The Program in Israel is a full four-credit spring semester of studies which begins on January 15 and concludes on June 15.  Wesleyan University and Trinity College sponsor the Program in conjunction with the Rothberg International School of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.  All courses are taught in English and no prior Hebrew training is required.  Through its core seminars and intensive in-the-field studies the Program provides a comprehensive examination of contemporary Israeli history, culture, politics, religion, and society.

Wesleyan and Trinity faculty members supervise the Program, regularly visit it, and join an outstanding resident faculty in providing instruction.  Ms. Lisa Preiss Fried is the Director in Residence of the Program, and Professor Jeremy Zwelling of Wesleyan's Religion Department is its overall Coordinator.

In addition to rigorous classroom learning, the Program excels in providing contextual learning, field studies, and direct contact with leading Israeli and Palestinian figures. The Program is intended for all liberal arts undergraduates and since its creation in 1973 it has been especially attractive to majors in Anthropology, Sociology, History, Religion, Government, Middle East Studies, as well as students of Hebrew language and literature.

                                                        EDUCATIONAL GOALS

The Program aims to

--provide students with academic instruments for the understanding and analysis of Israeli culture and society.

-- teach methods of in-the-field, contextual learning that students can utilize upon their return to their home academic institutions.

--afford access to and contact with diverse Jewish Israeli and Arab/Palestinian Israeli communities and institutions.

--examine the role of religious practices and beliefs in expressing, shaping, and mediating political movements, social forces, and national and ethnic identities.

--explore the shifting and always emerging social identities (Jewish, Israeli, Arab, Palestinian, Christian, Muslim) as they are configured as ethnicity, nationality, and/or religion.

--provide participants with a comprehensive program of studies while also allowing for curricular flexibility so that students can pursue other academic interests through electives and supervised internships.

                                                    FEATURES OF THE PROGRAM

The Program for spring 2001-2002 includes

--a special academic and social orientation.

--two core seminars (in English) designed exclusively for students on the Program.

-- instruction by leading Israeli scholar-teachers  with expertise in combining rigorous classroom learning with intensive field studies.

--matriculation and full access to course offerings, libraries, computers and other resources and services of the Rothberg International School of the Hebrew University.

--Hebrew language studies on all levels from introductory through advanced with other Rothberg students.

--a choice of an elective course with other students at Rothberg or the opportunity for an academic internship.

--an intensive program of supervised field studies and educational touring throughout the region.

--regular opportunities to engage in learning and conversation with outstanding Israeli and Palestinian literary figures, artists, political and religious leaders, journalists, and academics.

--comfortable apartment living in choice Jerusalem neighborhoods.

CALENDAR

January 13: Departure from New York
Jan. 15-February 23: Academic Orientation and Intensive Hebrew classes
February 25-May 31: Classes (Spring Break: March 24-April 5)
Final Examinations: June 2-7
June 10-15: Concluding Learning Module

                                                          WHO SHOULD APPLY

All qualified undergraduates with sophomore standing or higher are invited to apply to this liberal arts Program.  We encourage students from all religious, cultural, ethnic, and academic backgrounds to consider this unique learning experience in a stimulating and challenging environment.  Other than the academic ideology of critical analysis, reflection, and informed judgment, the Program is not committed to any religious or political ideology.  We are especially interested in students who are seeking to broaden their understanding of complex, emotionally charged religious and political matters through thoughtful and open learning.
 

                                                   FOCUS OF THE CURRICULUM

This is a program for students interested in better understanding how political and religious cultures intersect and reciprocally shape one another in the modern world.  Israel is chosen as an ideal case study through which one can examine how religion is entangled with social forces and social structures, with economics and class, as well as with power and politics.

Each year the curriculum of the Program is significantly redesigned to provide students access to the emerging social, cultural, and religious issues in the region. The Program for this year will examine the current post-Oslo struggle between Israelis and Palestinians, locating recent events within the one hundred-year history of conflict between Jewish and Palestinian nationalisms.  The curriculum also focuses on the impact of modernization on traditional cultures, examining the rifts and accommodations between secularists and religious in both Jewish and Arab society.  Special attention will also be given to the clashes among the various religious Jewish communities in Israel, many of which consider illegitimate any Judaism other than their own.  Course work and additional programming will focus on the dilemmas of non-Jewish Israelis, particularly Arab/Palestinian citizens of Israel who are now actively protesting the ways that an ethnically identified Jewish state excludes them from full participation.

                                                                 COURSES
Students enroll in four courses, two of them core seminars that combine in-depth classroom studies with extensive field studies. In addition to the specific in-the-field components for these seminars, the Program sponsors an array of extracurricular programs in which the issues studied in these courses are addressed.  This programming includes a film series, cultural excursions in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, two extended trips to the northern and southern regions of Israel, and a weekly cultural evenings where students engage in discussions with journalists, academics, artists, writers and other prominent figures.
Courses include

1.  Jewish Nationalism: Ideology and Practice  (1 credit)
This course will begin by examining the origins of the of a Jewish state in 19th and 20th century Zionist ideology, situating this national movement of liberation as one of a variety of forms of the modernization of Judaism.  It will then review the incubation of the state and its institutions as well as its political culture during the period of the pre-state settlement of the land from 1882 until 1948.  This social-historical account will then allow students to effectively analyze post-state developments up to the current moment.   Two professors will collaborate in a course that meets once a week for classroom discussion and second time for learning in the field.  Professor Jonathan Kaplan, an expert on Zionist theory and practice, will facilitate the in-class analysis of the ways that Israeli political culture gets expressed in contemporary political institutions, movements, and parties.  Professor Paul Liptz, one of Israel’s pioneering educators in contextual learning, will supervise weekly studies in the field.  Here students will have many opportunities to see firsthand the complexity and diversity of Israeli social realities, with special attention to how religion, ethnicity and politics intersect within Israeli society.

2.  Religious Movements and Religious Communities (1 credit)
The Program offers special advantages for the study of religion by providing intense in situ learning about religious practice and belief in Jerusalem, one of the world’s oldest sacred cities.  Professor Ron Kiener of the Trinity Religion Department and Professor Jeremy Zwelling from the Department of Religion at Wesleyan participate in this seminar directed by Professor Yiska Harani, an historian of religion with much in-the-field training.  Each week students spend one afternoon engaging in conversation and learning with leaders and members of various religious communities and institutions.   Here students are able to see the ways that Judaism, Islam and Christianity are deeply embedded within the political and economic fabric of Israeli and Palestinian society.  In such studies, students come to see how religion is both shaped by and is itself shapes social realities.
 

3. Language Studies (1 credit)

All students will have an opportunity to study Hebrew at the appropriate level. Hebrew classes begin with a five-week period of intensive study (Ulpan) and then a six-hour a week course during the regular semester.

4.  Elective Course (1 credit)
Students will have three choices for this elective:
a. A Hebrew University course (taught in English) in the Rothberg School.
Qualified students on the Program are eligible for special Honors Seminars, as well as Masters level courses and any of the regular Hebrew University courses for Israelis that are taught in English.

b.  An academic internship arranged by the Program and the Hebrew University. Interns are expected to devote from six to eight hours a week to their internships.
In previous years, students who have taken an elective course instead of an internship have found many opportunities to do up to five hours of volunteer work in Israel.  The Program helps to arrange for such volunteer opportunities.

c. Journal Writing supervised by Linda Zisquit, a noted poet, translator and writer.

                                                              HOUSING

Students are provided fully furnished, extremely pleasant, and comfortable apartments in a choice Jerusalem neighborhood.  Each student has his or her own bedroom.  Such apartment living is one of the most successful ways for students to become a part of the society into which the Program is affording them an immersion.  Former Program students often report that some of the most stimulating informal learning occurs through daily shopping for food, conversation with neighbors and shopkeepers, and through the other rhythms of ordinary life in the neighborhood.

                                                   TUITION AND EXPENSES

Wesleyan and Trinity try to keep the costs of the Program equivalent to a semester at their respective campuses. The additional costs of the Program reflect the fact that room and board are based on a semester of 22 weeks in Jerusalem as opposed to a shorter one of 14 weeks in the U.S.

Trinity students will be billed for tuition, health and travel insurance, and housing by Trinity College.  Those amounts will be forwarded to Wesleyan University on behalf of the student.

Wesleyan and all other non-Wesleyan students will be billed by Wesleyan University for tuition and fees, travel insurance, and housing.

The Program pays the tuition and all fees for the Hebrew University with the exception of the application fee. The Program pays for all expenses on field trips, including all entry fees, costs of travel, accommodations, and meals during any Program-sponsored travel.

Air travel is arranged through the Hebrew University, though students can make their own travel arrangements if they choose as long as they arrive in Israel by January 15. Travel subsidies of $600 are available to all students on the Program.

The Hebrew University application fee ($55), the balance of airfare (after the $600 subsidy), food, books, phone bills, laundry and other incidentals are paid directly by students.  All students pay prior to departure $2,780 for housing, which includes rental and all bills (electricity, gas and water) with the exception of telephone bills.

For out-of-hand expenses students are encouraged to bring to Israel some cash and traveler's checks as well as an ATM card attached to an USA account.  Use of the ATM card is the easiest way to exchange money in Israel at the best rate.  Students are also encouraged to have a VISA, MasterCard, or an American Express card, especially convenient when travelling outside of Israel.

A realistic listing of expenses includes:

For all students

Airfare                                                           600 (student portion for the ticket)
Food                                                           2,000
Books and copying                                        350
Personal Expenses                                     1,050
Hebrew University Application Fee                  55
 

For Trinity College students

Tuition and fees                                  $12,940
Travel Insurance                                          13
Student contribution to housing              2,780

For Wesleyan and all other non-Wesleyan students

Tuition                                                   $13,145
Travel Insurance                                            13
Student contribution to housing                 2,780

Students are required to bring to Israel traveler’s checks for $250 as a security deposit to cover possible damage to the apartments.  The deposit is collected in January and returned to students at the end of the semester.

All students on the Program should keep either their home university group health insurance or have equivalent coverage.

Wesleyan students receiving financial aid and loans will continue to do so, although the work-study component must be adjusted in consultation with the University's Financial Aid Office.  Wesleyan students can also apply to the
University's Office of International Studies for a modest scholarship to help defray extra costs of the Program.

Policies on financial aid at other institutions vary, and non-Wesleyan students are encouraged to meet with the financial aid officer at their home universities for information.

                                          APPLICATION AND REGISTRATION

Students apply initially by completing the short application form in this brochure no later than October 10 and sending the application to Professor Jeremy Zwelling at Wesleyan.  Students are admitted to the Program on a rolling basis, so early application is encouraged.  Wesleyan students must also register at the Office of International Studies.

A second application to The Hebrew University must also be completed and sent to the New York Office of the Hebrew University by October 30.  Students are advised to complete this much more elaborate application immediately after being accepted to the Wesleyan and Trinity Program.  Students with a B grade point average or better who are accepted into the Program are assured admission to The Hebrew University once all the application material has been submitted.   To secure an application form from the Hebrew University, call (800) 404-8622 or send for an application at

   The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
   Rothberg International School
   Office of Academic Affairs
   11 east 69th Street
   New York, NT 10021

                                                TRANSCRIPTS AND CREDIT

All grades are entered onto a Wesleyan University transcript at the conclusion of the semester. These transcripts are then sent to the Registrar's office of non-Wesleyan participants.

                                                FURTHER INFORMATION

Students at Trinity College should consult with the Office of International Programs
Tel. (860) 297-2364
or Prof. Sam Kassow, Department of History, E-mail:
samuel.kassow@mail.trincoll.edu
or Prof. Ronald Kiener, Department of Religion, Tel. (860) 297-2425,
E-mail: ronald.kiener@mail.trincol.edu

Wesleyan students and students from other institutions should contact
Professor Jeremy Zwelling
Coordinator
Program in Israel
Wesleyan University Middletown, CT 06459-0029
Telephone: (860) 685-2296, Fax: (860) 685-2821
E-mail: jzwelling@wesleyan.edu
 
 
 
 
 

                                              2001-2002 Application Form
                         WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY AND TRINITY COLLEGE
                                                PROGRAM IN ISRAEL

Name:_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

University_____________________________________________________________________

Campus Box No._______________________

Campus Address___________________________________________      ________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________

E-mail Address____________________________________________________
Phone_______________________________

Summer  Address__________________________
_______________________________________________________________

Phone_______________________________
 

Date of Date _________________________________________

Place of Birth_________________________

Passport No.________________________

Social Security No.________________________

College Student Identity No.______________________

Parent's or Guardian's Name_____________________________________________________

Phone_______________________________

Address____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
If your parents live apart and you want program material sent to both parents, please provide the other name and address below:
Parent's or Guardian's Name_____________________________________________________

Phone_______________________________

Address____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Academic Preparation Pre-College Hebrew______________________________________________________________________________________

College Hebrew_____________________________________________
 
 

College Major________________________________________  Class_______

Courses in religion, Middle East, or anthropology
 
 
 
 

Have you been to Israel before and in what capacity?
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

A completed application includes:
1. Application form
2. College transcripts*
3. A letter of recommendation from a dean or professor*
4. Must be submitted by October 10, 2001
*( #2 & #3 for non-Wesleyan students only )

Please send all material to:
Professor Jeremy Zwelling,
Coordinator Program in Israeli
Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT 06459-0029
Telephone: (860) 685-2296
Fax: (860) 685-2821
E-mail: jzwelling@wesleyan.edu