House 1289 College Avenue on the Stanford Campus.

I’ve been studying and practicing reporting for more than three years, and am currently in my senior year at San Jose State University.