50 years of Dual Degree Program:
Chancellor Ismar Schorsch, Jewish Theological Seminary
By Joan Baum, Ph.D.

(L-R) Dr. Ismar Schorsch, Chancellor, of JTS; Dr. Shuly Schwartz, Dean, List College; Peter Awn, Dean, School of General Studies, Columbia University; Dr. Lee Bollinger, President, Columbia University

Though in some ways unique, the joint or dual-degree arrangement between Jewish Theology Seminary (JTS) and Columbia University's School of General Studies (SGS) is cited by JTS Chancellor Dr. Ismar Schorsch as a “model” for collaboration between religious and secular institutions. Now celebrating a half century of existence, this distinctive program could not be more timely, suggests Dr. Schorsch. While certainly reflective of the conservative culture of the seminary, the dual program demonstrates that religious belief and skepticism need not be antagonistic and indeed can be mutually beneficial. “It shows that you don't have to be a fanatic or fundamentalist to be religious, and it confirms that secular culture is not inhospitable to people of faith.”

Building on dramatic changes in higher education that began after World War II, a time of “explosion” for Jewish Studies on American campuses, with endowed chairs, new courses, and students newly aware of the intellectual and career advantages of area studies, JTS, until then a graduate institution, moved in 1953 to create an undergraduate program that would attract students interested in “a first-rate secular as well as Jewish education” who would pursue Jewish leadership and liberal arts—and students who would appreciate the program's unusual course offerings, such as Judeo-Arabic, a Yiddish-based language spoken by Jews on the Iberian Peninsula who produced some remarkable manuscripts and books, Dr. Schorsch points out.

In SGS, JTS found its spiritual and cultural partner, Dr. Schorsch says, a school that had been “designed for special students,” those over 21, many of whom skip college but who possess the motivation and ability to succeed. Now 50 years later, with approximately 200 students, almost all American Jews (the number is restricted by available housing in one of the three residence halls provided for undergraduates), the dual-degree program boasts an ever-rigorous commitment to its mission. Students must complete 150 credits (where most colleges require 120) with a double major (a field in Jewish Studies, history, Talmud, for example, and a field in liberal arts) and usually take four to five years to be graduated, depending on summer school. For Dr. Schorsch, a rabbi since 1962, with masters degrees from JTS and Columbia, as well as an internationally recognized scholar with a Ph.D. in history from Columbia (his mentors were Gershon Cohen and Fritz Stern) the collaboration is particularly resonant. His first mentor, however, was his father, who had been a rabbi in Breslau, the head of the first modern rabbinical seminary in Europe. So he kept “the business in the family,” he chuckles, with the only difference being that his father pursued philosophy while Dr. Schorsch gravitated to history. His dissertation, on Jewish reactions to German anti-Semitism, 1870-1914, a “negative” subject, turned him to explore further “what Jews did about it,” and the result was a prize-winning book published by Columbia University Press.